I shall now give the statement of a man who was selected at random
from amongst a number such as himself, congregated in one of the
most respectable lodging-houses. He proved, on examination, to be a
returned convict, and one who had gone through the severest bodily and
mental agony. He had lived in the bush, and been tried for his life.
He was an elderly-looking man, whose hair was just turning grey, and
in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, except that his
cheek-bones were unusually high, and that his face presented that
collected and composed expression which is common to men exposed to
habitual watchfulness from constant danger. He gave me the following
statement. His dress was bad, but differed in nothing from that of a
long-distressed mechanic. He said:--
“I am now 43 (he looked much older), and had respectable parents, and
a respectable education. I am a native of London. When I was young I
was fond of a roving life, but cared nothing about drink. I liked to
see ‘life,’ as it was called, and was fond of the company of women.
Money was no object in those days; it was like picking up dirt in
the streets. I ran away from home. My parents were very kind to me;
indeed, I think I was used too well, I was petted so, when I was
between 12 and 13. I got acquainted with some boys at Bartlemy-fair a
little before that, and saw them spending lots of money and throwing
at cock-shies, and such-like; and one of them said, ‘Why don’t you
come out like us?’ So afterwards I ran away and joined them. I was not
kept shorter of money than other boys like me, but I couldn’t settle.
I couldn’t fix my mind to any regular business but a waterman’s, and
my friends wouldn’t hear of that. There was nine boys of us among the
lot that I joined, but we didn’t all work together. All of ’em came
to be sent to Van Dieman’s Land as transports except one, and he was
sent to Sydney. While we were in London it was a merry life, with
change of scene, for we travelled about. We were successful in nearly
all our plans for several months. I worked in Fleet Street, and could
make 3_l._ a-week at handkerchiefs alone, sometimes falling across a
pocket-book. The best handkerchiefs then brought 4_s._ in Field-lane.
Our chief enjoyments were at the ‘Free and Easy,’ where all the thieves
and young women went, and sang and danced. I had a young woman for a
partner then; she went out to Van Dieman’s Land. She went on the lift
in London (shopping and stealing from the counter). She was clever at
it. I carried on in this way for about 15 months, when I was grabbed
for an attempt on a gentleman’s pocket by St. Paul’s Cathedral, on
a grand charity procession day. I had two months in the Old Horse
(Bridewell). I never thought of my parents at this time--I wouldn’t.
I was two years and a half at this same trade. One week was very like
another,--successes and escapes, and free-and-easies, and games of
all sorts, made up the life. At the end of the two years and a half I
got into the way of forged Bank-of-England notes. A man I knew in the
course of business, said, ‘I would cut that game of ‘smatter-hauling,’
(stealing handkerchiefs), and do a little soft,’ (pass bad notes). So
I did, and was very successful at first. I had a mate. He afterwards
went out to Sydney, too, for 14 years. I went stylishly dressed as a
gentleman, with a watch in my pocket, to pass my notes. I passed a
good many in drapers’ shops, also at tailors’ shops. I never tried
jewellers, they’re reckoned too good judges. The notes were all
finnies, (5_l._ notes), and a good imitation. I made more money at
this game, but lived as before, and had my partner still. I was fond
of her; she was a nice girl, and I never found that she wronged me in
any way. I thought at four months’ end of retiring into the country
with gambling-tables, as the risk was becoming considerable. They hung
them for it in them days, but that never daunted me the least in life.
I saw Cashman hung for that gunsmith’s shop on Snow-hill, and I saw
Fauntleroy hung, and a good many others, but it gave me no uneasiness
and no fear. The gallows had no terror for people in my way of life.
I started into the country with another man and his wife--his lawful
wife--for I had a few words with my own young woman, or I shouldn’t
have left her behind me, or, indeed, have started at all. We carried
gambling on in different parts of the country for six months. We made
most at the E. O. tables,--not those played with a ball, they weren’t
in vogue then, but throwing dice for prizes marked on a table. The
highest prize was ten guineas, but the dice were so made that no prize
could be thrown; the numbers were not regular as in good dice, and
they were loaded as well. If anybody asked to see them, we had good
dice ready to show. All sorts played with us. London men and all were
taken in. We made most at the races. My mate and his wife told me that
at the last Newmarket meeting we attended, 65_l._ was made, but they
rowed in the same boat. I know they got a deal more. The 65_l._ was
shared in three equal portions, but I had to maintain the horse and
cart out of my own share. We used to go out into the roads (highway
robbery) between races, and if we met an ‘old bloke’ (man) we ‘propped
him’ (knocked him down), and robbed him. We did good stakes that way,
and were never found out. We lived as well as any gentleman in the
land. Our E. O. table was in a tilted cart. I stayed with this man and
his wife two months. She was good-looking, so as to attract people. I
thought they didn’t use me altogether right, so at Braintree I gave
another man in the same way of business 25_l._ for his kit--horse,
harness, tilted-cart, and table. I gave him two good 5_l._ notes
and three bad ones, for I worked that way still, not throwing much
of a chance away. I came to London for a hawker’s stock, braces and
such-like, to sell on the road, just to take the down off (remove
suspicion). In the meantime, the man that I bought the horse, &c., of,
had been nailed passing a bad note, and he stated who he got it from,
and I was traced. He was in a terrible rage to find himself done,
particularly as he used to do the same to other people himself. He got
acquitted for that there note after he had me ‘pinched’ (arrested).
I got ‘fullied’ (fully committed). I was tried at the ‘Start’ (Old
Bailey), and pleaded guilty to the minor offence, (that of utterance,
not knowing the note to be forged), or I should have been hanged for
it then. It was a favourable sessions when I was tried. Thirty-six
were cast for death, and only one was ‘topped’ (hanged), the very
one that expected to be ‘turned up’ (acquitted) for highway robbery.
I was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation. I was ten weeks in the
Bellerophon hulk at Sheerness, and was then taken to Hobart Town, Van
Dieman’s Land, in the Sir Godfrey Webster. At Hobart Town sixty of
us were picked out to go to Launceston. There (at Launceston) we lay
for four days in an old church, guarded by constables; and then the
settlers came there from all parts, and picked their men out. I got a
very bad master. He put me to harvest work that I had never even seen
done before, and I had the care of pigs as wild as wild boars. After
that I was sent to Launceston with two letters from my master to the
superintendent, and the other servants thought I had luck to get away
from Red Barks to Launceston, which was 16 miles off. I then worked in
a Government potato-field; in the Government charcoal-works for about
11 months; and then was in the Marine department, going by water from
Launceston to George Town, taking Government officers down in gigs,
provisions in boats, and such-like. There was a crew of six (convicts)
in the gigs, and four in the watering-boats. All the time I consider I
was very hardly treated. I hadn’t clothes half the time, being allowed
only two slop-suits in a year, and no bed to lie on when we had to stay
out all night with the boats by the river Tamar. With 12 years’ service
at this my time was up, but I had incurred several punishments before
it was up. The first was 25 lashes, because a bag of flour had been
burst, and I picked up a capfull. The flogging is dreadfully severe,
a soldier’s is nothing to it. I once had 50 lashes, for taking a hat
in a joke when I was tipsy; and a soldier had 300 the same morning. I
was flogged as a convict, and he as a soldier; and when we were both
at the same hospital after the flogging, and saw each other’s backs,
the other convicts said to me, ‘D---- it, you’ve got it this time;’
and the soldier said, when he saw my back, ‘You’ve got it twice as bad
I have.’ ‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘ten times as bad--he’s been flogged;
but you, in comparison, have only had a child’s whipping.’ The cats
the convicts were then flogged with were each six feet long, made out
of the log-line of a ship of 500 tons burden; nine over-end knots were
in each tail, and nine tails whipped at each end with wax-end. With
this we had half-minute lashes; a quick lashing would have been certain
death. One convict who had 75 lashes was taken from the triangles to
the watch-house in Launceston, and was asked if he would have some
tea,--he was found to be dead. The military surgeon kept on saying in
this case, ‘Go on, do your duty.’ I was mustered there, as was every
hand belonging to the Government, and saw it, and heard the doctor.
When I was first flogged, there was inquiry among my fellow-convicts,
as to ‘How did D---- (meaning me) stand it--did he sing?’ The answer
was, ‘He was a pebble;’ that is, I never once said, ‘Oh!’ or gave out
any expression of the pain I suffered. I took my flogging like a stone.
If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with
a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have
given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight. That
first flogging made me ripe. I said to myself, ‘I can take it like a
bullock.’ I could have taken the flogger’s life at the time, I felt
such revenge. Flogging always gives that feeling; I know it does, from
what I’ve heard others say who had been flogged like myself. In all
I had 875 lashes at my different punishments. I used to boast of it
at last. I would say, ‘I don’t care, I can take it till they see my
backbone.’ After a flogging, I’ve rubbed my back against a wall, just
to show my bravery like, and squeezed the congealed blood out of it.
Once I would not let them dress my back after a flogging, and I had 25
additional for that. At last I bolted to Hobart Town, 120 miles off.
There I was taken before Mr. H----, the magistrate, himself a convict
formerly, I believe from the Irish Rebellion; but he was a good man
to a prisoner. He ordered me 50, and sent me back to Launceston. At
Launceston I was ‘fullied’ by a bench of magistrates, and had 100.
Seven years before my time was up I took to the bush. I could stand it
no longer, of course not. In the bush I met men with whom, if I had
been seen associating, I should have been hanged on any slight charge,
such as Brittan was and his pals.”
[Illustration: VAGRANTS IN THE CASUAL WARD OF WORKHOUSE.
[_From a Sketch._]]
I am not at liberty to continue this man’s statement at present: it
would be a breach of the trust reposed in me. Suffice it, he was in
after days tried for his life. Altogether it was a most extraordinary
statement; and, from confirmations I received, was altogether truthful.
He declared that he was so sick of the life he was now leading, that he
would, as a probation, work on any kind of land anywhere for nothing,
just to get out of it. He pronounced the lodging-houses the grand
encouragements and concealments of crime, though he might be speaking
against himself, he said, as he had always hidden safely there during
the hottest search. A policeman once walked through the ward in search
of him, and he was in bed. He knew the policeman well, and was as well
known to the officer, but he was not recognised. He attributed his
escape to the thick, bad atmosphere of the place giving his features a
different look, and to his having shaved off his whiskers, and pulled
his nightcap over his head. The officer, too, seemed half-sick, he said.
It ought also to be added, that this man stated that the severity of
the Government in this penal colony was so extreme, that men thought
little of giving others a knock on the head with an axe, to get hanged
out of the way. Under the discipline of Captain Macconochie, however,
who introduced better order with a kindlier system, there wasn’t a man
but what would have laid down his life for him.