Lord Stanley devoted commendable and humane attention to the management
of female prisoners. They were comprehended in his scheme of probation.
He resolved to establish a penitentiary, on a large scale, within twenty
miles of Hobart Town. The women were to be carefully classified and
separated, and trained for the duties of domestic life. The discipline
intended rather to restore than to punish: those remitted in disgrace to
the government, were not to re-enter this place of reform. Instructions
were forwarded to prepare the ground and collect the material (1843);
but the local officers were averse to the plan. They complained that the
contemplated site was remote and inconvenient, and they succeeded in
postponing and finally defeating the project.
Mrs. Bowden, a lady of majestic presence and enlightened mind, who had
acquired considerable experience in the management of the insane, was
appointed matron. Her fertility of resource, courage, and zeal, had been
greatly admired at Hanwell, where many hundreds of the unfortunate were
relieved from the greatest of human calamities. The reputation of this
lady recommended her to the confidence of government:[275] with her
husband, Dr. Bowden, the medical officer, and a chosen staff of
assistants--several only inferior to herself--she arrived in this colony
with high expectations of success. As a temporary expedient, the
_Anson_, a ship of war, was appropriated to the project. The decorum of
the ship, and the healthy and cleanly appearance of the women, were
striking to a stranger; but the early lack of employment ruined the
enterprise. The government, with its usual negligence, failed in
details, and thus failed altogether. Towards the close of the
experiment, the making of clothing for the prisoners was more
successfully attempted; but the local authorities were always hostile to
the institution. It was protected by Lord Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, but
Earl Grey consented to its extinction. The results were certainly not
encouraging. The women, discharged from the ship ignorant of the colony,
were at once thrown into every temptation of convict associations. They
had been instructed in the principles of religion, reading and
needlework, and the fruit of these labors will hereafter perhaps,
appear; but whoever expects much from mere dogmatic knowledge, will be
doomed to disappointment. On the death of her husband Mrs. Bowden
returned to England, convinced that moral insanity is far more hopeless
than the diseases of Hanwell. This lady and her friends and coadjutors,
the Misses Holdich, found the women generally submissive and docile:
they were haunted with all kinds of terrors, and had less than the
ordinary courage of women. Mere children in understanding; some, such
only in years; but their actual reformation, for the most part, only
remained an object of confident expectation, while their true tendencies
were repressed. The lady officers, who expected to reap a harvest in
this field of mercy, began by blaming the colonists for scepticism, and
after 3,000 women had passed through their hands, they, alas! ended in
becoming sceptical.
A great number of these prisoners are married. During the probation
system, the local government of the colony became far less scrupulous in
reference to their character, previous engagements, and means of living.
As a choice of evils this course was the least; but many of these
marriages were a disguise for licentiousness, and of a very temporary
character. The freed man united to a convict woman could not be detained
in the colony; indeed, he was often compelled to leave it, and his wife
was not permitted to accompany him. From this cause alone, infinite vice
and misery has arisen; and a total disregard of ties so modified by a
police regulation; which, while encouraging women to marry, subjects
them to lasting desertion.
Before the introduction of Lord Stanley's probation system, several
pious ladies established a committee of visitation. They entered the
factories and cells, and conversed with the female prisoners. Official
teachers superseded these efforts of private benevolence; and lessons,
however excellent in themselves, lost the attraction of spontaneous
sympathy and disinterested toil.
It is with deep regret these observations are recorded. It is not
intended to assume that the reform of female prisoners is impossible. A
considerable minority are probably not inferior to the lower classes of
poor and uneducated women in the cities, or more uncivilised provinces.
Re-convictions are not numerous; though, of course, many are deeply
implicated with colonial crime. The law which consigns all to one penal
fate, devotes all to one common ruin. Were it possible to escape the
contamination of a gaol, what could be hoped, where the male population
is contributed chiefly by prisons? What can be done to obviate these
evils? Such is the enquiry of the philanthropist: would to God it could
be successfully answered.'
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 275: _Report of Hanwell Institutions_, 1842.]