THE PROBATION SYSTEM
Reform in system of secondary punishment--Convicts still to be sent
to the antipodes but after passing through various stages of
improvement--Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, chosen as sole future
receptacle of convicts who are to pass through probationary
treatment--Real imprisonment--Removal to Government
gangs--Conditionally at large--Ticket-of-leave--Absolute
pardon--Development of Norfolk Island--Its degeneration--Domination
of the "Ring"--Port Arthur--Convicts in excess of the resources of
the colony--Ominous prospect.
We now arrive at a new stage in the history of penal legislation. The
time had come when transportation was to be distinctly discountenanced
and its approaching abolition openly discussed. Many concurrent causes
contributed to this. Sir William Molesworth's committee, in 1837, had
spoken against transportation in the plainest terms. It was condemned
because it was unequal yet without terrors to offenders. It was
extravagantly expensive, and most corrupting to convict, colonist, and
all concerned. Last, but not least, the protest of the colonists
themselves, now for the first time formulated and put forward with all
the insistance that accompanies the display of a virtuous
determination, could not be entirely ignored. Important changes
therefore were inevitable, nor could they be much longer delayed.
In point of fact, in the matter of secondary punishments it was a return
to the position of fifty years before. At one and the same moment the
three latest devised outlets through which the graver criminals had been
disposed of were practically closed: the antipodes, by agitation and the
strident voice of public opinion; the hulks, by the faultiness of their
internal management; and the great reforming penitentiary, by the
absolute barrenness of results. If deportation beyond the seas were to
come to an end, then the convicts must remain in the mother country. But
where? Not in the hulks; that was out of the question. Sir William
Molesworth had recommended more penitentiaries, as the Nabob ordered
more curricles. But the country grudged another half million: there had
been little or no return for that spent years before on Millbank. Then
it was suggested that large prisons should be constructed on the
principle of Pentonville, for ordinary offenders, while the more
desperate characters were to be drafted to Lundy Island and other rocks
that might hold them. A third scheme was to construct convict barracks
in the neighbourhood of the dockyards, to replace the hulks; but this,
which contained in itself the germ of the present British prison system,
was far too radical a change to be tolerated at that time or for many
years to come. All action being thus impeded and beset with difficulty,
the British Government steered a middle course. It was thought that by
grafting certain important so-called improvements upon the old system it
might be retained. Doubtless, judged by later experience, the plan
appears shifty and incomplete; but in theory and as seen at the time it
was excellent. It was deduced by sound logical arguments from given
premises, and had those premises remained unchanged the system might
perhaps have existed longer without collapse. But reasoning on paper is
not the same as in real life: one small accident will upset the
profoundest calculations. The plan of "probation" which I am about to
describe was admirably devised; but it failed because the conditions of
the colonies varied, and because small obstacles, that were at the time
of conception overlooked or ignored, grew in course of time sufficiently
powerful to upset the whole scheme as originally devised.
Beyond question the task was not a light one. The Government did not
shirk its duty, but it was fully alive to the difficulties that lay in
the way. Speaking some years later, a member of that administration thus
deprecates adverse criticism. "We could hardly hope," says Earl Grey,
"to succeed at once in devising a system of secondary punishments
effectual for its purpose and free from objections, thereby solving a
problem which has for many years engaged the attention of legislators
and statesmen of most civilised countries, and has hitherto proved most
difficult for them all." But they met the question manfully, and this is
what they devised.
Transportation was to continue in force, but it was to be governed by
certain checks and safeguards which had been altogether absent before,
through all the long years that convicts had been sent out to the
antipodes. And now the whole stream was to be directed on Van Diemen's
Land alone. This Van Diemen's Land, which was thenceforth to be only a
colonial prison, had been settled some years later than Botany Bay, by a
party under Colonel Collins from the parent settlement. It had struggled
for life amid the same vicissitudes of famine and privation as New South
Wales, and similarly some years had elapsed before its home products
were sufficient for its own support. Up to the year 1821 it was solely a
penal settlement for the transportation of convicts from Sydney; but
after that date a few free settlers planted themselves in it, and
by-and-by ships landed their living cargoes at Hobart Town direct from
England, just as they did at Sydney in New South Wales. The system of
assignment was practised precisely as in the senior settlement, with
this difference, that the discipline was more perfect, and the machine
worked with greater ease. Two thirds of the whole number there were thus
in assigned service, the balance being employed as in New South Wales in
chain-gangs, at penal settlements, or on the roads.
Colonel Arthur, who was for many years governor of the colony, and who
was well known as a strenuous supporter of transportation, claimed, and
with some show of right, that the management and treatment of convicts
had been attended with a greater measure of success in Van Diemen's Land
than elsewhere. This may have had some weight with the government; for
the existence of a good system of administration was essential to the
execution of the new project: but it is probable that Van Diemen's Land
was chosen as the sole future receptacle of convicts because as yet it
had had no thought of refusing to receive them. New South Wales had
rebelled, but Van Diemen's Land was still obedient; and no time was lost
in turning its willingness to good account.
Although for years it had been more or less a penal settlement, as now
constituted it became essentially a colonial prison. Vast masses of
convicts were to be congregated in its chief towns; its out-stations
were to be overrun with convicts in various stages of emancipation; free
convicts were to be the pioneers and settlers of its back lands: in a
word, the whole colony was to be permeated, inundated, swamped with the
criminal class. That I am using no figure of speech, and to give some
idea of the amount of evil with which the small colony had now to deal,
I will mention here that in four years no less than sixteen thousand
convicts were sent out to Van Diemen's Land, and that the average
annual number of transported convicts in the colony was nearly thirty
thousand.
The new method came into force on the 20th May, 1840. It was christened
the "Probation" system, because the progressive improvement of the
convicts was intended to depend on their progress through certain
periods of "probation." Every convict was to be subjected to certain
punishments and restrictions peculiar to the stage in which he found
himself; but these rigours were to diminish, step by step, till he had
passed by many gradations from actual imprisonment to the delights of
unshackled, unconditional freedom. The plan of procedure is fully
detailed in a despatch addressed by Lord Stanley, on the 15th of
November, 1842, to Sir John Franklin, then lieutenant-governor of Van
Diemen's Land. All convicts, with certain exceptions, were to be
subjected to the new process. By it, as I have said, the convict was
compelled to pass through certain stages, five in number; and his
progress was to be regulated altogether by his good conduct in each
stage. The rules were the same for boys and females, but their stations
were, of course, different.
Stated briefly these five stages were: 1. Detention at a purely penal
station in a state of real imprisonment; 2. Removal to gangs working in
various parts of the colony for government, but still under restraint;
3. The first step towards freedom, in which the convict was granted a
pass to be at large under certain conditions, and to seek work for
himself; 4. The second step to freedom, when the convict gained his
ticket-of-leave, and was free to come and go much as he pleased; 5.
Absolute pardon.
Only the worst criminals entered the first stage, and for them (_a_)
Norfolk Island and (_b_) Tasman's Peninsula were set apart. These were
the colonial convicts, and men who had been sentenced at home to "life,"
or fifteen years for heinous offences. The term at Norfolk Island was to
be not less than two years, and not more than four; but misconduct
consigned an offender to an indefinite term within his sentence.
(_a_) First as to Norfolk Island.
Situated in semi-tropical latitudes, richly gifted by nature,
picturesque, fertile, of fairly equable climate, this small spot seemed
to contain within itself all the elements of a terrestrial paradise. It
was finely timbered, chiefly with the graceful tree known as the Norfolk
Island pine; limes, lemons, and guavas were indigenous; all manner of
fruits--oranges, grapes, figs, loquats, bananas, peaches, pomegranates,
pineapples, and melons--grew there in rare profusion. Flowers, wild or
cultivated, throve everywhere. On all sides the eye rested on long
fields of oats, or barley, or Indian maize. And yet the social condition
of the island, as compared with its external aspect, was as the inner
diseased core of an apple to its smooth and rosy skin. From the earliest
days of the Australian colonies this bountifully gifted island had been
made the sink of all the lees and dregs of mankind. Occupied in the
first instance on account of its fertile aspect, it was soon afterwards
abandoned for no sound or substantial reasons. By and by it was again
re-occupied, but then only as a penal settlement. And as such it served
New South Wales during all the years that transportation was in full
swing. It was a prison, and nothing more; convicts and their keepers
were its only population. The former at times varied in numbers: one
year there were five hundred, another seven; but their lot and condition
was always much the same. The worst wore chains. All worked, but not
enough to hurt themselves; and the well-conducted were allowed, as their
time dragged along, certain immunities from labour and a modicum of
tobacco. Occasionally the gaol-gangs, the most depraved of this
gathering of wickedness, broke loose, and attacked their guards with
brutal desperation. Numbers were always shot down then and there, and of
the balance, when overpowered, a fair proportion were forthwith hanged.
Stated broadly, life in Norfolk Island was so bitter to the convict that
many for choice sought death.
Thus was Norfolk Island constituted, and such the condition of its
residents, when the home government, in working out its new penal
scheme, resolved to increase the numbers on the island, by drafting to
it the most flagrant offenders from home. We have come by this time to
accept it as an axiom in prison affairs, that it is unwise to
concentrate in one spot the pith and essence of rascality; preferring
rather to subdivide and distribute the most dangerous elements at
several points. But the statesmen who were then legislating on penal
matters ignored this principle; they forgot that they were about to
recruit the old gangs at Norfolk Island by the very men most predisposed
to become as bad as those they found there. If the administration had
been really anxious to perpetuate the leaven of wickedness already
existent in the penal settlement, they could not have devised a plan
more likely to attain that result.
Under the new rules Norfolk Island was intended to contain--and
thereafter usually did contain--some 2,000 convicts. Of these about
two-thirds came from England direct. The rest were sentenced in the
colonies. There were three stations: the headquarters settlement or
"King's Town," Longridge, and Cascades. The first, situated on the south
side of the island and facing the sea, was the most important. Here was
the principal landing-place; but a coral reef prevented the near
approach of shipping, and the anchorage outside it was insecure. Hence
all loading and unloading was done by boats; and this, in itself a
tedious operation, was rendered more difficult and dangerous by the
heavy surf that rolled perpetually across the bar. But except those that
came on the public service no vessels visited the island. There was
another landing-place at Cascade station, on the north side of the
island, which was used when the state of the bar at King's Town rendered
it absolutely impracticable for boats. At King's Town the bulk of the
convicts were retained. Here were their barracks, in which some 800
convicts slept; here the lumber-yard, where the same numbers messed;
here too the hospitals, and the gaols for the retention of those again
about to be tried for fresh offences in the island. The barracks, built
of substantial limestone and surrounded by a high wall, stood some
eighty yards from the beach; the lumber-yard close at hand was simply a
high enclosure, two sides of which were roofed in and provided with
rough chairs and tables, the whole area within no more than half an
acre. Next to the lumber-yard, through which was the only entrance,
stood the slaughter-houses and cooks' houses, all filthy in the extreme.
There was no supervision over the issue of rations: meat was sold openly
at a penny per pound, and the convicts went to and fro from this and the
bakehouse just as they pleased. The gaol was close to the landing-place,
and right in front of its chief entrance stood the gallows--so placed
that to pass the doorway one came almost in contact with the gruesome
engine of death. The hospital accommodation for the whole settlement was
here at "King's Town," and it amounted to twenty beds, with a detached
convalescent ward, cold and cheerless; and this for a population of
2,000, in an island where epidemic dysentery of a malignant type,
especially during the summer, was by no means uncommon. In matters of
supply the settlement was equal to its own requirements, except after
seasons unusually bad. There was an abundance of water in the
neighbouring creeks, and, although this was rendered impure by flowing
past gardens and stock-yards, it was easily filtered: and there were
springs too in abundance. Stock was raised and grain grown chiefly at
Longridge, a mile and a half from headquarters. The soil was fertile but
light, and required good management.
The day's work began at the several settlements at daylight, when all
the men were roused by a bell. Any, and they were not few, who felt idle
and indisposed to work, remained behind in bed. But presently--let us
stand and look on--six or seven hundred men have collected in the
barrack yard, and are to be seen walking leisurely about, waiting for
the chaplain to say morning prayers, or if he failed to appear--and this
was not unusual--waiting for the commencement of muster. Should the
chaplain show himself, some ten or twenty prisoners go with him to the
chapel which is close at hand; the rest remain outside, and no effort is
made by the overseers to compel their attendance. The overseers are
indeed powerless then, as at other times, and exercise no authority
whatever.
Prayers over, muster follows; but the performance is as unlike the
strict parade it should be as anything it is possible to conceive.
There is no attempt at formation by classes, messes, or wards; no
silence, no order. The convicts lounge to and fro, hands in pockets, and
talking to one another while their names are read out by convict clerks
from the superintendent's office--the assistant superintendent, whose
duty this would be, being generally unable to read or write. As each
convict hears his name he answers or not, as it suits him, and then
saunters over to join the working gang for which he has been detailed.
As soon as the muster is concluded the men disperse, leaving the yard in
groups or one by one, and proceed to breakfast. Here the whole force
breakfast on hominy--or paste made from maize meal--seated under cover
or in the open areas, preserving no appearance of order, talking and
laughing just as they please among themselves. Breakfast over, some go
to work, but a great many do not. They have their bread to bake; and
this each man does for himself, spending half the day in sifting meal,
kneading dough, and loitering leisurely to the bakehouse and back. The
only men told off to regular labour are the two gangs who work the
crank-mill, and the labour there was so regulated that half usually were
idle half the day; while those at work were riotous and disorderly,
shrieking, yelling, hooting and assailing every passer-by, whether
subordinate official, magistrate, or the commandant himself, with the
vilest personal abuse. The great mass of the convicts were engaged in
quarrying or in agricultural pursuits. They were superintended by
convict sub-overseers, and not by free persons; and the work done was
naturally not large, more particularly as these convict overseers went
in daily terror of their lives. Indeed, at the time of which I am
writing--after the introduction of "probation," that is to say, and
probably before it too--there was practically little or no discipline
whatever maintained among the convicts. But for the bayonets and bullets
of the military guard by which they were more or less awed--though even
against them they rose at times, to their own disadvantage--they would
have become the real masters of the island; and if they were thus
restrained by fear from overt rebellion, they did not hesitate to
display as much sullen disobedience and active insubordination as they
dared without bringing on themselves retaliatory and coercive measures.
Flagrant outrages, like the seizure of boats which carried stores, were
not uncommon, on which occasions the men of the military escort were
usually thrown overboard. But perhaps the following occurrence, which
took place before the eyes of Mr. R. P. Stewart, a special commissioner
sent from Hobart Town, will prove most forcibly the anarchy that
prevailed. I cannot do better than use his own words.
"On the first of my morning visits to the lumber-yard," says he,
"accompanied by the superintendent of English convicts, I observed, on
our entry, a man very deliberately smoking, standing among a crowd round
the fire, inside the cook-house." An officer advanced to make the man
give up his pipe; but he was received with a look of the most ineffable
disdain, and the smoker, getting up with his hands in his pockets, moved
to a part of the mess known as the "Ring," where all the worst
characters collected. On this an order was issued to have the man taken
to gaol; but no one stepped forward to execute it, until at length the
acting chief constable, "who had been standing in the rear, advanced
with admirable coolness and determination to the spot. The whole yard
was now like a disturbed hive, and the superintendent expressed his
conviction that there would be a riot, as the men would never suffer the
culprit to be taken into custody. However, after a short time had
elapsed, the culprit was seen emerging from the dense crowd by which he
had been surrounded, with hands in pocket, attended by, rather than in
custody of, the chief constable of the island. He (the convict)
deliberately advanced to the superintendent, who was standing by my
side, and in the most insolent manner said, 'What have you ordered me to
gaol for?' The superintendent very coolly expostulated with him and
advised him to go quietly, when he deliberately struck him two blows in
the face, and using some very opprobrious expressions, fiercely rushed
upon and nearly threw him upon the ground." He was seized by a
constable, who asked if he should shoot him. But both convict and
constable were borne away to another part of the shed by a dense crowd.
The men got out their knives, and matters looked desperate, when the
acting chief constable again went forward and persuaded the offender to
give himself up. Had it not been for the presence of Mr. Stewart, an
officer accredited from His Excellency the governor of Van Diemen's
Land, a very serious disturbance might have been expected. As it was,
the most foul and abusive language was used by the convicts to all the
officials present.
This "Ring" which has just been mentioned was in itself a power on the
island. All the worst men were leagued together in it, and exercised a
species of terrorism over the rest. This was especially noticeable on
the arrival and debarkation of a batch of new convicts from England,
when every effort for their protection made by the proper authorities
proved always ineffectual. If the new hands were lodged under lock and
key, the men of the Ring contrived generally to break into the ward and
rifle them of all they possessed. If they were marched under an escort
of constables to bathe, the old stagers attacked them en route, or while
they were in the water plundered them of their clothes. Thus banded
together and utterly reckless, the more depraved exercised a power
almost absolute over their fellows, so that of these even the well
disposed were compelled to submit, in mortal terror of the deadly
threats of this vicious, tyrannical confederacy. A convict whose conduct
was good could not be protected from violence if there was even a
suspicion, with or without reason, that he had borne witness against any
member of the Ring, or was otherwise distasteful to it. Speaking in
general terms of Norfolk Island, Mr. Stewart states that he was
satisfied, from his inquiry, that a confirmed insubordinate spirit
existed among the convicts, "constantly exhibiting itself in threats of
personal violence towards subordinate officers, towards the constabulary
if they resolutely do their duty, and towards their fellow-prisoners if
they should be suspected of giving information or assistance to their
officers; which threats are rendered more serious and alarming from the
general practice of carrying knives, and from their having been
fulfilled in instances of stabbing, of assaulting by beating to a cruel,
nearly mortal extent, and of personal injury in attempted disfiguration
by biting off the nose, and in other overt acts of such a character as
to produce a most serious effect in deterring all holding subordinate
authority from the vigorous and prompt performance of their duty."
I have lingered thus long over Norfolk Island because it was the
starting-point and centre of the new scheme of penal legislation. In
actual truth the picture I have drawn is painted with colours far less
sombre than the subject deserves. I have shown how, beyond the absolute
isolation and exile, the punishment was not severe, the work light,
food plentiful, and discipline a mere farce. I have shown how the most
criminal were banded together to defy authority and exercise a species
of awful tyranny over the timid and weak; I have shown how these
malefactors who were supposed to be expiating their crimes swaggered
about, armed, and with knives in their hands, insulting their keepers
with vile abuse, lording it over their weaker fellows, using violence
whenever the spirit moved them to murder a constable, beat a comrade to
death, or make a mouthful of his nose. I have said that when matters
went too far firearms and the halter were called into play, and for a
time worked a certain cure; but from this, the relapse was worse than
the original disease. On other points I have not touched, because I do
not care to sully my pages with reference to other atrocities
perpetrated in that loathsome den--atrocities the existence of which was
not and never could be denied, and for which those who inaugurated the
system can hardly be held blameless. Regarding these, it must suffice
that I refer to them thus vaguely and pass on.
(_b_) But Norfolk Island was not the only penal settlement: that at Port
Arthur, on Tasman's Peninsula, was also included by the new scheme as
one of the first-stage depots. Being within easy reach of Hobart Town,
and not like Norfolk Island, hundreds of miles away, Port Arthur was
under the more searching supervision of the supreme authority. The
peninsula was separated from the mainland by a narrow isthmus, across
which, as I have said, sentries and fierce dogs forever kept watch and
ward, and escape thence was next to impossible. At the southern extreme
of the peninsula lay Port Arthur, having an excellent harbour, of
difficult entrance but wide within, and with plenty of deep water. To
Port Arthur were sent all convicts in the classes little less criminal
than those of Norfolk Island, their number being some 1,200, their work
chiefly what is called in the Western Hemisphere "lumbering," or
procuring wood for the sawyers and shipbuilders, who were also convicts.
Every now and then a ship of decent tonnage was launched, and much coal
and timber were also exported. There was a trade-wheel and a corn-mill,
and the settlement was to a certain extent self-supporting. The convicts
were lodged in hut barracks, in association with each other, but not in
great numbers. On the whole, the establishment at Port Arthur was as
well managed and the discipline as good as could be expected with such
insufficient prison buildings. The conduct of the convicts was generally
good, and punishments few and far between.
And now for the second stage, and the system of "Probation."
Norfolk Island and Port Arthur, the purely penal settlements, I have
described. At one or other of them, subject to such restraints as they
found there, the nature of which I have already detailed, the convict
of the worst class remained till he earned by good conduct his removal
to the second stage, or that of the probation gang. To this second stage
those convicts whose crimes were less serious had been inducted on first
arrival from England. They might therefore be supposed to avoid a
certain amount of contamination. But if they escaped the island, they
could not escape from those who had been at it; and around these
seemingly purified spirits hung something of the reeking atmosphere of
the foul den through which they had passed. In this way the contagion
spread; for wherever there were convicts there were those who had been
at Norfolk Island, and their influence, if not the most dominant, was
always more or less felt. But even without the presence of this
pernicious virus wherewith the whole mass might be permeated, the
probation gangs as constituted were bad enough to originate wickedness
of their own. Having, therefore, errors inherent, without counting the
super-added vice that came from the first-stage men, they served
admirably to perpetuate the grand mistake of the whole new scheme. Soon
after the development of this new order of things there grew to be
sixteen of these stations. Four of them were on Tasman's Peninsula, and
of these, one was for invalids, and three solely for those who had
misconducted themselves in other gangs. The men worked in coal mines, or
raised agricultural produce. Then there were five stations on the
coast, in the neighbourhood of D'Entrecasteaux Channel, placed where the
land was heavily timbered, all of which, when cleared, was to be devoted
to crops; others, also, more inland, and three at which the convicts
laboured exclusively at making and repairing roads. In principle, then,
probation stations were intended to give convicts, from the first, a
certain habit of industry and subordination, and if they had come from
the penal settlements, to continue the process. The probation stations
were abundantly furnished with religious instructors, and a minute
system of notation was introduced to record exactly the conduct of the
prisoners from day to day. It was according to his attitude while thus
in probation that the next step in the relaxation of his condition was
to be regulated. No doubt in many places the work accomplished by these
probation parties was not inconsiderable. Naturally the first aim was
that they should raise crops enough to suffice for their own support;
but after that, their labour was directed into many channels that
brought direct advantage to the colony. So far, too, as there were means
available, the administration was conducted intelligently. But the
entire number poured into Van Diemen's Land was so far in excess of the
resources of the colony that adequate lodgment could not be provided.
From this, and the difficulty of obtaining respectable supervisors in
anything like due proportion, there resulted such a state of things that
in course of time the probation gangs were not less a reproach than the
penal settlements.
The third stage was reached as soon as the convict had given, as it
were, an earnest of his improvement. The comptroller-general of convicts
was constituted the judge, and it rested with that functionary whether
the convict, after a certain period, should receive the boon of a
"probation pass." The holder of this was privileged to hire himself out:
to enter private service, and make his own terms with his future master.
But there were certain distinctions among pass-holders. Those in the
lowest class had to ask the governor's sanction to the employment they
chose; they had to be contented with half their wages, while the other
half was paid into a savings bank. Other classes could engage themselves
without sanction, and got certain larger proportions--half, two-thirds,
or in the last class, all their wages. These passes were liable to
forfeiture for misconduct, and the holder was then sent back to the
gangs. The chief distinction between these pass-holders and the men on
ticket-of-leave, to whom I shall come directly, was, that the latter
were free to roam where they pleased within certain districts, while the
pass-holders were retained at hiring depots till they had found
employment for themselves; and even when in service they were under the
direct control of a local magistrate, by whom they were inspected every
month. These hiring depots were at the chief towns--Hobart Town,
Launceston, and elsewhere. The numbers thus on pass came to be
considerable; and, later on, when work was slack and labour scarce, they
grew to be the most serious difficulty which colonial legislators were
called upon to face.
The last two stages, of ticket-of-leave and pardon, were not peculiar to
the new system, and differed in no respect to the same named condition
of existence under other rules, except that both were to be gained less
easily now, and in no case as a matter of right.
I have given now an outline of the system introduced by Lord Stanley's
despatch of 1842, and, advancing a year or two where it was necessary,
have shown how it was carried out. Extraordinary and deplorable results
followed and will be duly set forth in a future chapter.