THE BERMUDAS.
In May I returned from Greytown and the waters of the San Juan to St.
Thomas, spending a few days at Aspinwall and Panama on my journey,
as I have before explained; and on this occasion, that of my fourth
visit to St. Thomas, I was happy enough to escape without any long
stay there. My course now lay to the Bermudas, to which islands a
steamer runs once a month from that disagreeable little depôt of
steam navigation. But as this boat is fitted to certain arrivals and
despatches, not at St. Thomas, but at Halifax, and as we reached St.
Thomas late on the night of the day on which she should have sailed,
and as my missing that vessel would have entailed on me another
month's sojourn, and that a summer month, among those islands, it may
be imagined that I was rather lively on entering the harbour;--keenly
lively to ascertain whether the 'Delta,' such is the name of the
Bermuda boat, was or was not gone on her mission.
"I see her red funnel right across the harbour," said the chief
officer, looking through infinite darkness. I disbelieved him, and
accused him of hoaxing me. "Look yourself," said he, handing me his
glass. But all the glasses in the world won't turn darkness into
light. I know not by what educational process the eyes of sailors
become like those of cats. In this instance the chief officer had
seen aright, and then, after a visit to the 'Delta,' made at 2 a.m.,
I went to bed a happy man.
We started the next day at 2 p.m., or rather I should say the same
day, and I did no more than breakfast on shore. I then left that
favoured island, I trust for the last time, an island which I believe
may be called the white man's grave with quite as much truth as any
place on the coast of Africa. We steamed out, and I stood on the
stern taking a last look at the three hills of the panorama. It is
certainly a very pretty place seen from a moderate and safe distance,
and seen as a picture. But it should be seen in that way, and in no
other.
We started, and I, at any rate, with joy. But my joy was not
of long duration, for the 'Delta' rolled hideously. Screw
boats--propellers as the Americans call them with their wonted
genteel propriety--always do roll, and have been invented with the
view of making sea passages more disagreeable than they were. Did
any one of my readers ever have a berth allotted to him just over
the screw? If so, he knows exactly the feeling of being brayed in
a mortar.
In four days we reached Bermuda, and made our way into St. George's
harbour. Looking back at my fortnight's sojourn there it seems to me
that there can be no place in the world as to which there can be less
to be said than there is about this island,--sayings at least of
the sort in which it is my nature to express itself. Its geological
formation is, I have no doubt, mysterious. It seems to be made of
soft white stone, composed mostly of little shells; so soft, indeed,
that you might cut Bermuda up with a handsaw. And people are cutting
Bermuda up with handsaws. One little island, that on which the
convicts are established, has been altogether so cut up already. When
I visited it, two fat convicts were working away slowly at the last
fragment.
But I am no geologist, and can give no opinion favourable or
otherwise as to that doctrine that these islands are the crater of an
extinct volcano; only, if so, the seas in those days must have held
a distance much more respectful than at present. Every one of course
knows that there are three hundred and sixty-five of these islands,
all lying within twenty miles in length and three in breadth. They
are surrounded too by reefs, or rocks hidden by water, which stretch
out into the sea in some places for eight or ten miles, making the
navigation very difficult; and, as it seemed to me, very perilous.
Nor am I prepared to say whether or no the Bermudas was the scene
of Ariel's tricksy doings. They were first discovered in 1522, by
Bermudez, a Spaniard; and Shakespere may have heard of them some
indistinct surmises, sufficient to enable him to speak of the "still
vexed Bermoothes." If these be the veritable scenes of Prospero's
incantations, I will at any rate say this--that there are now to be
found stronger traces of the breed of Caliban than of that of Ariel.
Strong, however, of neither; for though Caliban did not relish
working for his master more keenly than a Bermudian of the present
day, there was nevertheless about him a sort of energy which is
altogether wanting in the existing islanders.
A gentleman has lately written a book--I am told a very good
book--called "Bermuda as a Colony, a Fortress, and a Prison." This
book I am sure gives accurately all the information which research
could collect as to these islands under the headings named. I made
no research, and pretend only to state the results of cursory
observation.
As a fortress, no doubt it is very strong. I have no doubt on the
matter, seeing that I am a patriotic Englishman, and as such believe
all English fortifications to be strong. It is, however, a matter on
which the opinion of no civilian can be of weight, unless he have
deeply studied the subject, in which case he so far ceases to be a
civilian. Everything looked very clean and apple-pie; a great many
flags were flying on Sundays and the Queen's birthday; and all seemed
to be ship-shape. Of the importance to us of the position there can
be no question. If it should ever come to pass that we should be
driven to use an armed fleet in the Western waters, Bermuda will be
as serviceable to us there, as Malta is in the Mediterranean. So much
for the fortress.
As to the prison I will say a word or two just now, seeing that it is
in that light that the place was chiefly interesting to me. But first
for the colony.
Snow is not prevalent in Bermuda, at least not in the months of May
and June; but the first look of the houses in each of its two small
towns, and indeed all over the island, gives one the idea of a snow
storm. Every house is white, up from the ground to the very point of
the roof. Nothing is in so great demand as whitewash. They whitewash
their houses incessantly, and always include the roofs. This becomes
a nuisance, from the glare it occasions; and is at last painful to
the eyes. They say there that it is cleanly and cheap, and no one can
deny that cleanliness and economy are important domestic virtues.
There are two towns, situated on different islands, called St. George
and Hamilton. The former is the head-quarters of the military; the
latter of the governor. In speaking of the place as a fortress I
should have said that it is the summer head-quarters of the admiral
in command of the Halifax station. The dock-yard, which is connected
with the convict establishment, is at an island called Ireland; but
the residence of the admiral is not far from Hamilton, on that which
the Bermudians call the "Continent."
I spent a week in each of these towns, and I can hardly say which
I found the most triste. The island, or islands, as one must always
say--using the plural number--have many gifts of nature to recommend
them. They are extremely fertile. The land, with a very moderate
amount of cultivation, will give two crops of ordinary potatoes, and
one crop of sweet potatoes in the year. Most fruits will grow here,
both those of the tropics and of the more northern latitudes. Oranges
and lemons, peaches and strawberries, bananas and mulberries thrive,
or _would_ thrive equally well, if they were even slightly encouraged
to do so.
No climate in the world probably is better adapted for beetroot,
potatoes, onions, and tomatoes. The place is so circumstanced
geographically that it should be the early market-garden for New
York--as to a certain small extent it is. New York cannot get her
early potatoes--potatoes in May and June--from her own soil; but
Bermuda can give them to her in any quantity.
Arrowroot also grows here to perfection. The Bermudians claim to say
that their arrowroot is the best in the world; and I believe that
none bears a higher price. Then the land produces barley, oats, and
Indian corn; and not only produces them, but produces two, sometimes
three crops a year. Let the English farmer with his fallow field
think of that.
But with all their advantages Bermuda is very poor. Perhaps, I should
add, that on the whole, she is contented with her poverty. And if so,
why disturb such contentment?
But, nevertheless, one cannot teach oneself not to be desirous of
progress. One cannot but feel it sad to see people neglecting the
good things which are under their feet. Lemons and oranges there are
now none in Bermuda. The trees suffered a blight some year or two
since, and no effort has been made to restore them. I saw no fruit of
any description, though I am told I was there in the proper season,
and heard much of the fruit that there used to be in former days.
I saw no vegetables but potatoes and onions, and was told that as a
rule the people are satisfied with them. I did not once encounter
a piece of meat fit to be eaten, excepting when I dined on rations
supplied by the Convict establishment. The poultry was somewhat
better than the meat, but yet of a very poor description. Both bread
and butter are bad; the latter quite uneatable. English people whom
I met declared that they were unable to get anything to eat. The
people, both white and black, seemed to be only half awake. The land
is only half cultivated; and hardly half is tilled of that which
might be tilled.
The reason of this neglect, for I maintain that it is neglect, should
however be explained. Nearly all the islands are covered with small
stunted bushy cedar trees. Not cedars such as those of Lebanon,
not the cedar trees of Central America, nor those to which we
are accustomed in our gardens at home. In Bermuda they are, as I
have said, low bushy trees, much resembling stunted firs. But the
wood, when it can be found large enough, is, they say, good for
shipbuilding; and as shipbuilding has for years been a trade in these
islands, the old owners of the property do not like to clear their
land.
This was all very well as long as the land had no special virtue--as
long as a market, such as that afforded by New York, was wanting. But
now that the market has been opened there can be no doubt--indeed,
nobody does doubt--that if the land were cleared its money value
would be greatly more than it now is. Every one to whom I spoke
admitted this, and complained of the backwardness of the island in
improvements. But no one tries to remedy this now.
They had a Governor there some years ago who did much to cure this
state of things, who did show them that money was to be made by
producing potatoes and sending them out of the island. This was Sir
W. Reid, the man of storms. He seems to have had some tolerably
efficient idea of what a Governor's duty should be in such a place as
Bermuda. To be helped first at every table, and to be called "Your
Excellency," and then to receive some thousands a year for undergoing
these duties is all very well; is very nice for a military gentleman
in the decline of years. It is very well that England can so provide
for a few of her old military gentlemen. But when the military
gentlemen selected can do something else besides, it does make such a
difference! Sir W. Reid did do much else; and if there could be found
another Sir W. Reid or two to take their turns in Bermuda for six
years each, the scrubby bushes would give way, and the earth would
bring forth her increase.
The sleepiness of the people appeared to me the most prevailing
characteristic of the place. There seemed to be no energy among the
natives, no idea of going a-head, none of that principle of constant
motion which is found so strongly developed among their great
neighbours in the United States. To say that they live for eating
and drinking would be to wrong them. They want the energy for the
gratification of such vicious tastes. To live and die would seem to
be enough for them. To live and die as their fathers and mothers did
before them, in the same houses, using the same furniture, nurtured
on the same food, and enjoying the same immunity from the dangers of
excitement.
I must confess that during the short period of my sojourn there, I
myself was completely overtaken by the same sort of lassitude. I
could not walk a mile without fatigue. I was always anxious to be
supine, lying down whenever I could find a sofa; ever anxious for a
rocking-chair, and solicitous for a quick arrival of the hour of bed,
which used to be about half-past nine o'clock. Indeed this feeling
became so strong with me that I feared I was ill, and began to
speculate as to the effects and pleasures of a low fever and a
Bermuda doctor. I was comforted, however, by an assurance that
everybody was suffering in the same way. "When the south wind blows
it is always so." "The south wind must be very prevalent then," I
suggested. I was told that it was very prevalent. During the period
of my visit it was all south wind.
The weather was not hot--not hot at least to me who had just come up
from Panama, and the fiery furnace of Aspinwall. But the air was damp
and muggy and disagreeable. To me it was the most trying climate that
I had encountered. They have had yellow fever there twice within the
last eight years, and on both occasions it was very fatal. Singularly
enough on its latter coming the natives suffered much more than
strangers. This is altogether opposed to the usual habits of the
yellow fever, which is imagined to be ever cautious in sparing those
who are indigenous to the land it visits.
The working population here are almost all negroes. I should say that
this is quite as much a rule here as in any of the West Indies. Of
course there are coloured people--men and women of mixed breed; but
they are not numerous as in Jamaica; or, if so, they are so nearly
akin to the negro as not to be observed. There are, I think, none of
those all but white ladies and gentlemen whose position in life is so
distressing.
The negroes are well off; as a rule they can earn 2_s._ 6_d._ a day,
from that to 3_s_. For exceptional jobs, men cannot be had under a
dollar, or 4_s._ 2_d_. On these wages they can live well by working
three days a week, and such appears to be their habit. It seems to
me that no enfranchised negro entertains an idea of daily work. Work
to them is an exceptional circumstance, as to us may be a spell
of fifteen or sixteen hours in the same day. We do such a thing
occasionally for certain objects, and for certain objects they are
willing to work occasionally.
The population is about eleven thousand. That of the negroes and
coloured people does not much exceed that of the whites. That of the
females greatly exceeds that of the males, both among the white and
coloured people. Among the negroes I noticed this, that if not more
active than their brethren in the West Indies, they are at least
more civil and less sullen in their manner. But then again, they
are without the singular mixture of fun and vanity which makes the
Jamaica negro so amusing for a while.
These islands are certainly very pretty; or I should perhaps say that
the sea, which forms itself into bays and creeks by running in among
them, is very pretty. The water is quite clear and transparent, there
being little or no sand on those sides on which the ocean makes
its entrance; and clear water is in itself so beautiful. Then the
singular way in which the land is broken up into narrow necks,
islands, and promontories, running here and there in a capricious,
half-mysterious manner, creating a desire for amphibiosity,
necessarily creates beauty. But it is mostly the beauty of the sea,
and not of the land. The islands are flat, or at any rate there is
no considerable elevation in them. They are covered throughout with
those scrubby little trees; and, although the trees are green, and
therefore when seen from the sea give a freshness to the landscape,
they are uninteresting and monotonous on shore.
I must not forget the oleanders, which at the time of my visit were
in full flower; which, for aught I know, may be in full flower during
the whole year. They are so general through all the islands, and the
trees themselves are so covered with the large straggling, but bright
blossoms, as to give quite a character to the scenery. The Bermudas
might almost be called the oleander isles.
The government consists of a Governor, Council, and House of
Assembly; King, Lords, and Commons again. Twenty years ago I should
thoroughly have approved of this; but now I am hardly sure whether a
population of ten or twelve thousand individuals, of whom much more
than half are women, and more than half the remainder are negroes,
require so composite a constitution. Would not a strict Governor,
with due reference to Downing Street, do almost as well? But then to
make the change; that would be difficulty.
"We have them pretty well in hand," a gentleman whispered to me
who was in some shape connected with the governing powers. He was
alluding, I imagine, to the House of Assembly. Well, that is a
comfort. A good majority in the Lower House is a comfort to all
men--except the minority.
There are nine parishes, each returning four members to this House
of Assembly. But though every parish requires four members, I
observe that half a clergyman is enough for most of them. But then
the clergymen must be paid. The council here consists chiefly
of gentlemen holding government offices, or who are in some way
connected with the government; so that the Crown can probably
contrive to manage its little affairs. If I remember rightly
Gibraltar and Malta have no Lords or Commons. They are fortresses,
and as such under military rule; and so is Bermuda a fortress.
Independently of her purely military importance, her size and
population is by no means equal to that of Malta. The population of
Malta is chiefly native, and foreign to us;--and the population of
Bermuda is chiefly black.
But then Malta is a conquered colony, whereas Bermuda was "settled"
by Britons, as the word goes. That makes all the difference. That
such a little spot as Bermuda would in real fact be better without a
constitution of its own, if the change could only be managed, that
I imagine will be the opinion of most men who have thought about the
matter.
And now for the convict establishment. I received great kindness
and hospitality from the controller of it; but this, luckily, does
not prevent my speaking freely on the matter. He had only just then
newly arrived from England, had but now assumed his new duties, and
was therefore neither responsible for anything that was amiss, or
entitled to credit for what had been permanently established there
on a good footing. My own impression is that of the latter there was
very little.
In these days our penal establishments, and gaol arrangements
generally, are, certainly, matters of very vital importance to us.
In olden times, and I include the last century and some part of this
among olden times, we certainly did not manage these matters well.
Our main object then was to get rid of our ruffians; to punish them
also, certainly; but, as a chief matter, to get rid of them. The idea
of making use of them, present or future use, had hardly occurred
to us; nor had we begun to reflect whether the roguery of coming
years might not be somewhat lessened by curing the rogues--by making
them not rogues. Now-a-days, we are reflecting a good deal on this
question.
Our position now has been all altered. Circumstances have done much
to alter it; we can no longer get rid of the worst class of criminals
by sending them to Botany Bay. Botany Bay has assumed a will of its
own, and won't have them at any price. But philanthropy has done
more even than circumstances, very much more. We have the will, the
determination as well as the wish, to do well by our rogues, even if
we have not as yet found the way; and this is much. In this, as in
everything else, the way will follow the will, sooner or later.
But in the mean time we have been trying various experiments, with
more or less success; forgiving men half their terms of punishment on
good behaviour; giving them tickets of leave; crank-turning; solitary
confinement; pietising--what may be called a system of gaol sanctity,
perhaps the worst of all schemes, as being a direct advertisement
for hypocrisy; work without result, the most distressing punishment
going, one may say, next to that of no work at all; enforced
idleness, which is horrible for human nature to contemplate; work
with result, work which shall pay; good living, pound of beef, pound
of bread, pound of potatoes, ounce of tea, glass of grog, pipe of
tobacco, resulting in much fat, excellent if our prisoners were
stalled oxen to be eaten; poor living, bread and water, which has its
recommendations also, though it be so much opposed to the material
humanity of the age; going to school, so that life if possible may
be made to recommence; very good also, if life would recommence;
corporal punishment, flogging of the body, horrible to think of,
impossible to be looked at; spirit punishment, flogging of the soul,
best of all if one could get at the soul so as to do it effectually.
All these schemes are being tried; and as I believe that they are
tried with an honest intent to arrive at that which is best, so also
do I believe that we shall in time achieve that which is, if not
heavenly best, at any rate terrestrially good;--shall at least get
rid certainly of all that is hellishly bad. At present, however, we
are still groping somewhat uncertainly. Let us try for a moment to
see what the Bermuda groping has done.
I do not in the least doubt that the intention here also has been
good; the intention, that is, of those who have been responsible for
the management of the establishment. But I do not think that the
results have been happy.
At Bermuda there are in round numbers fifteen hundred convicts. As
this establishment is one of penal servitude, of course it is to be
presumed that those sent there are either hardened thieves, whose
lives have been used to crime, or those who have committed heavy
offences under the impulse of strong temptation. In dealing with such
men I think we have three things to do. Firstly, to rid ourselves of
them from amongst us, as we do of other nuisances. This we should do
by hanging them; this we did do when we sent them to Botany Bay; this
we certainly do when we send them to Bermuda. But this, I would say,
is the lightest of the three duties. The second is with reference
to the men themselves; to divest them, if by any means it may be
possible, of their roguery; to divest them even of a little of their
roguery, if so much as that can be done; to teach them that trite
lesson, of honesty being the best policy,--so hard for men to learn
when honesty has been, as it were, for many years past out of their
sight, and even beyond their understanding. This is very important,
but even this is not the most important. The third and most important
object is the punishment of these men; their punishment, sharp, hard
to bear, heavy to body and mind, disagreeable in all ways, to be
avoided on account of its odiousness by all prudent men; their
condign punishment, so that the world at large may know and see, and
clearly acknowledge,--even the uneducated world,--that honesty is the
best policy.
That the first object is achieved, I have said. It is achieved as
regards those fifteen hundred, and, as far as I know, at a moderate
cost. Useful work for such men is to be found at Bermuda. We have
dockyards there, and fortifications which cannot be made too strong
and weather-tight. At such a place works may be done by convict
labour which could not be done otherwise. Whether the labour be
economically used is another question; but at any rate the fifteen
hundred rogues are disposed of, well out of the way of our pockets
and shop windows.
As to the second object, that of divesting these rogues of their
roguery, the best way of doing that is the question as to which there
is at the present moment so much doubt. As to what may be the best
way I do not presume to give an opinion; but I do presume to doubt
whether the best way has as yet been found at Bermuda. The proofs at
any rate were not there. Shortly before my arrival a prisoner had
been killed in a row. After that an attempt had been made to murder
a warder. And during my stay there one prisoner was deliberately
murdered by two others after a faction fight between a lot of Irish
and English, in which the warders were for some minutes quite
unable to interfere. Twenty-four men were carried to the hospital
dangerously wounded, as to the life of some of whom the doctor almost
despaired. This occurred on a day intervening between two visits
which I made to the establishment. Within a month of the same time
three men had escaped, of whom two only were retaken; one had
got clear away, probably to America. This tells little for the
discipline, and very little for the moral training of the men.
There is no wall round the prison. I must explain that the convicts
are kept on two islands, those called Boaz and Ireland. At Boaz is
the parent establishment, at which live the controller, chaplains,
doctors, and head officers. But here is the lesser number of
prisoners, about six hundred. They live in ordinary prisons. The
other nine hundred are kept in two hulks, old men-of-war moored by
the breakwaters, at the dockyard establishment in Ireland. It was
in one of these that the murder was committed. The labour of these
nine hundred men is devoted to the dockyard works. There is a bridge
between the two islands over which runs a public road, and from this
road there are ways equally public, as far as the eye goes, to all
parts of the prison. A man has only to say that he is going to the
chaplain's house, and he may pass all through the prison,--with
spirits in his pocket if it so please him. That the prisoners should
not be about without warders is no doubt a prison rule; but where
everything is done by the prisoners, from the building of stores to
the picking of weeds and lighting of lamps, how can any moderate
number of warders see everything, even if they were inclined? There
is nothing to prevent spirits being smuggled in after dark through
the prison windows. And the men do get rum, and drunkenness is a
common offence. Prisoners may work outside prison walls; but I
remember no other prison that is not within walls--that looks from
open windows on to open roads, as is here the case.
"And who shaves them?" I happened to ask one of the officers. "Oh,
every man has his own razor; and they have knives too, though it is
not allowed." So these gentlemen who are always ready for faction
fights, whose minds are as constantly engaged on the family question
of Irish _versus_ English, which means Protestant against Catholic,
as were those of Father Tom Maguire and Mr. Pope, are as well armed
for their encounters as were those reverend gentlemen.
The two murderers will I presume be tried, and if found guilty
probably hanged; but the usual punishment for outbreaks of this kind
seems to be, or to have been, flogging. A man would get some seventy
lashes; the Governor of the island would go down and see it done; and
then the lacerated wretch would be locked up in idleness till his
back would again admit of his bearing a shirt. "But they'll venture
their skin," said the officer; "they don't mind that till it comes."
"But do they mind being locked up alone?" I asked. He admitted this,
but said that they had only six--I think six--cells, of which two or
three were occupied by madmen; they had no other place for lunatics.
Solitary confinement is what these men do mind, what they do fear;
but here there is not the power of inflicting that punishment.
What a piece of work for a man to step down upon;--the amendment of
the discipline of such a prison as this! Think what the feeling
among them will be when knives and razors are again taken from them,
when their grog is first stopped, their liberty first controlled.
They sleep together, a hundred or more within talking distance, in
hammocks slung at arm's length from each other, so that one may
excite ten, and ten fifty. Is it fair to put warders among such men,
so well able to act, so ill able to control their actions?
"It is a sore task," said the controller who had fallen down new upon
this bit of work; "it is dreadful to have to add misery to those who
are already miserable." It is a very sore task; but at the moment I
hardly sympathized with his humanity.
So much for the Bermuda practice of divesting these rogues of their
roguery. And now a word as to the third question; the one question
most important, as I regard it, of their punishment. Are these men
so punished as to deter others by the fear of similar treatment? I
presume it may be taken for granted that the treatment, such as it
is, does become known and the nature of it understood among those at
home who are, or might be, on the path towards it.
Among the lower classes, from which these convicts do doubtless
mostly come, the goods of life are chiefly reckoned as being food,
clothing, warm shelter, and hours of idleness. It may seem harsh to
say so thus plainly; but will any philanthropical lover of these
lower classes deny the fact? I regard myself as a philanthropical
lover of those classes, and as such I assert the fact; nay, I might
go further and say that it is almost the same of some other classes.
That many have knowledge of other good things, wife-love and
children-love--heart-goods, if I may so call them; knowledge of
mind-goods, and soul-goods also, I do not deny. That such knowledge
is greatly on the increase I verily believe; but with most among us
back and belly, or rather belly and back, are still supreme. On belly
and back must punishment fall, when sinners such as these are to be
punished.
But with us--very often I fear elsewhere, but certainly at that
establishment of which we are now speaking--there is no such
punishment at all. In scale of dietary among subjects of our Queen,
I should say that honest Irish labourers stand the lowest; they eat
meat twice a year, potatoes and milk for six months, potatoes without
milk for six, and fish occasionally if near the shore. Then come
honest English labourers; they generally have cheese, sometimes
bacon. Next above them we may probably rank the inhabitants of our
workhouses; they have fresh meat perhaps three times a week. Whom
shall we name next? Without being anxious to include every shade of
English mankind, we may say soldiers, and above them sailors; then,
perhaps, ordinary mechanics. There must be many another ascending
step before we come to the Bermuda convict, but it would be long
to name them; but now let us see what the Bermuda convict eats and
drinks every day.
He has a pound of meat; he has good meat too, lucky dog, while
those wretched Bermudians are tugging out their teeth against tough
carcasses! He has a pound and three ounces of bread; the amount
may be of questionable advantage, as he cannot eat it all; but he
probably sells it for drink. He has a pound of fresh vegetables; he
has tea and sugar; he has a glass of grog--exactly the same amount
that a sailor has; and he has an allowance of tobacco-money, with
permission to smoke at midday and evening, as he sits at his table or
takes his noontide pleasant saunter. So much for belly.
Then as to back, under which I include a man's sinews. The convict
begins the day by going to chapel at a quarter-past seven: his
prayers do not take him long, for the chaplain on the occasion of my
visit read small bits out of the Prayer-book here and there, without
any reference to church rule or convict-establishment reason. At
half-past seven he goes to his work, if it does not happen to rain,
in which case he sits till it ceases. He then works till five, with
an hour and a half interval for his dinner, grog, and tobacco. He
then has the evening for his supper and amusements. He thus works for
eight hours, barring the rain, whereas in England a day labourer's
average is about ten. As to the comparative hardness of their labour
there will of course be no doubt. The man who must work for his wages
will not get any wages unless he works hard. The convict will at any
rate get his wages, and of course spares his sinews.
As to clothes, they have, and should have exactly what is best suited
to health. Shoes when worn out are replaced. The straw hat is always
decent, and just what one would wish to wear oneself in that climate.
The jacket and trousers have the word "Boaz" printed over them in
rather ugly type; but one would get used to that. The flannel shirts,
&c., are all that could be desired.
Their beds are hammocks like those of sailors, only not subject to
be swung about by the winds, and not hung quite so closely as those
of some sailors. Did any of my readers ever see the beds of an Irish
cotters establishment in county Cork? Ah! or of some English cotter's
establishments in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire?
The hospital arrangements and attendance are excellent as regards
the men's comfort; though the ill-arrangement of the buildings is
conspicuous, and must be conspicuous to all who see them.
And then these men, when they take their departure, have the wages of
their labour given to them,--so much as they have not spent either
licitly in tobacco, or illicitly in extra grog. They will take home
with them sixteen pounds, eighteen pounds, or twenty pounds. Such is
convict life in Bermuda,--unless a man chance to get murdered in a
faction fight.
As to many of the comforts above enumerated, it will of course be
seen that they are right. The clothes, the hospital arrangements,
and sanitary provision are, and should be, better in a prison than
they can, unfortunately, be at present among the poor who are not
prisoners. But still they must be reckoned among the advantages which
convicted crime enjoy.
It seems to be a cruel task, that of lessening the comforts of men
who are, at any rate, in truth not to be envied--are to be pitied
rather, with such deep, deep pity! But the thing to look to, the one
great object, is to diminish the number of those who must be sent to
such places. Will such back and belly arrangements as those I have
described deter men from sin by the fear of its consequences?
Why should not those felons--for such they all are, I presume, till
the term of their punishment be over--why should they sleep after
five? why should their diet be more than strong health requires? why
should their hours of work be light? Why that drinking of spirits and
smoking of tobacco among men whose term of life in that prison should
be a term of suffering? Why those long twelve hours of bed and rest,
spent in each other's company, with noise, and singing, and jollity?
Let them eat together, work together, walk together if you will; but
surely at night they should be separated! Faction fights cannot take
place unless the fighters have time and opportunity to arrange them.
I cannot but think that there should be great changes in this
establishment, and that gradually the punishment, which undoubtedly
is intended, should be made to fall on the prisoners. "Look at the
prisoners' rations!" the soldiers say in Bermuda when they complain
of their own; and who can answer them?
I cannot understand why the island governor should have authority
in the prison. He from his profession can know little or nothing
about prisons, and even for his own work,--or no work, is generally
selected either from personal favour or from military motives,
whereas the prison governor is selected, probably with much care, for
his specialities in that line. And it must be as easy and as quick
for the prison governor to correspond with the Home Office as for
the island governor to correspond with the Colonial Office. There
has undoubtedly been mischief done by the antagonism of different
authorities. It would seem reasonable that all such establishments
should be exclusively under the Home Office.