For the Term of His Natural Life
Page 68
May 17th.--Visited the wards to-day, and returned in despair. Thecondition of things is worse than I expected. It is not to be written.The newly-arrived English prisoners--and some of their historiesare most touching--are insulted by the language and demeanour of thehardened miscreants who are the refuse of Port Arthur and CockatooIsland. The vilest crimes are perpetrated as jests. These are creatureswho openly defy authority, whose language and conduct is such as wasnever before seen or heard out of Bedlam. There are men who are knownto have murdered their companions, and who boast of it. With these theEnglish farm labourer, the riotous and ignorant mechanic, the victimof perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately herded. With them are mixedChinamen from Hong Kong, the Aborigines of New Holland, West Indianblacks, Greeks, Caffres, and Malays, soldiers for desertion, idiots,madmen, pig-stealers, and pick-pockets. The dreadful place seems setapart for all that is hideous and vile in our common nature. In itsrecklessness, its insubordination, its filth, and its despair, itrealizes to my mind the popular notion of Hell.