For the Term of His Natural Life
Page 73
August 24th.--There has been but one entry in my journal since the 30thJune, that which records the advent of our new Commandant, who, as Iexpected, is Captain Maurice Frere.
So great have been the changes which have taken place that Iscarcely know how to record them. Captain Frere has realized my worstanticipations. He is brutal, vindictive, and domineering. His knowledgeof prisons and prisoners gives him an advantage over Burgess, otherwisehe much resembles that murderous animal. He has but one thought--to keepthe prisoners in subjection. So long as the island is quiet, he caresnot whether the men live or die. "I was sent down here to keep order,"said he to me, a few days after his arrival, "and by God, sir, I'll doit!"
He has done it, I must admit; but at a cost of a legacy of hatred tohimself that he may some day regret to have earned. He has organizedthree parties of police. One patrols the fields, one is on guard atstores and public buildings, and the third is employed as a detectiveforce. There are two hundred soldiers on the island. And the officerin charge, Captain McNab, has been induced by Frere to increase theirduties in many ways. The cords of discipline are suddenly drawn tight.For the disorder which prevailed when I landed, Frere has substituted asudden and excessive rigour. Any officer found giving the smallestpiece of tobacco to a prisoner is liable to removal from the island..Thetobacco which grows wild has been rooted up and destroyed lest the menshould obtain a leaf of it. The privilege of having a pannikin of hotwater when the gangs came in from field labour in the evening has beenwithdrawn. The shepherds, hut-keepers, and all other prisoners, whetherat the stations of Longridge or the Cascades (where the English convictsare stationed) are forbidden to keep a parrot or any other bird. Theplaiting of straw hats during the prisoners' leisure hours is alsoprohibited. At the settlement where the "old hands" are located railedboundaries have been erected, beyond which no prisoner must pass unlessto work. Two days ago Job Dodd, a negro, let his jacket fall over theboundary rails, crossed them to recover it, and was severely flogged.The floggings are hideously frequent. On flogging mornings I have seenthe ground where the men stood at the triangles saturated with blood, asif a bucket of blood had been spilled on it, covering a space three feetin diameter, and running out in various directions, in little streamstwo or three feet long. At the same time, let me say, with that strictjustice I force myself to mete out to those whom I dislike, that theisland is in a condition of abject submission. There is not much chanceof mutiny. The men go to their work without a murmur, and slink to theirdormitories like whipped hounds to kennel. The gaols and solitary (!)cells are crowded with prisoners, and each day sees fresh sentences forfresh crimes. It is crime here to do anything but live.
The method by which Captain Frere has brought about this repose ofdesolation is characteristic of him. He sets every man as a spy uponhis neighbour, awes the more daring into obedience by the display ofa ruffianism more outrageous than their own, and, raising the worstscoundrels in the place to office, compels them to find "cases"for punishment. Perfidy is rewarded. It has been made part of aconvict-policeman's duty to search a fellow-prisoner anywhere and atany time. This searching is often conducted in a wantonly rough anddisgusting manner; and if resistance be offered, the man resisting canbe knocked down by a blow from the searcher's bludgeon. Inquisitorialvigilance and indiscriminating harshness prevail everywhere, and thelives of hundreds of prisoners are reduced to a continual agony ofterror and self-loathing.
"It is impossible, Captain Frere," said I one day, during the initiationof this system, "to think that these villains whom you have madeconstables will do their duty."
He replied, "They must do their duty. If they are indulgent to theprisoners, they know I shall flog 'em. If they do what I tell 'em,they'll make themselves so hated that they'd have their own father up tothe triangles to save themselves being sent back to the ranks."
"You treat them then like slave-keepers of a wild beast den. They mustflog the animals to avoid being flogged themselves."
"Ay," said he, with his coarse laugh, "and having once flogged 'em,they'd do anything rather than be put in the cage, don't you see!"
It is horrible to think of this sort of logic being used by a man whohas a wife, and friends and enemies. It is the logic that the Keeperof the Tormented would use, I should think. I am sick unto death of theplace. It makes me an unbeliever in the social charities. It takes outof penal science anything it may possess of nobility or worth. It iscruel, debasing, inhuman.