Prisoners Their Own Warders

ONS ABOUT

have said, in some little detail to the history of the settlements of Bencoolen, Penang, and Malacc

h they were transported from India about the year 1787, much about the same time

by its introduction they would make of Bencoolen a thriving settlement; but as it turned out they were greatly disappointed, for both pepper and camphor, which were the only commodities there for trade, greatly declined; and commerce, which was all-important to the East India Company, almost entirely disappeared after its establishment for some few years. It was a miserable place from all accounts, and was described by Captain James Lowe, in 1836, "as an expensive port, and of no use to any nation that might possess it," and he only echoed what was previously said of it by William Dampier, who had once been there in the hum

ant settlement of Singapore. He took up the appointment at Bencoolen on the 20th March, 1818,

ice has been done to his memory in the recent account of his life by Demetrius Boulger, and by an impressive tribute t

though we gather from old letters that they were employed principally upon road-making, and on clearing estates which, "owing to their owners

ten from Bencoolen in 1818; which we give bodily from his Life, written by his widow in 1830. It is a paper which gives evidence of the soundness of his views upon

as fol

ation. Since 1787 a number of persons have been transported to this pl

ce of sufficient discrimination and encouragement not having been shown in favour of those most inclined to amendment, and perhaps to the want of a discretionary power in the chief authority to remit a portion of the punishment and disgrace which is at present th

nce may have been, the crimes and characters of so numerous a body must necessarily be very unequal, and it is desirable that some discrimination should be exerted in favour of those who show the disposition to redeem their character. I would suggest the propriety of the chief authority being vested with a discretionary power of freeing such men as conduct themselves well from the obli

e country; they form connections in the place, and find so many inducements

ith so much[6] tardiness and dissatisfaction that they are of little or no value; but he no sooner marries and forms a small settlement

em and their children; but no one to be admitted to this class until he has been resident in Bencoolen three years. The second class to be employed

cipating deserving convicts from further obligation of services on con

an adequate motive of exertion is sufficiently obvious, and here it would have the double tendency of diminishing the bad characters and of incre

y members of society. So grateful were they for the change, that when they were sent round to Penang on the transfer of Bencoolen to the Dutch in 1825, as we have stated, they entreated to be placed on the same footing a

further letter to Government in regard to these convict

radually increasing. They are natives of Bengal and Madras; that is to say, of those presidencies. The arrangement has been brought about gradually, but the system now appears complete, and, as far as we have yet gon

f the regulations to which Sir Stamford Raffles refers, but we have no do

that, greatly to their disappointment, they missed the freedom they had possessed at Bencoolen, for they were sent to work in gangs upon the roads, and in levelling ground near the town of Penang. At first they were tried at jungle

rrors both to the European from our shores to Australia, and to the na

ion, the total loss to him of all that was worth living for. He could never be received in intercourse again with his own people, and so strong are the caste ideas of ceremonial uncleanness that it would be defilement to his friends and relations even to offer to him sustenance of any kind, and he was in point of fact excommunicated and avoided. Happily this dread of caste defilement has now, by railway communication over the country and equalization of classes under our rule, greatly diminished, but it is still, as Balfour says, "a prominent feature in every-day Hindu life." Sir Stamford Raffles' views as to the treatment of those transported convicts have in the ma

. Man, Colonel MacPherson, and Major McNair. The ticket-of-leave system was in full and effective operation, and very important public works have been constructed by means of convict labour, chief amongst them St. Andrew's Cathedral, a palace for the Governor, and most of the roads. The ticket-of-leave convicts were said to be a well-conducted, industrious lot of men, who very rarely committed fresh crimes, who all earned an honest livelihood, and were regarded as respec

ugh it will bear repetition here, was in full operation all over India from very early times, but at the beginning of this century it engaged the serious attention of the Indian Government; and it was found to be an hereditary pursuit of certain families who worked in gangs-the Hindus to satisfy their goddess Bhawani, and other sects the goddess Devi-and they committed a countless number of murders all over the country. Thugs were a bold, resolute set of men, and as a rule divided themselves into groups consisting o

and in the vernacular of the district where the crime was committed. This was very properly put a stop to shortly after the custom became known. We have seen some of those in our jail who, by good conduct, have risen to a ticket of leave, u

angles on the wrist of a fellow-convict employed at the General Hospital, one night tried the handkerchief upon him, but missed his mark, and got away without being detected. Later on, the convict authorities examined the warrants of all the men at the hospital, and this gave

ng-robbers, of whom it is recorded that, when one of their gang was suddenly arrested, the

tno

y, swollen a