The full catalogue writings of Robert Garrett are not, at the moment, available online. He had a number of articles, names "Prison Portraits," published in a Christchurch journal titled "Society," which has not yet been digitised. I don't know whether copies have survived.
One of his early "Portraits" caused a stir when it came out, especially in Dunedin. It was that of the triple murderer and psychopath Robert Butler, whose murders were known as the "Cumberland street Tragedy." Garrett and Butler were execrated for a foul slur on the memory of his innocent victims, especially Catherine Dewar. But the motive advanced in the "Portrait" is the only thing that makes sense in a murder case in which part of Butler's defence was that, as a professional thief, it made no sense to risk his life by the murder of a butcher and his wife — what could they possess which would be worth it?
His later material, accounts of life in the Australian prison colonies, was challenged at the time of publication and I don't know enough about his subject to form an opinion on how truthful he was in his recollections. It definitely makes for fascinating reading.
THE CONVICT BUTLER.
A series of articles headed "Prison Portraits'' is being published in Christchurch 'Society.' The last subject is Robert Butler, who is termed "The Cumberland street Tragedian." From the article we make the following extracts, having omitted some which insinuate charges against various people: —
Society is sometimes as much moved by the acts of a great villain as by those of a great hero, so my sitter, though he has not acquired fame, has, at least, achieved that infamy which ensures interest with the same certainty that it forfeits esteem. He is the amiable Robert Butler, the Nero of the Cumberland street tragedy, Dunedin. Let no one quarrel with me for focussing him. The effect will not be to inspire emulation, but execration. However inartistic my work may be, it shall be at least faithful to life.
Before attempting to portray the inner, I will describe the outer man. Robert Butler is now about forty years of age, he is 5ft 6in or 8in in height, slightly built, and, as one might suppose, from sheer force of intellect, getting bald; this, for two reasons, I take to be the cause of all, or nearly all, baldness. 1st, all, or nearly all baldies are, or look to be, highly intellectual. 2nd, the more shock headed — myself included are as noted for apparent, or real want of intellect. Robert Butler's face is thin and cadaverous, his nose rather aquiline, eyes grey and restless, mouth rather large and sensuous; the tout ensemble, of the features at once inspires with caution if not distrust; his walk is as ungraceful as bandy legs and splay feet can make it, something like the waddle of a lame Muscovy duck.
The operator's acquaintance with Mr B, began some six years since, and, as the policeman would say, "Yer Worshup, I've 'ad my eye on 'im ever since." Two of these six years we were close, if not intimate acquaintances, staying in the same hotel, eating at the same table, and belonging to the same Christian Young Men's Association and Mutual Improvement Society. There, don't laugh, for is it not an aphorism that truth is often stranger than fiction? This length of companionship will, I think, be allowed sufficient for an observant man to have got a pretty accurate gauge of his moral and mental calibre; and supplementing this, I have from others, who knew him earlier and elsewhere, slight sketches of his private life, and to this again I have his own previous confessions, in giving which, I trust, I shall be guilty of no breach of faith.
What his parentage may have been I never learned either from himself or others, but that he received a good education in the Catholic Grammar School, Melbourne, is certain. From boyhood he was one of the fastest of that fast class — the peculiar production of the present age — larrikins. In this he earned a reputation surpassed by none, and through this he gradually, perhaps almost naturally, developed into a professional chevalier d'industrie, and took his degrees in the great penal college of Victoria. After several terms there, hard study or work and the warm climate made a change of air necessary, and he migrated to the more temperate climate of New Zealand, bringing with him a rather large quantity of valuable jewellery, the proceeds of his last raid.
Arriving in Dunedin, he made the acquaintance of a young woman, to whom, for safety, he entrusted the jewellery while he plied his calling, with strict injunctions not to sell or wear it. That grand old patriarch Job declares that "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward"; and if this was the experience of Job and his class in days when there were no detective police and no penal prisons, how much more so is it in these days, and to men of that class into which R. B. has with so much honor worked himself ?
After many ventures — some profitable, some profitless — R.B. and misfortune met. He robbed and tried to fire the Bishop's residence, firing being his own peculiar practice. As in the last great Cumberland street affair, the fire would not burn; and some of those troublesome fellows yclept detectives, pushing their impertinent inquiries, part of the loot from the Bishop's house was discovered, where B. had left it for a consideration with a relative called "my uncle." This occasioned an interview with wigged officialism, which resulted in a four years' residence with host Caldwell, Provincial Hotel, Stuart street, Dunedin, where we first became acquainted.
Here was formed that Mutual Improvement Society of which I have spoken, and of which each in turn rose to the dignity of chairman. And here it was that for two years and a-half I had ample means of testing Mr B.'s powers as a speaker, and, with others, formed no very exalted idea of them.
It is said that ingratitude is a crime of so dark a hue that no man ever confessed himself guilty of it. To this I will add an assertion of my own — the teaching of much experience: There are men whose gratitude, like their honesty, is a thing of mere policy — practised only when convenient or profitable. Where it is neither, they have no gratitude. Robert Butler is one of these men. Self, self is his only creed. He would sacrifice and he would trample under foot for either profit or revenge. Frequently I have heard him declare what others would hide — "that to gain the good-will of the gaoler and the gaol chaplain he would sacrifice all, as they only could serve him"; and this he conclusively proved ere he and I parted, but the story belongs to something else rather than this.
During my enforced companionship with Robert Butler I and all near him experienced in many ways the irascibility and treachery of his disposition. Truly he is as void of remorse as of principle — as wanton as malignant; no reproof could shame, and no obligation bind him. Vanity and envy (seldom found together) both dwelt in him. The first blinded him to his own faults or another's merits. How then, it might be asked, could he envy what he could not see or appreciate? My answer is: It was not the mental or physical superiority of another he envied, for these he could never discern, nor admit if he did discern. It was the material good that others enjoyed and he did not; here envy gnawed his very vitals. What he himself did not enjoy, he hated and would destroy if opportunity afforded. Whilst in Dunedin gaol his virulent nature was ever quarrelling with someone, fellow-lodger or official; hence he was always what is termed "in hot water"; but the cowardly craven with which he always begged for release from punishment was equalled only by the folly and recklessness with which he incurred it. At last he earned his discharge by an act as infamous as the Cumberland street murder was atrocious.
Discharged from gaol, he naturally inquired for, and found the person he had left the Melbourne jewellery with. She had become the wife of the man Dewar, and on being asked to return the jewellery, though admitting to still having possession of the property, she refused to restore it. Fatal admission! The loss of the lady, Butler says, he could have borne, but not so the loot. Repulsed, reviled, sneered at, and threatened, it was more than his greedy, unscrupulous, and malignant nature could endure; he determined to re-possess himself of the jewellery at any cost, and for this purpose, took lodgings near his victims' residence.
On the very night of the murder he says he made another demand for the things, but was again baffled, but while in the house he noted well the best means of entrance and the place where the axe was kept. While waiting to perpetrate the deed he was seen by Detective Bain, as told on trial. The meeting on Butler's part was unwelcome, and he tried to avoid it, but could not. This meeting, as it might have done, did not deter him from his purpose; but he had to wait, he said, until the streets got clear. He saw the husband return, and it but added another victim at the cost of another blow of the axe. What odds?he argued with himself. There may be his week's, perhaps a fortnight's wages, and I could not earn a couple of pounds as quietly or easily by honest labor. So he reasoned, and so the husband fell.
The knife by which he opened the window, and which could not be identified, he says he says he got from some hotel back-yard. After entering he proceeded at once to kill the sleepers to prevent their waking, striking the husband first and next the wife, who, he says, was awakened by the blow. How he killed the child he is silent about.
The occupants disposed of, he searched and found the jewellery rolled up in a pair of stockings; then, according to his regular custom, he thought to remove the evidence of the murders by firing the house. He cut open the bed and set it on fire. Calculating as he was, he thought not that, though calcined and charred, the cloven skulls would speak. But the fire did not burn, it only smouldered; and he states his feelings as he saw this from where he was watching. The fire not destroying the house determined him to leave Dunedin. He did so, and at the road-side hotel learned that the telegraph had flashed the news of the murders through the land.
He abandoned the clothes he had worn, fearing they might be blood-stained; but he regretted that he had done so, and to account for the blood marks of the murder he purposely lacerated his hands with the lawyer brambles. Certain of arrest, he hid the jewellery at a well-marked spot, not half-an-hour before capture, he states that from the moment of his arrest he had a conviction they would not be able to fasten the crime upon him, so well had he laid his plan and done his work. This feeling increased to a certainty as soon as he arrived in Dunedin, for there he was rendered that aid without which he later on felt he should have been lost.
A legal gentleman whom a friend engaged for him declined to openly defend him, yet advised him how to shape his own defence, and above everything, against giving the prosecution the right of reply, as his acquittal or conviction depended on this.
In regard to what I have indicated of B.'s powers of speaking, it may be thought I have much under-rated them, and it may be that I have. But I only spoke of those of his efforts to which I have been a listener. In these I repeat there was nothing in his speaking above mediocrity, and no one who heard him would argue that the talents of Butler were anything great. When we come to his defence on his trial for the Cumberland street tragedy, there are several things to be considered all tending to make clear what it is, but which were wanting in those other efforts I have alluded to.
First, there was the legal aid he received, which comes out quite plain in the points of that defence second, there was the time he had to prepare it; last, and greatest of all, there was the importance to Butler of the occasion. It was a matter of life or death; his existence hung upon it, and so he concentrated all his energies upon a grand effort; he had the whole bearings of the case mapped out and stamped upon his memory; he had written and read it over so often that he knew it just as he knew his pater-notra or the creeds. I used to see him walking about and mouthing it morning, noon, and night.
Soon after his removal to Lyttelton he got a pamphlet of his trial, which, after first reading himself, underlining and filling the margin with notes of admiration, he put into the hands of his few admirers, and at last it came into mine. In it I at once recognised all the peculiarities of R. B. There was the same pantomime and posturing, the same tautology, the same drumming upon and lengthening out ideas, and most of them very foolish. He seemed to be, as he ever was, talking against time. There was the same redundancy of similes and aphorisms, not always to the point. After hearing the whole of the evidence he saw at once, as did others, that there was nothing to link the crime upon him; even the circumstantial evidence — and it was mostly circumstantial — was very weak and inconclusive. Had he been convicted on that evidence it would have been by the force of public opinion and prejudice, rather than by the evidence itself.
Butler's one great aim was to impugn the whole evidence. All the witnesses were liars and perjurers, conspiring to hang an innocent man. But had not most of the witnesses, and the police in particular, been more scrupulous than they usually are, the circumstantial evidence might have been far more damning than it was. His cry of the treachery of springing fresh evidence upon him was puling in the extreme and something worse, for he who could murder sleeping people had little room to complain of surprise or treachery in others; but, with such as he, it is the peculiar policy to accuse others of their own crimes.
To show that this Dunedin defence was an unusual effort and one not all his own way, I have but to ask Why did he not display — if not equal talent and ability — at least some little power in the other cases for which he has been sentenced? He was unable, or he certainly would have done so. But, on previous occasions, he was like a burst bladder, empty. There was nothing left in him, and so he could bring forth nothing. But let me say a little more about his intellectual stamina and abilities. The police have said that, through them, he sought employment as a writer on the Press. They procured him such employment, which, when obtained, he declined. Why so? In reply, I have his own words, "that he felt himself quite unequal to the task;" he dared not, with all his vanity and assumption, even essay it. He begged they would get him pick and shovel work instead. They got for him this kind of labor, but again he declined. This time he excused himself on the ground of physical incapacity. In the first case it was sheer inability, in the second it was sheer laziness or distaste, for he had just done three years in the Government quarries.
Those who recollect him at our society's table will no doubt remember that he (Butler) failed in every intellectual essay he attempted, and in one he shamefully and shamelessly utterly collapsed after three attempts, and in consequence retired angry, yet not abashed. Butler has shown the possession of the three great requisite qualifications of Danton — "Audacity, audacity, and audacity." His own saying was: "If you have not some requisite quality, then ape it; few will distinguish between the real and the sham." Plenty of cheek he thought may sometimes be of more use in the world than modest ability. Judging his abilities fairly, he possesses a tolerable knowledge of music, but has a wretched voice, and is no instrumental performer. He is tolerably read in history, and has a good memory; is well up in grammar and common arithmetic. In religion he has no God but himself. Self-willed and arrogant, he cannot bear contradiction. Vain and affected beyond most men, he gives himself airs which render him at once conspicuous and ridiculous. He fidgets and jerks as though he had St. Vitus's dance, and, standing or sitting, he is ever posing and attitudinising. In fact, as I have said of another, he is vanity personified, and it is equally true of both.
Hargraves, in his "Blunders of Vice and Folly," says "all criminals are fools;" and someone else says "speech is silvern, but silence is golden." It is a species of gold Butler sadly lacks, for those ferocious threats of his made to the police he has made to many others — myself included — many times. He not only speaks, but preaches to others, he styles himself the apostle or schoolmaster of the period, and his doctrine to others is what he himself practises. It is "Kill, kill, and spare not." It is a divine command, he says, intended not for Joshua alone, but for men of all time. He teaches that his class ought to copy the examples of our rulers, and not be one whit more conscientious. Their orders in war run thus: "Kill, burn, and sink, and what you cannot carry away destroy!" and why, Butler asks, should we not do the same? Is it not our duty to do so? Half measures are no good, but dangerous to those who adopt them; and he argues that he is at present suffering for not having killed the Stampers and others he robbed, and vows should he ever have the opportunity again he will never again fail in carrying out this policy. Others, listening, admire and promise imitation. Should they do so, society will have something to fear.
Since his removal to Lyttelton, the same amiable disposition displays itself — bludgeoning some and threatening others — he is striving to terrorise all. Twice he has made efforts to get poison into the gaol, but the authorities have taken the proper means to frustrate his design. Ironing, solitary confinement, separate treatment, gentle friendly reproof and advice, all fail to influence him for good; he is, in fact, as impervious to good influences as is a duck's back to water. Yet Butler is leader of the gaol Hallelujah Band, or precentor of the choir, which, by the way, includes the honorable Mr Charters and others, all admirers of the "Philosophic Chicken," as R. B. has dubbed himself.
If the career of R. B. has been so brilliant in the past, what may society not expect of him in the future, when — trebly indurated by his present sentence — he returns to its midst? And what may not society anticipate from the converts he is continually sending out to practise his doctrines? The only hope of the public is that this amiable and illustrious individual may in some way on an early day finish his career in the gaol, if not by disease, then at the hands of one of those public functionaries he has so lately evaded. -Evening Star, 25/9/1882.
After his death in 1885, more "Portraits" were published.
INTRODUCTORY.
[It is necessary that I should, in the first instance, inform the public as to how I became possessed of these papers: — Six or seven years ago a number of prisoners were engaged making some alterations at the Industrial School, Caversham, near Dunedin, at which place I was station-master. The time was winter; and for New Zealand the weather was very cold and wet, accompanied by frequent falls of snow. The prisoners would, on their return, reach the station ten minutes or so before the due time of arrival of the train which conveyed them back to Dunedin. Upon one of these occasions I observed a prisoner — a tall old man— apparently suffering much from the cold and wet. I suggested that he should be allowed to take a seat and place his feet to the hot stove. The officer in charge readily assented, and the old man thanked us both for the kindness shown. This was repeated during the few days the inclement weather lasted. The old man, I was informed, was Garrett, the notorious bushranger.
One morning subsequently, Garrett, when leaving the train from Dunedin, stepped into my office and hurriedly passed over a bundle of papers, saying, "Keep these private till I am dead," then quickly fell in among the gang and marched on to his work.
I have kept these papers — I have often perused them, and judging from what I have seen myself, in one of the largest prisons under the British Crown, believe thorn to be substantially true. This conviction is further strengthened by comparing notes with Marcus Clarke's clever work "His Natural Life," dealing with the same question and detailing the horrors of the penal system more fully, and covering the same period of time that Garrett writes about. The harrowing pictures drawn by Marcus Clarke are fully supported by the evidence produced at the official inquiry ordered by the Government in England, as well as the notes of the medical and clerical gentlemen in charge of the settlement. I have, however, outside of this testimony, satisfied myself that the pictures of human suffering under John Price are, if anything, under-drawn, both by Garrett and Marcus Clarke. A man named or known by the name of Bill Roberts, recently died in the Dunedin Hospital. This man lived in Caversham for several years, and was chiefly employed by the City Council of Dunedin in labouring work. Bill Roberts was a fellow convict of Garrett's — came out in the same vessel with him, went through the Norfolk Island and Macquarrie horrors, and was present when Price was killed at the quarries in Melbourne, and from him I have heard stories unfit for print.
Many who read these papers will say, "what a pity that one who could write so well, in the face of such difficulties and under such trying circumstances, should be lost to society. What an ornament, under more favourable circumstances, he would have become!" Nothing of the kind. Garrett was by nature a thief — was, in fact, a born thief, and all the cultivation in the world could no more have made a radical change in his mental organisation than it could, without injury or pain, have added a foot to his height or diminished his stature by that amount.
From the brief survey I had of his head I have no hesitation in asserting that Nature, in her clearest accents, proclaimed him a dangerous man, but not a cruel one. His massive intellect, aided by a full and active organ of secretiveness, enabled him to assume any character he chose. This combination, aided by a most powerful frame, was well calculated to inspire respect among his class, and that he should be looked up to as a leader need surprise no one. When, therefore, I use the term "a dangerous man," I do not do so in a blood-thirsty sense. I wish to be thoroughly understood on this point: it is the depth of cunning with which an active and powerful intellect directs and guides the lower organs of the mind to accomplish its object.
Garrett was a man who could never resist the temptation to acquire. His life must have been one series of broken resolves. In prison there was no temptation to steal, and acquisitiveness was passive; on the other hand, when mixing with the world, this faculty became aroused by every passing object which caused it excitement and over-riding all others, it held sway. For such inordinate desire modern science has invented the appellation of "Kleptomania" for the more respectable class, though it is better known among the lower orders by the well-worn term, "stealing." — J. F.] -Otago Witness, 13/3/1886.
RECOLLECTIONS
OF
CONVICT LIFE
IN
NORFOLK ISLAND,
WITH
PRISON PORTRAITS,
Being Sketches of Prisoners and Prison Governors, Including
THE EARLY LIFE, CAREER, AND
DEATH OF JOHN PRICE,
BILLY MORGAN,
BURGESS, &c.
BY HENRY GARRETT (Alias Rouse),
THE BUSHRANGER.
To be commenced in the OTAGO WITNESS at an early date, due notice of which will be given.
-Otago Witness, 19/12/1885.
INTRODUCTORY.
[It is necessary that I should, in the first instance, inform the public as to how I became possessed of these papers: — Six or seven years ago a number of prisoners were engaged making some alterations at the Industrial School, Caversham, near Dunedin, at which place I was station-master. The time was winter; and for New Zealand the weather was very cold and wet, accompanied by frequent falls of snow. The prisoners would, on their return, reach the station ten minutes or so before the due time of arrival of the train which conveyed them back to Dunedin. Upon one of these occasions I observed a prisoner — a tall old man— apparently suffering much from the cold and wet. I suggested that he should be allowed to take a seat and place his feet to the hot stove. The officer in charge readily assented, and the old man thanked us both for the kindness shown. This was repeated during the few days the inclement weather lasted. The old man, I was informed, was Garrett, the notorious bushranger.
One morning subsequently, Garrett, when leaving the train from Dunedin, stepped into my office and hurriedly passed over a bundle of papers, saying, "Keep these private till I am dead," then quickly fell in among the gang and marched on to his work.
I have kept these papers — I have often perused them, and judging from what I have seen myself, in one of the largest prisons under the British Crown, believe thorn to be substantially true. This conviction is further strengthened by comparing notes with Marcus Clarke's clever work "His Natural Life," dealing with the same question and detailing the horrors of the penal system more fully, and covering the same period of time that Garrett writes about. The harrowing pictures drawn by Marcus Clarke are fully supported by the evidence produced at the official inquiry ordered by the Government in England, as well as the notes of the medical and clerical gentlemen in charge of the settlement. I have, however, outside of this testimony, satisfied myself that the pictures of human suffering under John Price are, if anything, under-drawn, both by Garrett and Marcus Clarke. A man named or known by the name of Bill Roberts, recently died in the Dunedin Hospital. This man lived in Caversham for several years, and was chiefly employed by the City Council of Dunedin in labouring work. Bill Roberts was a fellow convict of Garrett's — came out in the same vessel with him, went through the Norfolk Island and Macquarrie horrors, and was present when Price was killed at the quarries in Melbourne, and from him I have heard stories unfit for print.
Many who read these papers will say, "what a pity that one who could write so well, in the face of such difficulties and under such trying circumstances, should be lost to society. What an ornament, under more favourable circumstances, he would have become!" Nothing of the kind. Garrett was by nature a thief — was, in fact, a born thief, and all the cultivation in the world could no more have made a radical change in his mental organisation than it could, without injury or pain, have added a foot to his height or diminished his stature by that amount.
From the brief survey I had of his head I have no hesitation in asserting that Nature, in her clearest accents, proclaimed him a dangerous man, but not a cruel one. His massive intellect, aided by a full and active organ of secretiveness, enabled him to assume any character he chose. This combination, aided by a most powerful frame, was well calculated to inspire respect among his class, and that he should be looked up to as a leader need surprise no one. When, therefore, I use the term "a dangerous man," I do not do so in a blood-thirsty sense. I wish to be thoroughly understood on this point: it is the depth of cunning with which an active and powerful intellect directs and guides the lower organs of the mind to accomplish its object.
Garrett was a man who could never resist the temptation to acquire. His life must have been one series of broken resolves. In prison there was no temptation to steal, and acquisitiveness was passive; on the other hand, when mixing with the world, this faculty became aroused by every passing object which caused it excitement and over-riding all others, it held sway. For such inordinate desire modern science has invented the appellation of "Kleptomania" for the more respectable class, though it is better known among the lower orders by the well-worn term, "stealing." — J. F.] -Otago Witness, 13/3/1886.
Chapter V. A MISSION.
Returning from the Island to Hobart Town, and despairing of inducing the Colonial Government to institute an inquiry into the acts of its own specially appointed agent, who was merely carrying out the instructions he received, the Bishop resolved to start for England, determined to use his own influence and bring all the Catholic interest to bear in exposing the horrors he had witnessed in Norfolk Island, with a view to having them investigated and remedied.
Having landed in the Old Country, the Bishop knew it was useless to expect that the Home Government would take any action against the Colonial authorities. He therefore addressed himself to the public by lecturing in the large cities on what he saw in Norfolk Island, exhibited the irons worn by the prisoners, the instruments of torture used, naming the trivial acts for which the men were punished with the most cruel severity; and he called on the people, in the name of humanity, to insist that their representatives should bring the matter under the notice of Parliament.
The Bishop's lectures sent a thrill of horror throughout the land. On listening to the revolting details strong men wept like children, women shrieked, sobbed, and fainted; and if the mere recital of these atrocities by one who had witnessed them was so affecting, what must have been the sufferings of those who had to endure them?
The free and unofficial Press echoed the Bishop's words in every village in the country, and cried aloud for a public inquiry. It was brought before Parliament and an investigation demanded, and the Government was forced to yield to the pressure brought to bear upon it. At last a Parliamentary Committee was appointed, before which the Bishop was invited to give evidence.
The details of that evidence, in common with that of all such inquiries, were never made public. They would have been too damaging to officialism. But the Bishop's lectures had made plain what officialism would have shielded.
The result of the inquiry could not well have been less than it was. An order for the immediate breaking up of the penal establishment on the Island and the dismissal of the notorious commandant.,,,
To kill the tyrant was impossible. He was too well guarded to be attacked by men who had no firearms. There was nothing but to endure or to end one's existence by murder or suicide. True, other methods of escape were attempted, and in two or three instances were successfully accomplished, but most of them were wretched failures. I allude to escape by means of boats, or the seizure of vessels visiting the Island. One such attempt is recorded in Chambers' Journal, and is entitled "A Tale of Norfolk Island." Mr Clarke records another successful effort in "His Natural Life," but other escapes in boats were made, one of which I saw; the others occurred previous to my time.
The escape of which I was an eye-witness is worth relating. I knew the principal actor in the affair — in fact, was as intimately acquainted with him as with any prisoner I have ever known, our acquaintance and friendship extending over a period of six years. The history of his life, if written up to the last time I saw him — in 1853 — would be a most eventful one. He was then in the prime of life, and nearly my own age. Should any old Norfolk Islander ever peruse what I have written, he will at once recognise the man.
B. J. was in every respect — manner, appearance, skill, and daring — the beau ideal of an English sailor. He might, without any makeup, have impersonated the bold smuggler, Will Watch. Tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, clean-limbed, and active as a cat, bronzed oval features, black curly hair, and full bushy whiskers, he was a model of a man, and possessed a spirit fitting such a physique. He was an excellent navigator, having formerly been the mate of an East Indiaman.
The Island boats were manned by a prisoner crew of eight men, steered by a free coxswain, and guarded by four soldiers armed with loaded muskets. B. was soon selected for duty in one of the boats, and made prisoner coxswain, pulling stroke oar, being therefore nearest the soldiers. He was much valued and trusted by the free coxswain, with whom his word was sufficient to cause the removal of any of the crew.
From the moment B. became a boatman the idea and determination of escaping became a fixed thing in his mind. He was, however, very cautious, and soon took the measure of his men, having those shifted whom he could not trust and others substituted who were more reliable, yet he never told anyone what his intentions were, and at last got the right men.
On the arrival of the Government vessel the boats were got ready to board her, the ship being anchored about a mile from shore. He had often listened to the men talking over plans for escape, but had never allowed them to believe that he would join in. But now, while launching the boat in the absence of the free coxswain, he said:
"You are for ever talking about liberty. Who among you dare strike for it?"
"When?" asked the men eagerly.
"Now — this very trip, as we put off. Who is game?"
"I! and I! and I!" was the unanimous response.
"Good. Watch me, and the moment you see me make a spring in with your oars and do the same — and death to him who fails!"
"We'll not fail."
The boat was launched, and the men were waiting for the free coxswain with the oars, and the soldier guard who always had charge of the oars when not in use. At last they come, and the crew — eight bronzed, able fellows, stripped to their waists — take their seats, and ply their oars to a song tune. The breeze was blowing fresh, sending the spray in showers over the boat. The soldiers began to feel squeamish, and hugged their muskets between their legs to keep the spray from their polished locks.
When about half-way between the shore and the ship B. looked over his shoulder as if he were glancing in the direction of the distant vessel, but it was into the eyes of his comrades he looked. Their appearance inspired him. With a spring like a panther he threw himself upon the soldiers, tumbled the two nearest to him over the other two, and then seized the coxswain and dragged him from his seat. He is well seconded by his mates, who sprang forward and secured the soldiers ore they could rise. They were tied hands and feet with cords brought for the purpose. The whole affair did not occupy three minutes. The captives begged earnestly for the mercy they would not them selves have shown. They were told to lie still and they would not be harmed. So sudden had been the seizure that it was not noticed from either the shore or on board the vessel until the direction of the boat was seen to be changed.
As soon as all was safe the men applied themselves to the oars and pulled dead to windward, striking up the boat-song from Scott's "Lady of the Lake."
Pull, brave hearts! Freedom, though distant, beckons you on from the lowering horizon, while behind you Slavery, scowling, shakes her knotted scourge. Pull, boys, pull! A thousand pair of eyes are upon you — a thousand hearts praying for your success.
A gun is fired from the ship to alarm the authorities on shore. The anchor is shipped and the sails set with the utmost dispatch, but the vessel is obliged to make a long stretch of sea before she can bear down for the boat. Another and a lighter boat is manned by unwilling rowers, who are not to be lured with false promises of pardon if successful.
The soldiers of the garrison hasten to a jutting point near which the fugitives must pass, and fire volley after volley harmlessly at them. The Nordenfeldt, the Snider, and the Martini-Henry were hidden in the womb of the future, and the bullets from old "Brown Bess" fell short and wide, one or two rattling alongside the boat.
The point is passed at last, and the wide Pacific is before them. The vessel is lost sight of behind the small neighbouring island of St. Philip, which she must round. Evening sets in dark and boisterous, and the pursuing boat fearing a similar fate — namely, seizure by its crew — gave up the chase. Besides, the fugitives were as well armed and better manned than they were.
Out into the dark night and rising sea until the Island became invisible — without food, water, or clothes. Then the boat was put about and headed back for the Island. Did their hearts quail at their task? Not so. The five captives were to be landed, and food and water procured. One of the men, to frighten the soldiers, jocosely proposed to kill and eat them, as lit had a weakness for "lobsters."
They struck the land about midnight., and concealed the boat under the overhanging boughs of the trees in a small inlet. They then took the shirts off the soldiers' backs and filled them with lemons, which were to be obtained in abundance, broke off their irons with stones, and laid plans for the future.
From their place of concealment high up on the mountain side, they saw next morning the vessel round the island to windward and the boats pulling about. They also saw several persons scanning the horizon from the central summit of Mount Pitt, a signal-station, and signalling to the vessel and boats below. Their captives, who were bound and guarded, were told that their lives depended on their silence. As night fell the vessel was shut out from view, and the boats returned to the station.
Six of the men visited a shepherd's hut, took the, little food he had and an empty thirtygallon water-barrel, and a live sheep. The poor follow begged hard to be allowed to accompany thorn, but his request was refused. He then asked them to tie him up, so that he might not be accused of having assisted them to leave the Island. They obliged him in this respect, and told him where the soldiers and coxswain would be found.
They gained the boat, and ere midnight, with only a few lemons, a three days' ration for a single convict, a live sheep, and about ten gallons of water — without compass, sail, or chart — they pulled boldly out into darkness and the great Pacific.
I have read of Bligh's boat performance after the mutiny of the Bounty, when with compass, sextant, sails, and a well-provisioned craft he ran before a trade wind to Timor. But the risk he had to run was nothing in comparison with the difficulties these eight convicts had to encounter. If they succeeded there was no public recognition of their deed — no sympathy, no reward, no approval. At the termination of Bligh's performance he was overwhelmed with congratulations; but in the case of the others, in the event of their escaping from death by drowning or starvation, vindictiveness in the guise of justice threatened them at every turn of their after life. Bligh's voyage was with him a matter of necessity, and one he would not have willingly undertaken; theirs was from choice. Bligh feared nothing more from his enemies than being set adrift. In his instance there was no pursuit by armed foes who thirsted for his blood, and who were determined, if possible, to effect his capture. His boat was fitted out by his enemies, and well supplied with necessaries; the others, manacled and unarmed, had to seize their frail craft from an armed force, and were pursued and fired upon. The trade winds filled Bligh's sails, and wafted him pleasantly and without effort over a gentle sea; while every foot progressed by the others was by the strain of muscle at their oars. In the whole naval annals of England there is not a more daring exploit recorded than this escape from Norfolk Island.
Steering by his knowledge of the stars B. made for New Caledonia, and after enduring incredible sufferings and privations they arrived there. They were seized by the natives and most of them killed, and the boat was broken up for the iron. After a captivity extending over several months B. got off in a canoe to an American whaler, and reached England, where he was recognised, arrested, and sent back to Norfolk Island for life. B. was the man who gave me the friendly warning that put me on my guard and enabled me to frustrate the plot laid for me by the watchman, and thus saved me from a flogging. He was made one of the prisoner constables, but was never allowed to go near the boats again. Many boats were built in the bush by means of which some of the mon hoped to make their escape, but none succeeded in doing so.
Having been removed to Tasmania along with tho other prisoners on the breaking up of the penal settlement on the Island, B. planned the seizure of the Bishop's yacht, of which an old prisoner sailor had charge. By a mere accident he was prevented from joining her, and she sailed without him. Some time afterwards he and two other men seized a whale-boat, crossed Bass Straits, and landed in Port, Phillip.
The last time I saw him was in Collins street, Melbourne. He shook hands with me, and told me that he and some others were going Home in the Madagascar. A few years ago my present custodian showed me a paragraph in a newspaper, which stated that a dying man had confessed to having been one of several men who had seized, robbed, and scuttled the Madagascar.
"What do you think?" asked the astute gentleman, eyeing me keenly. "Is there likely to be any truth in it?"
"It is to be hoped so," said I.
"Why?" he asked sharply.
"Why! Is it not better someone should profit, by the gold she carried than it should go to the bottom of the sea?"
"But they must have killed all on board,'' he said.
"And what difference did it make .to those who were killed," I asked, "whether the gold was sent to the bottom of the sea by man or God? Those who appropriated the treasure stood in need of it; the others did not."
He did not appear to see the force of my argument, so I left him to his own reflections.
Chapter VII A FALL.
The preliminary step towards breaking up the Island settlement was the. removal of the "new chum" prisoners, as they were termed — those, who had been sent direct from Home. Whisperings of this had been heard for some time, but the news was thought too good to be true. No matter what precautions are taken by the most watchful system of tyranny to prevent its victims from obtaining information, some channel of communication is always loft open. The Catholic priests on the Island, who held the Demon in detestation on account of his infamous conduct, were deeply interested in the aims of their Bishop, whose mission was the outcome of their representations, heard through that gentleman of the change that was about to take place, and acquainted us of it. Great was our joy, therefore, when one morning wo saw a large ship coming to the Island to take the first lot of prisoners away. There was room for rejoicing, for the Demon, infuriated at the prospect of losing his prey, made the most of the little time left him, and avenged himself on those whom he knew were glad to escape from his clutches.
The arrival of that ship gave rise to scenes which will never fade from my memory. Men ran about almost wild with joy. When it became known who were going, there were leavetakings as kindly — partly sorrowful and partly joyful — as any which ever took place between happier constituted families. One of these scenes occurred at the place of embarkation. Some of the convicts who were leaving in the boats waved their hands and hats to their comrades on shore. A batch of men on one of the boats had actually the audacity to cheer.
"Ah," said the Demon, who was standing by, "you are jubilant at going away, are you?" And he gave one of his diabolical smiles. "You are not gone yet. Put those follows ashore again, and, by G—! I'll make them yell to a different tune before they leave."
They were brought ashore and marched off, and put off for the next batch. Besides receiving thirty-six lashes each, they were flogged two or three times before they were permitted to go on board. An incident that occurred on our reaching the vessel may have had something to do with the severe punishment that these poor fallows received.
On arriving at the ship a kindly face looked down upon us from the deck. Dr Browning, who was to take us to Hobart Town, was watching the boats as they came towards the ship. As the first men mounted the ladder, their heavy irons clanking, he stopped them at the gangway.
"Where is Mr Price?'' he inquired of one of the officers who was with us.
The man pointed to one of the guard-boats filled with soldiers.
The Demon was informed that the Doctor desired to see him. We had to descend to the boat again and push off in order to allow him to board the vessel.
"What is it?" he rudely demanded.
"I wish the men to be put on board unironed." said the Doctor.
''And I have sent them ironed," answered the Demon.
"I am sorry you have done so. You must have their irons taken off before they come on board."
"You will have to take them as they are.''
"I refuse to do so."
"And I refuse to put them on board unironed."
"Very well. I shall wait twenty-four hours, and if before the expiration of that time the men are not put on board unironed, I shall return to Hobart Town and report."
The Demon was livid with rage. He first tried bounce and threats, and finding these had no effect fell back upon persuasion; but the Doctor was firm.
"I will put them on board in irons. I am still in charge," said John.
"Yes, of the men and the Island, but not of the ship," retorted the Doctor.
"I will embark them as they are."
"I will resist any such attempt by the guard and crew."
"You are mad! If you take these devils on board unironed you will never reach Hobart Town. They will murder you all."
Did the Demon really believe what he said? Had he taken us up there would possibly have been a general desire on the part of the prisoners to fulfil his croaking prophecy, though none might have attempted it.
"Pooh!" observed the Doctor. "I have brought over twenty prison ships to the Colonies, when men were entering upon long terms of imprisonment, and I never experienced any disposition on their part to revolt. And now that these poor follows arc taking the first stop towards liberty, I am sure they will not make any such attempt. Will you, my men?" he asked.
The altercation between the Doctor and the Demon had been heard by the prisoners, and we answered emphatically:
"No, sir."
If looks could have annihilated us, the fury exhibited in the countenance of the Demon would have done so.
"I was sure of it," said the Doctor. "Take the men ashore and uniron them. The responsibility is mine."
And he passed through the gangway, the Demon returning to h'"s boat.
We were taken ashore, unironed, and put on board the ship.
The men manned the capstan, climbed the rigging and helped to shake out and trim the sails, and as the vessel swung round and got under way. someone shouted out: "Three groans for the Demon!" Three such hearty groans never grated upon a tyrant's ears.
The good old Doctor called us aft, and expressed regret at our conduct.
"I don't reproach you," he said, "for if all reported of him is true, God knows this expression of feeling is but natural."
He concluded by advising us to cultivate a spirit of forgiveness towards our enemies, and that a brotherly feeling should animate us in our intercourse with each other.
The Doctor came amongst us like a ministering angel, and had always kind words of sympathy, encouragement, and advice. He looked at and tended our torn backs, and when he was informed of the trivial nature of the offences for which our frames were thus lacerated, anger stirred his soul, and pity showed itself on his kindly face. Tobacco was issued by his directions to all who used it.
The most friendly relations existed between the soldiers, the crew, and ourselves. There was no armed sentry guarding the quarter-deck partition. We knew it was a boundary live we had no right to cross, and we never thought of doing so. We were allowed a freedom which as prisoners we had never known before. Each man was a policeman, not to look after his neighbour, but to keep guard over himself. There was not a man among the three hundred prisoners on board but would have been ashamed to offend the Doctor, and would have risked his life in defence of him. We were like children let out for a holiday, hopeful and happy. Such was the effect a little kindness had on natures brutalised as ours had been by bad treatment. And yet there are those who preach, and others who believe — or pretend to believe — that to extend kindness to men in our wretched position is a mistake and a crime.
How can the antipodal spirits or feelings that actuated these two men be accounted for? Were their different natures innate or acquired, or were they developed by the training they received and their surroundings? Could the disposition of the Doctor at any period of his life have been so perverted that he would have been guilty of the wanton cruelties committed by Price? or could the latter under any circumstances have emulated the noble conduct of Dr Browning? I don't think so. And if they could not, then I ask, as the Jews of old said to our Lord — "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" This is a difficult question to answer. If they were what God, nature, and existing influences had made them, how far was one entitled to be execrated and the other to be esteemed and loved? The solution of this problem I leave to others, like the wisdom that ordains and permits such anomalies to exist: to me it is past finding out.
As the ship bore rapidly away from the Island I mentally prayed — and no doubt my fellow prisoners did the same — that I might never meet the Demon again. At that time we had not heard that it was the intention of the Government to dismiss him. Only part of the events which led to my coming in contact with him once more need be related; the rest are irrelevant to this narrative.
After his expulsion from the Island and dismissal from official employment, John retired to the seclusion of his farm on the Huon River (his wife's dowry). Here he surrounded himself with several of his Island tigers, who acted in the capacity of farm servants. These villains gravitated towards each other by mutual attraction, or sought each other's companionship for mutual protection; for if ever men had cause to fear the vengeance of their enemies, those bloodthirsty wretches had reason to do so. How they escaped so long is one of those truths that is "stranger than fiction." But he and they did not ultimately escape, as I shall presently show. It was a reproach to those he had tortured that he was allowed to live. It was a crime which brought a terrible retribution in the shape of dreadful suffering on the unfortunate prisoners who were afterwards subjected to the tyrant's iron rule. Perhaps even on his farm he was too well guarded to be approached by those who would have rid the earth of such a monster, for persons who lived in the neighbourhood used to remark that any strangers who were not of the same kidney as himself were looked upon with suspicion and distrust, and were closely watched by his trusty servants.
What caused him to leave his retirement might be easily construed by a "Gospel-miller" into a retributive act of Providence, and he might be likened unto a modern Pharaoh whom God had raised up to visit his judgment upon, but whose cup of iniquity was not yet full. This doctrine appears to have been carried out in my own life, and in John's life and the lives of others who have crossed my tortuous path; for in spite of friendly entreaties and premonitions and warnings from within and without, there seems to have been a fatality impelling us towards a certain end. Events happening at a distance, and having no apparent connection with or bearing upon our destiny, shape our whole after lives and the manner and time of our deaths (vide Professor Salmond's lecture). How such things are brought about I will now proceed to show.
When the penal settlement at Norfolk Island was broken up, others besides John bewailed the loss of official employment. Barrow, the Island magistrate, whose fleetness of foot saved him from the fate he merited at the time of the kettle emeute — for it was he who was the cause of the mutiny by ordering the destruction of the vessels — was shelved by the Government he had served so long, and he sought for employment elsewhere.
When the goldfields were discovered in Victoria, or a short time previously, Barrow took up his abode in that colony. Perceiving that the Victorians were envious of the splendid penal establishments possessed by their Sydney and Tasmanian neighbours, he set them hungering for one of their own; and, finding that they had already an asylum for prisoners in embryo, he proved to the satisfaction of the authorities that if torn his Norfolk Island experiences he was just the man they required to properly develop it. He received the appointment, and his first step was to gather around him as a staff a number of his Norfolk Island bludgeon-men, and the old system was revived. He knew no other mode of treatment; nor did his employers desire any other. The regeneration of convicts, like that of saintly sinners, can only be accomplished by the shedding of blood. "Blood! blood!" says a writer in the Gospel Trumpet — the kind of literature our gaol "Holy Joe" supplied us with — "we want a religion of blood, more blood!" And, in spite of the experience gained by repeated failures, our crime-doctors, with a few exceptions, are calling out for the application of more savagery to stamp out crime.
(To he continued.)
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[All Rights Reserved.]
RECOLLECTIONS
OF
CONVICT LIFE
IN NORFOLK ISLAND AND VICTORIA
With Prison Portraits, being Sketches of Criminals and Prison Governors, including the early Life, Career, and Death of John Price, and of the Bushrangers Bill Morgan, Burgess, &c.
By Henry Garrett, alias Rouse, the Bushranger.
DICK BURGESS.
Chapter XIII.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit: there is more hope of a fool than he. — Proverbs.
By way of contrast, I hang the portrait of Dick Burgess side by side with that of Captain Melville.
A few weeks ago I read Burgess' autobiography, written in Nelson Gaol while he was awaiting his trial. Of its merits as a composition I need only say that it is as much beyond criticism as he himself was beyond pity, and it verifies the truth of the old aphorism that "A little learning is a. dangerous thing."
Poor Dick! For his own sake he ought never to have written that nasty thing. He did so with a purpose few will perceive, although it was patent to me at first sight. That purpose was a double one: to exonerate Levy and Kelly, and to make out to his own class that he was a hero. He failed in both objects. His former associates well know that the long catalogue of robberies and murders he enumerated was a tissue of lies. They are false feathers which he plucked from every bird in the convict aviary to adorn himself with. The free public — the few who will read his life — may be under the impression that he was the terrible fellow he represents himself to be from the war-paint with which he has, like a North American Indian, bedaubed himself, but those who were intimately acquainted with him are well aware, that his boastings are simply a repetition of AEsop's fable of "The Ass in the Lion's Skin."
His attempt to exonerate Levy and Kelly, though it did not have the ghost of a chance of success, was in strict accordance with the freebooter's notions of honour, and would have raised him in the estimation of men of his own stamp; but the approval this action might have brought was completely lost in the feeling of contempt aroused by his bedecking 'himself in stolen plumes.
Whatever may be the crimes, the vices, the faults, or the failings of convicts, they have an appreciation of each other's merits, and thoroughly despise the arrogant pretence which is the distinguishing characteristic of Dick's autobiography.
Burgess makes honourable mention of your humble servant as the greatest coward he ever knew — a statement I will not dispute, as every act of our two lives proves me to have been as cowardly as he was brave. I am also depicted as a dangerous infidel, and Dick, overflowing with pure Christian charity, prays for me. As these prayers were so efficacious in his own case — and if, like St. Peter and St. Paul of blessed memory, he still prays for the living — there is yet hope that through them even I may become a babe of grace, and join Holy Dick in the New Jerusalem.
I intended to have kept Dick's autobiography, but was unable to do so, in order to take some extracts from it — not (words missing) spirit of vindictiveness, for he is dead and beyond that, even if I had ever harboured any such feeling, which I have not, the estimate I formed of him has not been affected by anything he has said about me, for inside or outside our own class no one will judge me by what Dick says. This notice of his career will be just what it would have been had I never perused a line he had written, and the feelings I entertain towards him are the same — namely, pity and contempt for him as a man, a thief, and a writer.
In the account of his life Burgess commences — like all penitent thieves who have written their own historics — with the stale old assurance that he was born of honest, pious, and respectable parents. Of course he was. The nobility of his descent was stamped on every feature, as well as on every act of his adventurous life.
Like many others, Dick seeks distinction by blasting what ought to be, next to his own life, most dear to him — a mother's reputation. Dick's father, according to his own account, was a dashing Lifeguardsman. How contemptible the vanity which tries to attain notoriety by such means.
Burgess informs us that he came out to Geelong as a ticket-of-leave man. He may have done so, but I am tolerably certain those men were transported only to the penal Colonies. The probability is he landed at Hobart Town, and made his way to Port Phillip. As to his boasted proficiency as a London pickpocket, it is all bunkum. He never showed it in the Colonies — never attempted it; and a clever London thief will not abandon his craft and follow the honest occupation of a groom, as he did.
The first place I saw Burgess was in Geelong, about the year 1850. I was grubbing away at my trade, earning from 30s to 40s per week, while Dick boasted he was spending his £100 weekly. From his low, flash, Colonial style of dress, and his clothes not being over new or clean, he might have been taken for a doctor's flunkey, a livery-stable cad, a copper's flat, a publican's potboy, or any of a dozen equally respectable callings. I happen to know the man he boasts he was "copping" (horse-stealing) in company with — Phil Daley, a rank old duffer; a bigger loafer and "blower" never roamed in the Colonies.
Dick suddenly disappeared from my vision — where I had no thought or care, as we had not spoken to each other, but I found out in after years where he had gone to
Amongst ourselves there are as many grades as there are trades amongst honest people. The men who compose the lowest grade are termed "outsiders" — men who never take any active part in a robbery, but put others on to do it, stand by while it is carried out, and then step in for their share of the plunder. They adopt the same tactics when they hear that a robbery is about to be committed, and they are as a rule too much feared to meet with a refusal. Occasionally, however, they get more than they have bargained for, and consequently never try the game on again.
These mean fellows are the pariahs of our class — the jackals who feed on the offal and crumbs the nobler animals leave for or fling to them. They often lead hotter men than themselves to prey, and sometimes to destruction ; and, when possible, they are shunned, and not infrequently put aside. Inside or outside of gaol they are always the same: the most flash and impudent, the greatest "blowers," and the greatest curs.
Of this class Dick was a distinguished member. His sudden disappearance was caused by his putting himself in a highway robbery as an "outsider." Three men garotted some person; Dick was on the watch, and when the job was done stepped up and said, "I'm in it," and received a small dole. All four were arrested, tried, and convicted, and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from seven to ten rears.
This was the version the three principals gave of the affair, though in his autobiography Dick states that his first Colonial conviction was for the committal of some daring exploit. While doing this sentence he and some others — his three friends were not included in the number — made a foolish attempt at escape, which resulted in failure, and they were flogged. Dick bore his punishment without wincing, thereby gaining the reputation among his companions of being a fire-eater.
I am not aware how long he served of this sentence, nor do I know the date of his discharge nor when he was next convicted. There could not have been a great interval, however, between the two last, for in 1855 I found him on the lower deck of the President hulk; yet in his autobiography during this short space of time he squeezes in a countless number of robberies and murders — some committed by others, but most of them were emanations from Dick's imagination.
Frank Melville was on board the President at this time, and imparted to Dick that small amount of learning which the latter was so fond of parading. Dick attached himself to Melville like a spaniel, deluding himself with the idea that it gave him more importance in the eyes of his fellows.
On Burgess and Melville being transferred to the labour gang, Frank inducted him in the art of stone-cutting, in which, as at pocket-picking, he excelled all others, while Dick was a poor hand at either. In the prison quarry Burgess put on the same jaunty, flash air he assumed outside. Flattered by the notice Frank took of him, he made himself both ridiculous and offensive. He might have acquired from Frank a little modesty of demeanour and speech, had he followed his example ; but modesty was a quality as foreign to Dick's disposition as flashness was to Frank's. I have often wondered bow two such opposite natures agreed — how Frank tolerated Dick's vulgarity, and Dick respected those qualities in Frank which he himself did not possess.
When Melville and his party seized the boat belonging to the hulk, Dick was the only man who was struck by any of the many shots fired at them. This affair, in which he was a mere cypher, made him think more of himself than ever. He was prouder of having been one of the boat pirates than was the Earl of Cardigan of having led the Light Brigade at Balaclava — prouder of his slight wound than another man would be of the Victoria Cross or the Humane Society's medal. I am not certain whether Dick or myself left Pentridge first, but I think I got my discharge before he died. I next dropped across him in Dunedin. He met Tommy Kelly in Melbourne, and although they had not previously known each other they soon came to an understanding, and agreed to travel together as mates to New Zealand. Tommy found the passage-money — Dick, as usual, being "hard up." The partnership very nearly came to grief soon after it was entered into, through chivalrous Dick robbing and brutally ill-using an unfortunate girl he had been stopping with.
Burgess and Kelly left Dunedin For Gabriel's Gully, and upon arriving there they met an old Victorian acquaintance (in all probability a Vandiemonian), who with some "squareheads" was digging for the precious metal. He conducted them to his tent, and while he was absent for a few minutes procuring them some food they requited his hospitality by robbing his mate's bed or box of £70, leaving their friend under the suspicion of having stolen it. Almost before the money was missed they lost £40 of it in gambling with a shanty-keeper named Montgomery, whom Dick anathematises in his pious and edifying autobiography; but the mean theft — the largest he had as yet been engaged in — he is entirely silent about.
The robbing of the banker and gold-buyer at Gabriel's would have been an accomplished fact only that Kelly could not spur Dick up to the mark. He had not yet done anything in the "Toby" line. He boasted to so many persons about their intention to rob the banker that every loafer and thief on the diggings knew of it, and it even came to the knowledge of the banker himself and the police; so that there was no use in attempting to carry out the project. Kelly reproached him with having spoiled this "plant" before a whole yard of prisoners. On hearing of the projected robbery the police were on the alert, and hunted them up. They bolted, hiding in the scrub by day, and returning to the diggings at nightfall.
They were in the habit of frequenting a shanty kept by a woman whom they knew. One night there were several drunken diggers in this place, and the shanty-keeper had just robbed one of them of £90. Whispering to our two friends, she said:
"That cove holds it heavy. Ease him of his money, but not in here. Persuade him to go to some other place."
They did so, and on the way they knocked him down and robbed him, but all they got was a few shillings.
The man, not knowing the woman had been beforehand with Dick and Kelly, believed they had robbed him of all his money, and went to the camp and reported the matter to the police, who visited the shanty, and ascertained from the woman who the two men were with whom he had left the tent.
After robbing the digger Dick and Kelly returned to the shanty, and told the woman what, they had got. The shanty-keener pretended to be very indignant, and accused them of swindling her out of her share of the booty; and while quarrelling over this they were nearly nabbed by the police. They were regularly euchred. Next day the police and diggers hunted them out of the scrub and up the mountain side, firing at but not hitting them. In scrambling up the hill Dick's pistol accidentally went off, the ball penetrating his boot and slightly wounding him in the toe. The diggers and police thought they were being fired upon, and, getting tired of the chase, returned.
A day or two afterwards they were arrested. They were tried for firing on the police, convicted, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment each.
Kelly was thoroughly disgusted with Burgess, and taunted him with his want of pluck. This was terribly mortifying to Dick. The Press was ringing with accounts of his audacity and ferocity, and to have these nullified by taunts of cowardice from a mate, and before men of his own class, was not consoling to his vanity. How easy it is for the Press and police to manufacture a thief's reputation, or to destroy an honest man's credit.
While undergoing his three years' sentence Dick and several other prisoners, including myself, made an unsuccessful attempt to break out of gaol. Kelly, on account of Dick's want of courage, refused to join us. The two men had become bitter enemies since their conviction. Dick aimed to be in Dunedin what Melville had been in Melbourne — the hero of his class. But never was there a baser counterfeit, a more spurious imitation. It was intensely ridiculous to watch him, and see the airs of importance he gave himself.
Discontent at the prison treatment arose, and not without good cause, and Dick put himself up as the leader in endeavouring to obtain redress. I accord him all praise for the action he took on this occasion, though in this, as in all else he did, ho was prompted by a spirit of pure vanity. The magistrates refused to allow them any concession, and they were punished for complaining. Dick applied for permission to write a statement of the prisoners' grievances, with a view of submitting it to his Honor the Superintendent. This was regarded as rank treason, and punished accordingly. Dick then refused to work, and persuaded others to follow his example, until an inquiry was instituted and their complaints redressed.
The gaol authorities reported that the prisoners were mutinous and dangerous, and the same magistrates — three justices of the peace — sentenced Dick and two or three others to be flogged for mutiny.
That flogging changed Dick's whole nature. He had been flogged more than once previously, had suffered various other forms of punishment, and had always borne them with firmness. He had gloried in doing so for the sake of the importance it gave him in the eyes of others, and all the punishments he had hitherto undergone never affected his buoyant spirits. But this act of injustice — for it was nothing else — soured his disposition, and aroused feelings in him he had never known before.
The punishments he formerly received he had to some extent merited, but this one he did not, and the manner in which it was inflicted stung him to the quick. A canvas bag was drawn over his head, as if he were about to be hung. This was done so that he should not be able to recognise the flagellator. He could endure the punishment with fortitude, although he considered he did not deserve it, as it raised him in the estimation of his fellow prisoners; but the indignity of the bag was the last straw that broke the camel's back. It was adding insult to injury.
Dick protested, and would have struggled and fought to prevent the bag being brought into requisition, but he was already bound. He was jeered at and taunted, and the flogging was administered.
Kelly and I saw him next morning as he was washing himself. We had not spoken to him for months, but we did so then. He was in a very excited state, quite different to what I had ever before seen him. His laughing, devil-may-care air was gone, and in its place was that savage, stern look which may be observed in his portrait.
"I have incurred this," he said, "for you as well as the others, yet one of you taunted me with cowardice, and both of you have shunned me. You have been as unjust to me as the dogs who flogged me, and I feel your injustice more than I do theirs. One of you said that I was a coward, and the other believed it; but, by G — ! I will alter your opinion of me. I swear by Heaven!" — and he went down on his knees and clasped his hands in a theatrical manner — "to take a human life for every lash and indignity they have laid upon me!"
He was terribly in earnest, and we tried to calm him.
From that day Burgess and Kelly were fast friends, with a common object to cement their friendship. Tommy possessed the true spirit which I had for years been trying to instil into my class: that an injury done to the class is inflicted upon each individual, and ought to be resented as such. Dick had up to this time repudiated this doctrine, but when he endorsed it he went still further.
I have always discriminated between the guilty and the innocent, both individually and collectively. There was no discrimination in the resolution he had formed. Like a bull or a dog tortured to madness, ready to gore or bite anyone and everyone, Dick was determined to avenge his wrongs on the human race, irrespective of persons.
I showed him a letter in a newspaper, signed by a person calling himself "Roper," approving of the flogging, and recommending that the rogue's back should be kept sore.
"I wish I knew who Mr Roper was, and where he lives," he said savagely.
"I can tell you."
"If you can, do so." I told him.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "do you think so?"
"I am sure," I replied — "as sure as we call him 'Buttons.' It was he who put the bag over your face." There was an expression on Dick's face full of terrible meaning.
"Now," I asked, "what about your resolve? If he continues to live I would not give a penny for it. If you allow him to live you will never hurt anyone else, and if you spare his life it will enable him to repeat his act on yourself and on others."
"Do you want me to throw my life away for his?" he asked. "I shall not do it. A dozen lives will not satisfy me."
"You can dispose of him without throwing away your own life — without even suspicion pointing to you."
I showed him how it could be managed. He was thoughtful for a moment, and then said: "No, that will not suit me. I must see my victims die, look into their eyes, watch their tortures, and mock them as I have been mocked.''
"Whom do you mean?" I asked.
"Mean!" he answered, savagely and derisively. " I mean anybody — everybody."
"But why select those who have never injured you, and spare those who have?"
"All are alike to me. If they have not injured me themselves they have approved of others who have done so, and are therefore equally guilty."
I made no reply, for I felt the truth of his remarks.
Besides the gaol officials, a Press reporter and a few favoured individuals were present by invitation to witness and enjoy the sight of the flogging. They attended to gloat over the sufferings of those men just as they would have gone to a circus or a race meeting. It is said that they even made wagers as to whether the men would cry out or bear their punishment without flinching, just as it is known that bets have been made on the verdict of a jury when a human life was at stake.
The inhabitants of Dunedin were not aware that such an outrage was being perpetrated in the name of justice in their city gaol — or, if they knew, it gave them no concern. And persons living hundreds of miles away on the West Coast little thought that the official crime committed that day in Dunedin Gaol would result in their own deaths; that those men were converted into human tigers, panting for blood as a parched ox thirsts for water; that the sound of the blows falling upon naked human flesh proclaimed their doom; that their death-warrants were being signed in human blood. Yet such was to be the outcome of that wretched day's proceedings.
Coupled mysteriously together, as cause and effect, was that unjustifiable gaol flogging and those equally unjustifiable bush murders. For nothing can be more certain than that had Burgess not been flogged, taunted, and outraged, his disposition, which was naturally a happy, buoyant one, would not have been soured, and those murders would not have been committed. In my opinion those who caused that cowardly and unjust flogging to be inflicted are as morally guilty of the West Coast murders as Burgess was.
Wrongs like those of which he was made the victim may be likened unto stones wantonly flung into the air over a crowd; they are sure to fall upon someone, but the villain who throws them cares not whose head is broken so long as it is not his own. And who, I ask, is more deserving of hate and detestation at the hands of society — the cowardly official despots who torture men to madness and to the committal of indiscriminate murders, or the poor wretches who have been converted into murderers by the brutal treatment they received?
"Woe be to them by whom offence cometh." If we measure their guilt by the amount of buffering they inflicted upon the prisoners, and the length of its endurance, I consider that the murders were more humane in spirit than the tortures which led up to them. If we judge thorn both by their motives — the convict being driven to commit robbery and murder from greed and revenge, and the conduct of the others being actuated by sheer injustice and vindictiveness — there is not much to choose between them. If we weigh them by the taunts and cruelties they showered upon the prisoners, and the silent savageness displayed by Burgess, the latter contrasts most favourably with his official torturers.
We condemn as cruel the vivisection of birds and beasts, even when done in the interests of science and humanity; we have a law for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but there is no law for the prevention of cruelty to human beings. The worst unofficial ruffian unhung would not tie up a brute with cords as men are trussed up in gaol, or from a pure love of torture, under pretence of reforming its habits, flog it as prisoners are flogged. The civilisation and religion which tolerates and approves of such practices should be swept away as being no better than the custom which exists among the Indians of torturing their captives at the stake. So long as those cruelties are indulged in society has no reason to be surprised and no light to feel injured at their leading to murders as savage and indiscriminate as those committed by Burgess.
That his case does not stand alone, but is only one out of many instances which are becoming more numerous every year, I have shown elsewhere; and it is not only a natural consequence, but the inevitable result of severe and long-continued oppression acting on the recipients according to their different natures.
It is an old saying that "The schoolmaster is abroad." He is nowhere more active than in our convict prisons, where the apostles of revenge are incessant in their teachings, and are more powerful for evil than all the prison chaplains are for good, because they are more earnest and truthful. They also follow the example of their clerical prototypes, and quote Scripture in support of their views.
Dick Burgess resisted this teaching for years, and would have continued to do so, but what missionary zeal failed to effect official tyranny accomplished. In his case as in others — and this is nothing more than true — the best natures may be turned into the worst by persecution, and this was exemplified in the change that took place in Burgess' disposition. Some succumb sooner than others, but all must ultimately give in.
I do not believe that Dick possessed the calm, true courage of the man whom he set up as a model — Frank Melville. Frank's courage was innate, a part of himself — a quality which I do not think is capable of being acquired. Love of applause and fear of shame may and sometimes do spur people on to acts of apparent daring, but they cannot impart that constitutional courage which is inherent in a truly brave man.
If endurance of punishment with stoical firmness would entitle a man to be considered brave, then Dick might be looked upon in that light. But this alone does not constitute bravery. To endure pain that cannot be escaped from is quite a different thing to voluntarily, cheerfully, and fearlessly meeting danger which need not be incurred either from a sense of duty or from necessity.
So long as the eyes of the public and his own class were upon him, Dick would rush into danger and defy punishment, in order to bring himself into notice. But of that calm, determined courage, which faces and overcomes danger when no eye sees, no applause rewards — of that natural, impulsive daring which constituted a part of Frank Melville's character — Dick was totally deficient.
When I pointed out to him that, in accordance with his resolution, it wan his duty to dispose of the obnoxious "Buttons," he admitted that he ought to do so; and when I showed him how it might be done without any suspicion or danger attaching to him, then he objected simply because he would not have the credit of it. He would wish it to be suspected — even known that he was the man, and yet he would like to come off scatheless. Here his vanity and hungering after notoriety shone out. He had no satisfaction in doing anything unless it was the means of bringing him into notice. He was like certain swipers whom I have on different occasions come across, who thought it was no use getting drunk unless they made public exhibitions of themselves.
I told him that if he wanted to make a name for himself, the best plan he could adopt was to kill his man openly and publicly, as Casey shot the sheriff in California. He couldn't see it.
The renewed intimacy between Burgess and myself did not last. He wanted homage from me; I had none to give him. Kelly and I had a quarrel over this and other foolish things, and he threatened me with Dick's displeasure. The absurdity of the threat provoked my laughter, and I made use of expressions in reference to Dick which neither of them ever forgave me for. We never spoke again, and parted with hate on one side and contempt on the other.
To a nature so vain as Dick's was, to be regarded with pity or contempt was killing. He looked upon himself as a hero, exacting homage from all, and to meet with scorn instead was gall and wormwood to him — harder to bear than any punishment.
There is no necessity for me to recount his deeds on the West Coast; they are sufficiently well known. How far they hear out his claims to be considered a brave man I leave others to judge.
I am not going to condemn Dick for those actions, although I do not approve of them. I reserve my condemnation more for those whose brutal injustice made him capable of committing them. To condemn him and spare them would be unjust. It would be more than unjust — it would be almost insane to find fault with the effect; instead of the cause — like condemning an explosion or fire instead of the incendiary who applied the match.
Here I may ask a question which has been forming itself in my mind: Could I have been guilty of such acts as Burgess committed? Judging from my present feelings I reply that I could not. I have not as yet acquired the ferocity of disposition indispensable in carrying out such murderous undertakings; but, bearing in mind the Scriptural warning, "Boast not thyself," &c, I know not what I may become. I feel sure, however, that in the event of my giving way to feelings of revenge, I should aim at those who had injured me, though in doing so I would meet with the same fate as Burgess did — namely, death; for provocation does not justify murder, though public execration might not be so great. But what good or harm results from posthumous fame or infamy? Burgess was as right in his reasoning as society in its censures or rewards.
Although I do not intend to detail his acts on the West Coast, I shall make a few remarks in reference to them as well as to the autobiography in which he describes the murders with such sickening vanity and mock piety. In that pamphlet he has mirrored himself more faithfully than any effort of mine could have done. In it vanity is seen to be the ruling passion of his life.
Every known act of his Colonial life was done with the view of obtaining notoriety, and from no other motive. He reminds one of the animalcule contained in a drop of water, diminutive and harmless in reality, but viewed through the magnifying medium of an oxy-hydrogen microscope they are real monsters. So Dick by the magnifying powers of his autobiography has swelled himself into a monster. Throughout his whole career he was greedy for notoriety, the sure sign of a little mind, and the ruling passion was strong in death.
Those contemplated but frustrated robberies on the West Coast were all possible had a little tact and firmness been displayed, but the lack of those qualities made them impossible of accomplishment. What but his excessive vanity and itching for a name induced him to boastfully relate what most men would have hidden.
Dick's pretended penitence was but another means to the same end: to gain the notice and sympathy of the religious world. He thought of the penitent rascal of eighteen hundred years ago and of many others since then — how their names and memories had been perpetuated, and he sought by cowardice and fraud to have his name recorded on the roll of repentant sinners. The clergyman who administered the last Sacrament to him must or ought to have felt ashamed at doing so. The most sensational "Gospelmiller" would hardly care to point to Dick as "a brand plucked from the burning."
His theatrical act of kissing the rope, and calling it his "passport to heaven," was a piece of hypocrisy more offensive to propriety than Kelly's want of nerve was pitiable. I wonder he did not kiss or rub noses with that honest, respectable fellow, the hangman.
The hangman's halter a passport to heaven! Why, I may yet sneak into heaven through the same medium when all other means of grace and entrance have failed — that is, supposing I can screw my cowardly nature up to the commission of, similar honourable deeds as those which ensured Dick admission.
In the mouth of one who was, about being put to death in a good and holy cause, this saying would have been appropriate; but coming from Dick — a criminal blasted with the infamy of murders and unprovoked, unnecessary, and coldblooded as those of poor old Battle, Dobson, and others — it was rank and offensive blasphemy. Those standing round the scaffold must have blushed with shame for the religion which held out hopes of salvation to such as him. Well might an English writer say: "If such as he went to heaven, I would rather not be there."
Dick's pretended chivalry towards women is as false as everything else connected with him. The vanity which led him to blast his mother's reputation, and the dastardly brutality he displayed towards the poor Melbourne Magdalene, whom he first robbed and then nearly killed, do not favourably impress one as to the respect he entertained for the fair sex.
I will now refer to Dick's monotonous appeal for prayers to be offered up in his behalf. This portion of his autobiography reads like a litany. He calls upon everybody to pray for him, particularly those whom he contemplated robbing and murdering. "Pray for me! pray for me!" was his unwearied song. Whether there was more cowardice than hypocrisy in this I will not venture to say.
It was fortunate for Dick that prayers are but empty wind, far any prayers concerning him would not have been for his good. And though they had been uttered in Dick's favour, a justice-dealing God would be as deaf to all intercessions for mercy as Burgess was to poor old Battle's entreaty that he would spare his life. If Dick was so confident that the rope was his passport to heaven, why did he whine for prayers?
It is said that whatever a man strives most to seem, it may be taken for granted he is the very reverse. If this statement be true, which I do not doubt, what must we think of Dick's piety and bravery?
Comparing Dick with the man he modelled himself after — Frank Melville — he was, in contrast with him, a Brummagem imitation of the basest metal, which a thick coat of lacquer could not hide. For the benefit of those who have not seen his portrait I will describe his appearance.
He was about five feet seven inches in height; large, well-shaped head; florid complexion and heavy features; large, sensual mouth; hair and whiskers dark, almost black; well-proportioned body and limbs, with a swagger in his walk and a roll of the head that told of the estimation he had of himself.
His mental qualities are more difficult to describe than his physical development. His head indicated that he had plenty of brains, and if his excessive vanity could have been repressed he might, under proper culture and training, have made a good or average man. But I question whether any schooling or training would have curbed that intense self-esteem, and if not, then the Scriptural quotation with which I commenced this notice might serve as a fitting epitaph for him, to which I will add one of my own:
In life, in death, he hungered after reputation,
And clutched instead but execration and damnation.
(To be continued.) -Otago Witness, 30/4/1886.
PRISON PORTRAITS.
RECOLLECTIONS OF CONVICT LIFE IN NORFOLK ISLAND, Arc.
Editor, Witness.— As you published in the Witness some time ago portion of the "Recollections of Prison Life," by Garrett, alias Rouse, seriously reflecting on the character of the late unfortunate Mr Price, I ask, in common fairness, that you will kindly publish the enclosed: Burgess' opinion of Garrett, with the addition also of the report of a Special Commission appointed by the Victorian Government, which completely exonerates Mr Price from the serious charges made against him. I send also a letter from Mr Duncan, late Inspector-general of Prisons in Victoria, who was an officer under Mr Price in Norfolk Island. I think, in justice to the memory of Mr Price, and to his brother, Sir Rose Price, Bart., Cornwall, you should publish the enclosed in the Witness. — Yours, &c,
One Interested. -Otago Witness, 6/8/1886.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION.
BURGESS THE MAUNGATAPU MURDERER'S OPINION OF GARRETT.
Burgess, Garrett's old boon-companion in prisons, alluding to Garrett's treachery in the attempted escape from Dunedin Gaol early in 1862, states: — This served me right for having .anything to do with him after knowing what sort of a man he was, for he did a sentence of 10 years in Victoria, during all of which time I never exchanged words with him, because he was held in such bad odour by the prisoners at the hulk for getting his fellow prisoners into trouble. I should have kept him at arm's length here, only I thought he might try for his liberty. The man is one of the greatest cowards that ever lived. He is a big man — he is just as bad in proportion to his size. His tenets of manhood belong to the Jonathan Wild school, for he was a conglomeration of deceit. Not one manly act did I ever see him do. Garrett, I trust the authorities will prevent you disseminating your unprincipled conduct to the ill of any of the prisoners. I am not writing this in an antagonistic spirit, for you know what you would have received at my hands if I had been spared to run my vicious course. No, it's not with any animus I thus speak, for I have known you some years now, and I never knew you to do a manly act towards your fellows yet, but many bad ones. You have no respect for any living being, and you glory in your atheistical belief, when at heart you're craven. I have not mentioned you as you deserve, but I hope through what I have said the guiltless will avoid you as a poisonous reptile. Those godless principles entertained by you will show your hollowness of principle even to your fellows. I write this that you may not do any further harm than what you have. It's not against your person I am speaking, but against your unhallowed principles. The frame of mind I am in bids me forgive you with a righteous forgiveness, because I am looking to Him whom you pretend to despise and mock. How your latter end will be in this world I will not prognosticate. This I say: Repent while there is time, and injure not your fellows.
SO-CALLED PRISON REFORMS.
The way of the transgressor might have been hard in former ages, but to the criminal class of to-day the word gaol does not appear to be associated with anything punitive. Mistaken philanthropists have worried themselves, badgered members of Parliament, and made things generally unpleasant for gaol officials, while the Sikes's and others of that ilk have chuckled over the improved regime which good men have been instrumental in obtaining for the worst of their race. Go to any of our prisons; see how our criminals are housed, fed, taught, and looked after; then compare their condition with that of our industrious poor, and you will be almost tempted to ask what inducement is there to be honest. To make prison life dreaded the ease and comfort of criminals should not be studied as they are, but each and all of them alike should be compelled to recoup the colony for every penny expended upon their maintenance.
GARRETT'S INTENDED POISONING ESCAPADE
Garrett frequently boasted that during the time he was under the surveillance of Mr Brunton, who prided himself on converting the released convict, that he entered every chemist's shop in Dunedin and suburbs with skeleton keys and obtained quantities of poison, for the purpose of poisoning the water barrels of those people whom he considered obnoxious, particularly the late Mr Branigan, Commissioner of Police. An old Tasmanian fellow prisoner was undergoing a sentence in Dunedin Gaol with Garrett after his conviction for Mr Allan's burglary, when he remonstrated with Garrett about the foolishness of the intended poisoning of the water, and said, "You might have poisoned me, Harry." He replied that he did not care, adding that Samson had slain thousands with the jawbone of an ass, and he intended slaying thousands with poison. It is a well-known fact that when Garrett was cook on board the hulk Success, at Williamstown, several of the warders narrowly escaped a painful death owing to poison having been put into the tea kettle. A similar attempt was made, when he was in Norfolk Island, to poison the military and prison officers, but it was happily frustrated owing to one of the prisoner cooks secretly informing one of the officers. Espionage is an absolute necessity in all gaols, and in such departments as police, railways, post office, &c. — in fact in all establishments where numbers of people are at work — for the purpose of carrying on the duties in an efficient manner.
HIS ATTACK ON WARDER FLANNERY.
Garrett, when exercising in one of the gaol yards in Dunedin, in 1862, in charge of Mr Flannery, now chief warder at Auckland, and one of the kindest and most respectable gaol officers, made a sudden attack on him, getting the warder's head under his arm, and then making an effort to gouge out his eyes. The armed sentry on the platform called for assistance, when he was promptly secured and placed in the cell. Major Richardson, the then Superintendent of the province, severely censured the sentry for not shooting Garrett. His excuse was that had he attempted to do so he might have shot the officer by accident instead of the prisoner.
OTHER ESCAPADES
On another occasion, in conjunction with Kelly and Burgess, who were in different cells, he made a desperate attempt to break out of Dunedin Gaol during the night, but daylight dawned too soon, and caused the attempt to fail. On the following day Garrett went out to exercise, and on one of the warders inspecting his cell he found an opening in the wall. Garrett was subsequently charged before the visiting justices with damaging his cell with a view to escape. His defence was that the discovery was not made early in the morning, that several prisoners and warders had access to his cell during the time of his being at exercise, and consequently they could have damaged the wall for the purpose of having him punished. This ingenious defence caused his acquittal. On another occasion, when requested to bathe in the washhouse, he became very insubordinate, seized a poker, and made a desperate attempt to strike one of the gaol officers, but he was, soon overpowered by Mr McNamara and the present gaoler at Hokitika, who came to the timely assistance of their fellow officer. For this offence he was brought before Messrs Willis and Forman, visiting justices, and, pleading guilty, was sentenced to 36 lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails. On the following day Garrett expressed great contrition for his misconduct, and the governor of the gaol consequently appealed to the justices for a remission of the sentence — a request which was acceded to, and the punishment was not inflicted. Previous to Garrett's removal from Dunedin to Lyttelton Gaol he was, by order of the visiting justices, kept in separate confinement for several acts of insubordination aud carelessness in the performance of his work. This confinement completely reformed his insubordinate conduct in gaol at Lyttelton and Mount Cook up to the time of his death, and taught him and his fellow prisoners that such misconduct could not pass unpunished.
GARRETT'S CHRISTCHURCH CAREER.
In sentencing Garrett, alias Rouse, to 20 years' imprisonment for burglariously entering Mr James Allan's premises, Judge Ward remarked that in all probability the prisoner would join the majority before his sentence expired, and it was to be hoped such would be the case, as from the long catalogue of dreadful crimes recorded against him he did not consider him fit to be a free man. While serving his time at Lyttelton he was liberated after completing about 13 years, and without the sanction of the learned judge who sentenced him. At that time the petitions of all prisoners for a remission of sentence, in accordance with the regulations, had to be submitted to the judge or justice who sentenced the prisoner, but for some cause unknown to any but the Department of Justice he was liberated without this formality being undergone. Such a remarkable course of procedure induced the Hon. Captain Fraser to bring the matter before the Legislative Council. In a short time after his liberation Garrett commenced his old practice of committing robberies in Christchurch and its neighbourhood, and in order to avoid suspicion he worked in the Domain during the day and attended religious meetings in the evening, till he was detected in the act of committing a burglary. Had the request of the learned judge been complied with, Garrett would have remained in gaol, the country would have been saved the expense of the burglary prosecution, and the public of Christchurch would have escaped a number of robberies he committed in and around that city. With reference to the insane allusion made to the suppositions reformation of Garrett by Gaoler Garvey, of Wellington, I would remind your readers of the following well-known
INCIDENT BELATED OF THE LATE AHCHBISHOP WHATELY,
of Dublin: — "There are two inspectors in supreme control of the prisoners, one of whom has such reliance on the prisoners that he has taken into his service a number of reformed convicts. The other is more cautious and sceptical, and the subject is naturally much debated between them.
"'My gardener was a convict, my cook was a convict, my butler was a convict,' remarked No. 1 inspector, after an excellent dinner to which these officials had contributed.
"'And pray what arrangements have you made for the security of your plate?' asked the Archbishop.
"'None at all. My principle is to confirm their reformation by trusting them implicitly.'
"'I tell you what, madam,' cried the unbelieving Archbishop to the mistress of the house, 'you'll awaken some morning and find there is not a spoon left on the premises — except your husband!'"
Such fulsome reports about Garvey taming Garrett are totally unreliable, but of course there will always be an extensive debateable ground where the enthusiast will see saints and the cynic only see hypocrites.
TWO ATTEMPTED MURDERS BY GABRETT.
It is a well-known fact that when Garrett was apprehended at Sydney for the highway robberies in Otago he made a most desperate attempt to stab the police officer who apprehended him, and had it not been for his paramour, who was in his company at the time, and who prevented him, murder would have ensued. When apprehended in London for the Ballarat bank robbery, and under remand in the House of Detention, the same paramour visited him in prison. And strongly suspecting her of betraying him to the police, he made a violent attempt to kill her by throwing her down a flight of steps inside the prison.
JUDGING GAOL GOVERNORS' ACTS,
Men placed in such positions as gaol governors must not expect gratitude from prisoners. They must look to future generations to judge their deeds. Time is not always a destroyer — it is sometimes a restorer. The abuse from such men as Garrett, "who was a fiend, a monster, and a foul blot upon the page of nature," or his harisaical sympathisers, amounts to a certificate of the sterling honesty of gaol governors.
MR GEORGE DUNCAN'S REMARKS ON GARRETT'S CHARGES.
Mr George Duncan, who held the position of storekeeper at Norfolk Island under Price, writes as follows in reply to a letter written to him by a gentleman in Dunedin, covering copies of Garrett's narrative as published in the columns of the Witness: —
The Avenue, Windsor, May 24, 1886.
Dear Sir, — The letter with the extracts you were so good as to enclose did not reach me until nearly three weeks after you had written, and since that time I have had so much worry, combined with personal and relative ill-health, as to have been unable to send you a reply until now.
You seem to expect more from me in the way of information about Mr Price than I can supply. I think that man must be a most malevolent being who could write even of an enemy, so many years after he had gone to his last home, as the writer of the extracts has done. I would not place much reliance on statements written in such a spirit.
Mr Price was a strict officer, and had to deal with convicts on Norfolk Island who, as badly conducted, as well as long sentenced men, were difficult to control; that difficulty being increased by the laxity of discipline in their treatment which had prevailed previously to his taking charge of the island.
As a consequence of the introduction of new regulations for the conduct and duties both of the officers and prisoners, Mr Price's work was with many unpopular, and led to the circulation of grossly exaggerated statements by those who desired a continuance of the loose and careless mode of doing duty which had previously prevailed on the island. No doubt increased restraint would be unpleasant, particularly while the new regulations were being brought into operation.
I went to the island some time after Mr Price had assumed command — first as a discipline officer, and for several years in charge of the prison school. During that time I had a good opportunity of knowing what was going on. I believe I had the goodwill of the prisoners generally, and I am sure while dealing with them in the various schools if much cause for complaint had existed I would have heard of it so as to have excited my attention. I am sure that no welldisposed man had reason to complain of the operation of the regulations in force during that time.
Mr Price was always ready to encourage attention to duty or good conduct either on the part of officer or prisoner; but if the statements of careless officers or badly conducted prisoners are received as facts, without due inquiry, it is not difficult to blacken the character of any public man.
Of many of Garrett's statements I cannot speak from personal observation; but from knowledge acquired as an officer doing duty under Mr Price, I have reason to believe that Garrett's allegations are largely the distorted statements of an evil-disposed man.
Writing has become at my years a most irksome task; I could not, however, leave your letter unanswered. Excuse my delay. — I am, &c,
Geo. O. Duncan. July 29.
THE INQUIRY INTO PRICE'S CONDUCT.
As we have every wish to act with impartiality and to present the other side of the question to out readers as fully as possible, we at considerable inconvenience make room for the report of the committee appointed in 1856 to inquire into Price's conduct and penal discipline in general: —
Mr Haines, Mr Stawell, Captain Gasley, Mr O'Shauassy, Mr Blair, Mr Michie, Mr Humffray, Mr Fyfe, Mr Smith, Mr Syme, Mr Foster, Mr Wills, Mr Langlands, Mr D. S. Campbell, and Mr Myles, members of the Select Committee appointed on the 12th December 1856 to inquire into and report upon the most advisable scheme of penal discipline, have the honor to submit to your honourable House the following report: —
Your committee having made a retrospective inquiry into the state of the penal department under the late Inspector-general, have been led to the conclusion that the administration of that lamented officer was marked by great personal ability and efficiency, but so numerous were the difficulties with which he had always to contend from the want of adequate and proper buildings in which to concentrate and classify criminals tinder sentence, that it was impossible for him to establish anything like an effective system of organisation throughout the department.
2. Grave and serious charges have been brought against the late Mr Price of frequent cruelty to the prisoners placed under his control, but your committee have not found these charges to be in any one instance substantiated.
3. From his large and intimate experience of criminal life and character and his acquaintance with convict discipline in the penal colonies of Australia, Mr Price appears to have been led to the conviction that a system of strict and uniform severity was essentially necessary to secure the maintenance of subordination amongst prisoners; and to the mere casual observer it may have appeared that in particular instances he carried this principle to an extreme length, but it has not appeared in evidence that he was guilty of those deliberate acts of atrocious cruelty which have been alleged against him. Those charges, your committee find, have been principally brought by criminals whose evidence is not of a trustworthy character; and it must be borne in mind that there was one circumstance of peculiar significance in the relations of Mr Price to the criminal population of this country, which made that gentleman a special object of both the fear and hatred of that class. This was his singularly extensive and minute knowledge of them individually. He had a special faculty for detecting and identifying old convicts whom he had known many years before in Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island; and it is of that class that the criminal population of this country is mainly composed. The circumstance was certainly the proximate cause of the murder of Mr Price; but it was combined with two more immediate causes of a strongly operative kind, namely — his reputation amongst the criminal population as a severe disciplinarian; and, especially, the evils arising from the maintenance of the hulk system, for which Mr Price was not, however, personally responsible.
4. Your committee find that Mr Price had been for several years before his death urging upon the Government the introduction into the penal departments of those very reforms which your committee are now convinced, after investigation, are imperatively required.
5. The peculiar circumstances of the country may have prevented those reforms being carried out; but had the case been otherwise, it is not probable that the recent frightful occurrences would ever have happened.
6. With the means at his disposal, however, Mr Price accomplished a very great deal towards a radical reform of the entire department. He laid the foundation of an improved system, and very few men in his situation could have achieved more.
7. Your committee cannot refrain, while referring to the late Inspector-general, from expressing their deep regret at the loss to this country of an officer whose practical ability and immense experience would have qualified him beyond almost any other person in existence for the control of a thoroughly organised system of criminal management in this colony.
8. Your committee were much struck on their visiting Pentridge with observing the admirable system of organised labour for the prisoners confined there, established by the late Inspector-general. They deem the regular and full employment of prisoners an essential element in any effective system of penal discipline, and find with much satisfaction that the present Inspector-general seems to be fully impressed with this idea, and competent to give it practical effect. -Otago Witness, 6/8/1886.
