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A SHIP-LOAD OF IRISH.

183

"About two months before my arrival here, came out a great ship-load of Irish-the harvest of the famine special commission-from twelve years of age up to sixty. They were all about threequarters starved, and so miserably reduced by hunger and hardship that they have been dying off very fast of dysentery.

"As to the behaviour of these poor creatures, I learn from the commander that they have no vice in them, are neither turbulent, nor dishonest, nor give any trouble at all. But,' adds the commander, 'they will soon be as finished ruffians as the rest.'

"He informs me that they were astonished, at first, at the luxuries provided for them-fresh beef three days in the week, and pork the other days; peasoup, tea, excellent loaf-bread-things they had never seen before except in shops, and which they no more knew how to use, than Christopher Sly.

"Then they have liberty to write home as often as they like, and when they tell their half-starved

184

DAILY ALLOWANCE.

friends how well a felon is fed, what can be more natural than that famished honesty should be tempted to put itself in the way of being sent to so beautiful a country ?"

Eleven years after this, Mr. Anthony Trollope, who visited Bermuda in 1859, writes :-" Shortly before my arrival a prisoner had been killed in a row. After that an attempt had been made to murder a warder. And during my stay there, one prisoner was deliberately murdered by two others, in a faction fight, between a lot of Irish and English. Twenty-four men were carried to the hospital badly wounded." It would therefore appear that the good food had told upon the Irish.

"He has a pound of meat a day-good meat too, lucky dog; while those wretched Bermudians are tugging out their teeth against tough carcasses. He has a pound of fresh vegetables; he has tea and sugar; he has a glass of grog-exactly the same amount that a sailor has; and he has an allowance

LAX DISCIPLINE.

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of tobacco money, with permission to smoke at mid-day, and evening, as he sits at his table, or takes his noontide pleasant saunter."

We learn from the same writer, that they sleep together, a hundred or more, within talking distance, in hammocks, slung at arm'slength from each other, "so that one may excite ten, and ten fifty."

The discipline—if Mr. Trollope has been rightly informed-was very lax.

"A man has only to say that he is going to the chaplain's house, and he may pass through the prison, with spirits in his pocket, if it please him. The men get rum, and drunkenness is a common offence. Every man has his own razor. They have knives too, though it is not allowed."

After making all due allowance for the red-hot patriotism of John Mitchel, and the dashing, currente-calamo style of Mr. Trollope, we learn enough from them both to conclude that there is a wide margin for improvement in the convict department of Bermuda.

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TRANSFER OF CONVICTS.

We learn, since penning the last lines, that Bermuda is no longer a convict depot-that the convicts are now, while we write, away upon the sea for Australia. Earl Stanhope said lately, in the House of Lords, " Her Majesty's Government had lately decided to break up the convict establishment at Bermuda. That might be a very wise decision, but he understood that the Government had disposed of the convicts by sending them all en masse to West Australia. If that were so, he was at a loss to divine on what principle that step could be defended, for it had been the usual custom to send only selected convicts to that colony."

The Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, replied, "He must undeceive his noble friend as to the circumstances connected with the transfer of convicts from Bermuda to Western Australia. Three years ago a discussion was raised in reference to the prisons of Bermuda. After full consideration of the whole question the Government came to the conclusion that it would be desirable to diminish the number of convicts sent there, and

BERMUDA ABANDONED.

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ultimately to abandon the practice of sending convicts to that colony. This was a most important element in the consideration of the question -that transportation to Bermuda was not like transportation to Western Australia. Bermuda was nothing but a colonial prison, but under a system adopted several years ago, the number of prisoners available for removal from this country had been greatly diminished. The Government had to consider which of three places, Western Australia, Gibraltar, or Bermuda, they would abandon as a place for convicts under sentence of transportation. Bermuda appeared to them to be the least desirable place of the three, on the grounds of climate and facilities for enforcing discipline; and, in addition to these considerations, the fortifications and other works on which convicts had been employed there were nearly finished. His noble friend seemed to be mistaken as to the number of convicts sent from Bermuda to Western Australia. The fact was they only amounted to one shipload, and, though there was

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