A plea against reviving convict transportation for shepherding - 1842

The following post records a response to a proposed limited reintroduction of the convict system in Australia. Limited in the sense that convicts could only be imported to supply a strongly felt need for shepherds on the many unfenced sheep runs in the Colony of New South Wales. To give some context, Australia was used as a convict colony from the time of the first fleet in 1788.  Unrest about continuing convict labour in the 1830s saw the British Government establish a commission of inquiry headed by Sir William Molesworth in 1837.

“Molesworth, a Radical Member of Parliament, was sympathetic to causes such as colonial self-government and the abolition of slavery, and his commitment to these two causes had a significant impact on how he conducted the commission.” (https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/convict-transportation).

Emerging from the Molesworth Report  NSW decided to cease importation of convicts in 1840.  The flow on effect was that the cheap, almost slave-like, labour supplied by convicts for tasks such as shepherding created a gap in labour supply. It was a gap that could not be filled by other immigrants as the people owning and managing the pastoral operations were not offering enough money for the task, having been accustomed to the very cheap convict labour.

This post is an amalgamation of four articles that appeared in The Sydney Herald in the January of 1842.

• The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 20). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873399 
• The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 21). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873424 
• The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 24). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28652755 
• The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 26). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 17, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873460 

It is a fascinating piece of persuasive writing. So worth reading not just for the history it contains, but also as an example of persuasive text.

IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? I

"In his opinion, the best interests of the Colony would be forwarded by the discontinuance, at some future day which it was impossible to fix, of the transportation system. * * * Transportation had been of great advantage to this Colony: but there might be other considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth." - Speech of Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR in Council, October 23, 1840.

In our late articles on the subject of Transportation and Assignment, we confined our attention to the one point, Is it likely that England would herself consent to a revival of the system in New South Wales? We endeavoured to answer the question in the negative, on the ground, that the Parliamentary investigations of 1837 mid 1838 had produced on the public mind so strong an impression, as to have led to the total discontinuance, in respect of this Colony, both of transportation and of assignment, within the short period of about two years after the publication of the Parliamentary Report; and we inferred, that after so unequivocal a demonstration of the national will, it was utterly improbable either that British opinion should of itself have veered round again, within little more than another twelvemonth, to the opposite point, or that such a revolution could be brought about by any representations of parties so suspiciously interested as the settlers of New South Wales. This inference, however, has been boastfully met by a reference to two articles that appeared last year in the Quarterly Review and United Service Journal respectively. Did we not well know how easy it is for men of influence, having a private interest in the question, to procure the admission into British journals of plausibly written articles on Australian topics, we might have been somewhat startled by the publications referred to; but, knowing this, and perceiving in at least one of these articles, that in the Quarterly, the most undisguised evidence of the source from which it had flowed, we can have no hesitation in rejecting them as anything approaching to a sign of change in English opinion. Nor do the articles, either in the facts they adduce, the arguments they employ, or the amount of ability they display, excite the slightest apprehension of their reconciling the people and Government to a system so recently reprobated, and so authoritatively put down. The writers betray throughout that, in each step of their proconvict advocacy, "the wish was father to the thought" — the wish, not of generous patriotism, but of private interests — the wish, not of men looking far into futurity, but of men intent on securing the narrow convenience of the passing hour.

In so far as these penmen have urged the impolicy of retaining the convicts in Great Britain, they may, for aught we know, have reasoned aright; but we protest against the mixing up of this consideration with the destinies of New South Wales.

If the mother country find it necessary that her offending children should be banished from her bosom, there is, in the vast range of her colonial territories, "ample room and verge enough" for their safe and profitable lodgment, without inflicting their vices, and miseries, and degradation upon this now free and prosperous community. Transportation may, and in this country it has proved to be, a good pioneer of colonization. But here the work of pioneers has been already done. We want no more of them. Let them go into the untrodden wilderness; and may peace, and prosperity, and reformation attend them!

But, for ourselves, is the revival of the convict system desirable? Were the QUEEN'S Government to offer us the option of accepting or rejecting it, how ought we to act? Guided by large views of our country's welfare; caring for our posterity as well as for ourselves; looking at Eastern Australia, not only as a wide expanse of sheep-walks, but as the germ of a mighty empire, and as the moral and religious nurse of the yet barbarous myriads of Polynesia; remembering, in short, in the emphatic language of Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR, that there are "considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth;" should we do well to nip our country's nascent freedom and purity in the bud, and to pray that her green plains might be again polluted with the dregs of British and Irish gaols? We trust that the great majority of our right-minded fellow-colonists would make a better choice; but we deeply regret to find, that some of them, in whose moral rectitude and Christian philanthropy we had long been accustomed to repose unshaken confidence, are beginning to waver, and to betray signs of a morbid desire to bring back the ancient curse of convict labour, with its changing fetters, its disgusting gaol yard uniform, its scowling brows, its vindictive glances, its muttered maledictions, its reeking depravities, its harrowing stimulants of the triangles and the cat-o'-nine-tails, its fierce resentments, long perhaps smothered in the guilty breast, but sooner or later bursting out in acts of insubordination, in daring rebellion, in "taking to the bush," in pillage, arson, and blood. Some of our amiable and religious flockmasters are craving for these abominations, on the plea that they must be supplied with cheap labour. They flatter themselves that they have hit upon the grand secret of political alchemy, whereby convict labour may be separated from all its dross, and be reduced to pure gold. They acknowledge that in the ore it is a filthy substance, of which there is pollution in the very touch; that heretofore it has been introduced into the Colony in all its native ugliness, and has worked like a moral gangrene upon our social character and our public reputation; but they have found a crucible wherein to melt down the odious mass, and whence they can produce a metal without alloy — a species of convict labour combining the sweet industry of the bee with the gentle innocence of the dove!

All the mischiefs of felon labour, they contend, were caused by its assignment in towns, and to other occupations than that of sheep-breeding. Alter the old system in these particulars, and see what blessed results will follow! Let the convicts be driven into the pasture grounds, forbidden to associate with any but "pure Merinoes," or to handle any implement less poetical than a shepherd's crook, — and all their vicious habits, all their criminal propensities, will drop off like the sheath of a chrysalis! Let them call no man master who is not the master of sheep, and they cannot fail to become reformed characters! The innocent avocations of a shepherd, and the mild sway of a wool-growing master, will together act like a spell upon these crime-stained outcasts, extirpating the seeds of vice from their hearts, washing the Ethiope tinge from off their outer man, and clothing them with all the virtues and the graces befitting the primitive simplicity of pastoral life!

Such appears to be the theory of the lovers of convict shepherds. Such are the flimsy promises with which they would cajole HER MAJESTY to revive among us the horrors of convict slavery, their true object being, all the while, the augmentation of their own incomes, the extension and consolidation of their own fortunes, their own personal consequence, their own family influence.

(To be continued.)

IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? II.

"Transportation had been of great advantage to this Colony: but there might be other considerations, of greater weight and more importance, than the mere acquisition of wealth." Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR'S Speech

In opposition to those who advocate a recurrence to convict labour, on condition that it should be restricted to the single vocation of sheep-tending, we have to contend that it is not desirable either for the convicts themselves, or for the mother country, or for the interests of the Colony.

I. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE CONVICTS THEMSELVES. 

Our opponents are pleased to hold a contrary opinion representing the life of a shepherd as the best kind of solitary imprisonment, having all the benefits of that mode of punishment, and none of its evils. We maintain, however, that his life, viewed as a system, is not solitary, is not imprisonment, and has none of the advantages for which that mode of punishment is approved.

1. The Convict shepherd's life is not solitary. — Even in the rare instances in which he is altogether shut out, for weeks together, from intercourse with his fellow-man, his social sympathies are awakened, and interested, and amused, by the animal creation. The feathered tenants of the grove, through their long gradations of rank from the tiny humming bird to the lordly eagle, with their gorgeous plumage, their cheerful melodies, and their evervarying gyrations; the kangaroo bounding across the plains the opossum scaling the giant trees — the emu pacing with majestic step — the black swan proudly sailing on the lake — the myriads of gay insects glittering in the air — the flocks committed to his pastoral charge, with the merry lambs frisking and gamboling all day long — and the very dog that crouches at his feet, and licks his hand, and obeys his nod and beck, — are the companions of his most sequestered hours, affording constant gratification to his eye, his ear, and his imagination, and banishing that oppressive sense of solitude and abstraction which belongs to the inmate of the cell. But we have said that the instances in which he is left wholly to the companionship of birds and beasts are rare. His hut-keeper, his brother shepherds, the visits of his overseer, beside the occasional appearance of way-farers through the bush, are so many links that connect him with the busy world, so many media through which he communicates with the masses of his kind, receives intelligence of passing events, and keeps up his interest in the great drama of life : they are his "loop-holes of retreat through which he peeps" at the outer world, and "sees the stir of the great Babel," though for the present he does not "feel the crowd." And every year will carry the streams of society nearer and nearer to the shepherd's haunts. The population of the interior is gaining ground with almost incredible rapidity. Within the five years from 1836 to 1841, the increase beyond the boundaries was in the astonishing ratio of more than 236 per cent., being upwards of 47 per cent, per annum! Already the shepherd has sufficient intercourse with his fellow to break that sense of isolation upon which the advocates of solitary confinement lay so much stress; already he has facilities for corresponding, by messages and by letters, with his old companions and his former haunts; already the newspaper, as well as now and then a talkative newsmonger, feeds his curiosity about the transactions that are going on in Sydney, in London, in all quarters of the globe; and as the tide of population continues to roll inward, this intercourse and these facilities must necessarily increase. So much then for the shepherds solitude.

2. The Convict shepherd's life is not imprisonment. His limbs are loaded with no fetters, his person is restrained by no stone walls, no grated windows, no bolted doors, no gruff turnkeys. He walks on the soft green earth, he breathes the purest air, he basks in the sun's cheerful ray; his prison is the mountain side or the smiling plain; his roof the blue vault of heaven; his fare wholesome and abundant; his mind free from fear, anxiety, or care. He is a free denizen of the wilderness. He may go or come — sleep or wake — work or play — stand true to his post of duty, or abscond in quest of more congenial employment, just as best suits his convenience or caprice. There are neither chains, nor locks, nor jailers, to coerce his movements. His person is as free as his will. — So much, then, for the shepherd's solitary imprisonment!

3. The Convict shepherd's life has none of the advantages of a prison. Generally speaking, "no man cares for his soul." The sound of the church-going bell never breaks upon his ear; the sacred pleasures of the sabbath never bring their tranquillizing influences to his heart; the solemnities of the sanctuary never appeal to his guilty conscience; the ministrations of GOD's servants never warn him of the sinner's danger, nor point him to the sinner's Friend. He is an outcast from the pale of Christian fellowship. He is abandoned to the gloom of his own ignorance, to the corruptions of his own nature. He may forget that there is a heaven above, or a hell beneath — that there is a GOD to judge him — that he has a soul to be saved. — And is this the way to reform guilty men? Is this the process of moral purification which is to transform the convicted felon into a good and virtuous citizen? Is this the new system of "prison discipline" which our Christian Government is to be taught by the Christian flockmasters of New South Wales? So much; then, for the reformatory tendencies of the convict shepherd's life !

Let us hear no more of the blessed " solitary imprisonment" of this new-fledged theory of "modified assignment." It has neither the safety of confinement nor the abstraction of solitude to recommend it to a moment's notice. It is a mere chimera of the wool-grower's brain — or rather, a mere pretext by which he hopes to blind the eyes of moral England, and to promote his own worldly interests.

II. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE MOTHER-COUNTRY. 

We have nothing to say to the economic argument, unless it be the passing remark thrown out in our former article-that if transportation be less expensive than other secondary punishments, England may have recourse to it without inflicting her felonry upon this country, which has already completed its full term of service us national turnkey. But, as the honorable gentleman who supplies our motto has well observed, there are " other considerations, of greater weight and more importance, than the mere acquisition of wealth;" and, as the Parliamentary Committee nobly avow, England "cannot consent to weigh the economical advantages of Transportation against its moral evils." The grand question for England is, would the proposed system of pastoral assignment be efficient as a punishment? Would it serve to deter her poor from crime? Would it strike terror into her half-starved populace, and so counteract the temptations to guilt with which poverty besets them? There can be but one honest answer — No ! Let it become generally known among the hungry and naked wretches who throng the streets and highways of Great Britain and Ireland, that convicts transported to Botany Bay are not shut up in gaols, not bound in fetters, not kept to hard labour; but that, on the contrary, they are sent into the rich valleys of a sylvan country, where their only toil is to tend a flock of sheep; where they are well fed and well clothed; where they are in a great measure masters of their own actions; where they breathe the most luxurious of climates; where they are strangers to all kinds of privation, hardship, and care; and where, when they have completed the short term of their sentence, or have obtained the earlier freedom of a ticket-of-leave, they may be joined by their families, and earn, by frugal and industrious habits, a more comfortable and independent subsistence than they could ever hope to realize in their native land — let this glowing picture of a transported felon's life in New South Wales become extensively circulated in England and Ireland — and circulated it would be, with embellishments far exceeding the truth — and what would be the effect? Why, it would be equivalent to a Royal Proclamation offering to the famished poor a comfortable home, a plentiful supply of food and clothing, and eventual independence, on condition that they would first break the laws of their country, and submit to be carried beyond sea at their country's expense !

And would our champions of transportation have England thus league herself with the great Tempter of our race? Would they persuade the British Government to gild crime with an extra charm — to strip Justice of her terrors — and to make the gaol a mere avenue to peace and plenty? Whatever may be their hopes and aims, we fervently trust that HER MAJESTY'S advisers will never so far forget their own high duties, and the interests of twenty-seven millions of their countrymen, as to yield to solicitations so selfish in their origin, and so pernicious in their tendencies.

(To be continued.)

IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? III

We have shown cause why the proposed revival of this system is not desirable, so far as regards the convict himself, and the mother-country. Not for the convict himself, because the theory of solitary imprisonment in an improved form upon which its advocates recommend it to the notice of England, is not only visionary, but in direct opposition to fact, the convict shepherd's life having; in it nothing that can properly be called either solitude or imprisonment, and none of those moral and religious accessories which belong to all well regulated prisons, and which so powerfully contribute to the reformation of their inmates. Not for the mother country, because the easy occupations and comfortable circumstances of the mode of life to which it is proposed that the convicts should be assigned, would make transportation, instead of a punishment, a reward, and thereby act upon the British poor, not as a warning against crime, but as a strong inducement to its perpetration. We have now to show why we think

III. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE COLONY. 

The argument of its advocates is, that woolgrowing is the grand staple of the country, upon the success of which the general prosperity depends; that of this success cheap labour is a vital element; that cheap free labour cannot be obtained; that convict labour has heretofore been found cheap and efficient : ergo, that a recurrence to convict labour is indespensable to the prosperity of the Colony.

There is here a mixture of truth and fallacy. That wool is the grand staple of New South Wales, no one can deny; but to argue from this postulate that to the cheap production of wool all other considerations must give way, is to assume that cheaply grown wool is literally and absolutely the only article upon which the colonists could thrive, and that great wealth and prosperity are synonymous terms. Highly as we prize our fleece, we are not prepared to acquiesce in the proposition that the existence of the Colony depends upon it. The congeniality of our climate and of our natural pastures for its profitable growth are not the only causes of its success : the almost exclusive devotedness of our capital and enterprise to that one pursuit, is another and a very material cause. Should circumstances occur to lessen or to divert that devotedness, we have confidence enough in the resources of this vast continent to believe that British skill, energy, and capital; would not be long in discovering other objects worthy of their attention. They have hitherto been concentrated in the fleece, because the fleece has presented an obvious source of profit; the fleece has hitherto rewarded its growers, because it has thus been the one centre of attraction; but let its attraction diminish, and its growers be compelled to transfer to other pursuits the same ardour and determination which have been absorbed in wool-growing, and we should have no fear for the result: the Colony would still prosper; its prosperity might, perhaps be less rapid, less magical; but it would be equal to our reasonably wants comforts, and enjoyments.

The advocates of convict labour attach to wealth a greater importance than belongs to it. To quote from our motto, once more "there are other considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth:'' The simple possession of riches does not constitute either a wise, a virtuous, a respectable, or a happy community. If it possess no higher qualities than affluence or luxury, it may indeed present a scene of sensual gratification and voluptuous ease, but it can have no pretensions to rational enjoyment, to social wellbeing, or to national honour. In what ways convict-gotten wealth would thus degrade Australia, we shall have to point out in the sequel. But before we proceed to these more weighty topics, let us bestow a few words upon the question of cheapness.

1. Convict labour is not cheap. This assertion we are aware, will be regarded by some persons as a downright heresy; for nothing is more proverbial, in their mouths, than that convict labour is of all labour the cheapest. We have many intelligent Colonists on our side, however, when we say, we believe the proverb to be a mere fiction. Looking only at the bare fact, that the convict servant has no remuneration, further than his food, raiment, and lodging, the proverb would seem self-evident; but looking at convict labour as a whole, as a Colonial system, we think there, will be ample ground for the scepticism we have avowed. We doubt this cheapness as regards the individual employer; we doubt it still more as regards the community at large. When the employer considers, that his convict labourer rarely performs even half the quantity of an efficient man's work; that that half is badly done; that his convict frequently robs him, not only of his time, but of his property, that he corrupts the other servants, teaching them to be as idle and dishonest as himself; that he is insubordinate, and has to be taken, to the master's loss in many ways, before the bench of Magistrates, whose sentence of imprisonment or flagellation is another source of loss, causing a still longer suspension of work, and souring the culprit's mind with sullenness and revenge; that he not unfrequently runs away, joins the nearest band of bushrangers, and acquaints them with the secrets of his master's premises and property;— when the employer places all these, and the many other evils inseparable from the assignment system, in their proper position as items in his profit and loss account, we think he can hardly fail of arriving at the conclusion, that the loss of convict labour counterbalances the supposed profit of its cheapness, and that the supposed loss of an honest yeoman's wages is more than counterbalanced by the productiveness of his work, and the propriety of his conduct.

It is not cheap to the community. During the last six years and a-half, the assignment system has cost the Colony, in Police and Gaol Establishments alone, much more than half a million sterling; and if to this be added the cost of gaol buildings, of judicial expenses rendered necessary by the presence of convicts, and of the combined efforts of whole districts for the suppression of bushranging, we may safely say, the system, within that brief period, has burthened the country with an outlay of a good round million! A sum which would have sufficed to introduce full fifty thousand "sound and valuable emigrants." Let transportation continue to be prohibited, and this enormous expenditure will gradually subside, and the British Government may be induced in some way to reimburse at least a portion of our Police and Gaol Expenses; let the present attempt to procure its revival be carried into effect, and this incubus upon our revenue must remain for an indefinite period, nor can we hope that the British Treasury will ever hear a word about refunding.

Convict labour, then, as a whole, is not cheap. If it were, the community at large ought to participate in its benefits; for to allow the flockmasters to monopolize the whole, would be an act of gross injustice to all other employers. We could follow out this point to a considerable length, but believing as we firmly do, that the cheapness exists nowhere but in the imaginations of our opponents, we dismiss the subject with this mere allusion.

Another reason why we think the proposed revival of assignment not desirable is, that.

2. lt would stamp the calling of a shepherd with indelible disgrace. ln all slave-holding countries it has been found, that any class of occupations assigned to slaves has been held too degrading for free labourers to submit to; and so it would be with the pastoral occupations of New South Wales. Let them, as is now proposed, be once declared by the Government to be the appropriate and only employment of assigned convicts, end no free labourer, having a due regard for his character and for the respectability of his family, would either accept them himself, or permit them to be accepted by his children. The trade of a shepherd would be marked with the gaol-brand : it would be distinguished as "THE FELON'S OCCUPATION." The name of "a shepherd" would carry a stigma in its very sound. It would be a sufficient proof of infamy to say of a man, "He is a shepherd!" The emancipated convict would sneak of his past days of degradation as the days "when he was a shepherd." The offspring of a convict, when twitted by a cruel enemy with his base alliance, would be vilified as "the son of a shepherd!" The last extremity of debasement is now to be reduced to beggary;— it would then be, to be "forced to turn shepherd!" Our highwaymen, bushrangers, and murderers, would be known as "runaway shepherds!" The traveller would fear nothing so much as to meet "armed shepherds!" Our wives and children; when unavoidably left for a season in their solitary habitations without the protection of their husbands and fathers, would be in nightly terror of "a visit from the shepherds!" All that is hateful in vice, despicable In degradation, and terrific in outrage, would be associated throughout the Colony with the name of "shepherd!"

The consequence of all this would be, that as an occupation for honest men, shepherding would be ruined; and the flockmasters would be brought to the alternative of making the convict system perpetual, or having no shepherds at all.

(To be continued.)

lS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? IV.

In our first two articles we showed why the revival of this system is not desirable for the convict himself, viewed as a system of reformation, nor for the mother country, viewed as a system of punishment. In the third we stated two reasons why it is not desirable for the Colony, namely 1. Because, taken as a whole, as a Colonial system, it is not cheap—not cheap to the individual employer, not cheap to the community at large; and, 2. Because it would stamp the calling of a shepherd with indelible disgrace, thereby shutting out the services of free labourers, whether native-born or immigrant, and reducing the flockmaster to the alternative of making the penal character of the Colony perpetual, so as to keep up a constant supply of convict shepherds, or having no shepherds at all. Our next objection to its revival is, that

3. It would be injurious to the moral welfare of the Colony. — It is an axiom in political science, as well as in the discipline of the nursery and the school-room, that "evil communications corrupt good manners." If the students of a college not only permitted, but deliberately sought, the companionship of youths of notoriously abandoned character, defending their vicious choice by the plea that these reprobates were necessary to their sports or to their studies, what would be thought of them by their parents and preceptors? But if the parents and preceptors themselves were so far to forget their duties as to throw open their doors to all the profligate lads of the neighbourhood, and invite them to mingle freely with their pupils and their sons, what would the public think of them, but that they had lost their senses? And if the parents were to go a step farther, and invite these reprobates to visit their private dwellings, and to associate with their daughters as well as with their sons, would they not be universally denounced as a disgrace to the parental name? And yet in principle this conduct would be a perfect counterpart of that pursued by our advocates of convict restoration. They seek to introduce into their country the very worst description of human beings — men not of evil repute only, but whom the free ordeal of trial by jury has convicted of crime, and branded with the deepest infamy. They seek to bring in these criminals by thousands upon thousands, and by fresh thousands every year; to bring them within reach of their thresholds and their hearths, exposing their sons and daughters to the demoralising influences of those "evil communications" which not only "corrupt good manners," but endanger every principle of virtue and happiness. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" but these gentlemen are doing their utmost to fling into our social circle the leaven of iniquity, not by little morsels, but by large masses. By the formation of schools, the building of churches, and the support of a Christian Ministry, they are endeavouring to counteract the moral poison; and yet, in the strangest spirit of inconsistency, they are doing that which would spread the poison all over the land, and fearfully add to the virulence of its operations. While with one hand they are building up, with the other they are for pulling down. While with one hand they wield an apparatus for quenching the flames of vice and irreligion, with the other they would scatter firebrands to increase the conflagration.

The objection to this irruption of felons, on the ground of their depravity, is not the only one: there is another, which no sophistry can either surmount or alleviate, — which no good citizen, no sound Christian, can contemplate without a shudder. We allude to the circumstance of their being of one sex. Our convict-seeking flockmasters want men convicts, and men-convicts only. The force of our objection on this head cannot be fully expressed in print without risk of indelicacy; but the reflecting reader will perceive it in his own mind. Of the persons now living in the Colony, brought hither by transportation, there are 39,000 males to 6,700 females, leaving a deficiency of nearly 33,000 females. Of the whole number of convicts transported, from the commencement of the Colony to the end of the system in the year before last, 51,000 were males, and only 8,700 females, being a deficiency of 42,300 females; or the enormous disproportion of 100 males to 17 females. This unnatural state of things, revolting to every correct feeling of the human breast, was, one would have thought, quite bad enough : but it was innocent and amiable, compared with the state of things now sought to be established. For whereas the old Transportation System admitted of some females, though out of all proportion to the males, the new system, "modified and improved," will admit of no females at all! Its sole object is to provide and keep up an ample stock of shepherds. Women must therefore be kept away, for to introduce single women into the pasture-grounds would be to inundate them with profligacy; and to allow the men-shepherds to marry, would be fatal to the main consideration of the whole — cheapness — entailing upon the master, the extra burthen of wives and children so support.

Taking the average of late years, we should thus have an annual importation of between 3000 and 4000 convict men, without one convict woman ! There is already in the Colony a most deplorable inequality of sexes, brought to pass by the old system; but this would be not only to perpetuate the evil, but to make it worse and worse every succeeding year.

Now, we put it to any man, what would be the moral tendency, of this gigantic scheme of wholesale celibacy? What would be its effects upon the shepherds, the convict men-shepherds, themselves? How would it act upon their passions? How would it reconcile them to the supposed solitude of the bush? What images would be most familiar to their imaginations? Accustomed as they have been to give the reins to all their appetites, and to drain the cup of licentiousness to its very dregs, how would this unnatural constraint contribute to that moral reformation of which its advocates so loudly vaunt?

But, besides its grosser evils, this forced celibacy would have the effect of raising up a large body of men who would feel none of those incentives to industry, patriotism, good order, morality, and religion, which the endearments of domestic relationship so beautifully supply. From the finer sympathies of our nature they would be utterly estranged; and what could be expected in lieu thereof, but the smouldering fires of every bad passion, which opportunities would not be wanting to call into fierce action, and to pour forth in destructive violence upon the frame-work of society?

One consequence of this never-ceasing fermentation of corrupted blood would doubtless be, that the interior of the country would be infested with organised hordes of banditti. As in Van Diemen's Land, some fifteen or twenty years ago, the flocks committed to these ruffians' care would be driven away and slaughtered by five hundred at a time. Stations would be pilfered of their stores — travelling in the bush would be full of danger — highway robbery, burglary, arson, rape, murder, would be crimes of daily recurrence, fixing the seal of outrage and blood to that "modified system of transportation and assignment" of which such high plaudits are now trumpeted abroad.

Another bad consequence of the system would be, that that division of caste which has heretofore cost the Colony so much internal discord, and so bitter a sacrifice of political rights, would be revived and perpetuated. The Emigrant class are now disposed to expunge all civil distinction between themselves and the

Emancipists, because they believe that time itself will soon blend the races into one indiscriminate brotherhood. But if Transportation be revived, the distinction of castes, with all its heart burnings and collisions, must revive also. And as we are soon to have a free Legislative Constitution, and a series of Municipal Institutions, the distinction would be more broadly marked, more invidiously upheld, and more fiercely contested, than it has been since the Colony began.

The inevitable effect of this internal demoralization and wretchedness would be to damn the character of New South Wales in the eyes of the world, and, of course, to scare away those men of capital, those respectable and virtuous families, who are now turning wistfully to our prosperous settlements, and disposed to flock to our shores by thousands and tens of thousands. The old stigma of "Botany Bay" would again cling to us, and we should become, as we were in years past, "a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse."

And for what purpose would our opponents expose the Colony to these fearful dangers? That they may grow cheap wool! We have shewn why we think this end would not be gained; but if it would, we earnestly ask, do they not demand a bounty upon wool "much more costly than the wool is worth? They claim a system of protection immeasurably more onerous to the community than that of the corn laws of England, and not a jot less disgusting than that of the late slave-trade of the British West Indies. They seek to multiply their flocks, to enhance their fleeces, to aggrandize their families, not only at the expense of our revenue, but at the heavier expense of our public peace, our public morals, our public character, our public happiness. Their system, in fine, attaches more consequence to the well-being of sheep, than to the well-being of souls.

We would implore our erring fellow colonists to reflect, that the difficulties which have tempted them to call back the convicts, are incident to the present crisis of our history, but are on that very account only temporary in their nature. We have just been relieved from the felon incubus, and left to the better resources of immigration. The change could not take place without more or less of convulsion. Old habits are broken in upon — old calculations disconcerted — old profits for a time reduced. But as we gradually become familiarized with the change, its irksomeness will wear off, its disadvantages will be surmounted. Free shepherds, in numbers equal to the growing demand, and at wages proportioned to the returns of wool, will ere long be attainable. When the shade of odium which still lingers on the shepherd's calling, from its having been so long in the hands of convicts, shall have disappeared — when the nature of its duties and circumstances shall have become more generally understood — and, above all, when flockmasters shall have contrived to make it more attractive in the eyes of free, men with their families, which is practicable without trenching upon ultimate profit — shepherds will come in troops; and such shepherds as, by honesty and judicious management, shall abundantly repay to their employers the extra cost of their own wages. Time and patience will assuredly bring this improved order of things to pass. The life of a shepherd will hereafter become hereditary; fathers will train up their sons to it; it will then be a trade thoroughly understood, being experimentally studied from the very cradle; and hence will arise improvements in all the little arts by which breeds may be advantageously crossed, fleeces improved, expenses curtailed, and profits enhanced.

Let our flockmasters thus cast their eyes upon the future, and not gaze with so narrow-minded an intentness upon the present. Let them think for their posterity, as well as for themselves. Let them look at the wool-trade in its relation to the other and higher interests of their adopted country, and be content that it should prosper by the ordinary means supplied by a beneficent Providence, and not seek to force it into an artificial prosperity by means which must be injurious to the moral welfare of the community, and fatal, in all human probability, to its advancement in the scale of civilized states.

We have thus stated, hastily and imperfectly, some of the considerations which have led us to believe that the proposed revival of the Convict System is not desirable; but that, on the contrary, it would be to New South Wales a heavier calamity than plague, pestilence, and famine.

A bush naturalist visits the asylum - 1881

Front elevation of the Woogaroo female refractory ward (1878)
Queensland State Archive ID 580226

The following post is a composite of five articles first published in the Queenslander and then the Brisbane Courier of March 1881.  

This series of articles belongs to a broader genre of reports by visitors to Woogaroo, some of which have already been reported on in this blog. See my Woogaroo Index for more details.

The author clearly states his purpose in writing the articles “I take up my pen now in order to try and interest people in poor humanity as existing in Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum, and, by describing a visit I paid to that establishment, to create a greater sympathy for this necessary institution.”  This a theme often returned to in the articles. 

Perhaps more interesting is to guess the editorial team's purpose in sending ‘a bush naturalist’ to the asylum. Surely this speaks to a view that the inmates are to be viewed as animals. From my viewpoint with an early 21st Century understanding of mental health and disability the writing is quite offensive. Patients are frequently referred to as imbeciles, halfwits, idiots etc. The ‘bush naturalist’ is frequently surprised that they can do anything of worth. 

But his writing is also supportive of the management of the asylum, Dr Smith the surgeon superintendent is frequently praised, and the level of industry and apparent contentment of the working inmates is observed.  This feeds into a broader narrative about the management of the asylum, to which I would refer the reader to the work of J. Bradshaw Façade of success - Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum 1865-1969. CQU PhD Thesis. (http://hdl.cqu.edu.au/10018/1046363), her themes of toil and sobriety are clear in this 1881 text also.

I. [The Woogaroo Asylum]

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Saturday 12 March 1881, page 333

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20705843 

It has often been my lot, as a writer in these pages, to depict Queensland scenes in their fairest and brightest aspect, to paint Nature in her smiling moods, to try and interest the reader in the love-songe of the birds and the beauty of our Australian woods and dales. But Nature has her sad and silent moods; it is not always fair and bright; and the saddest sight of all is an imbecile man! I take up my pen now in order to try and interest people in poor humanity as existing in Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum, and, by describing a visit I paid to that establishment, to create a greater sympathy for this necessary institution. Asylums for the insane are not now the fearful dens they used to be. Knuckle-dusters, coercion, and villainy have given way to persuasion, kindness, and firmness. At Woogaroo this is most apparent, for as much liberty is given to the patients as is compatible with due safety; light work is found for such as are capable of doing it; and cleanliness, good food, and a good bed are the lot of all. A beautiful view is around, which in itself has a wholesome effect on the mind, and amusements are regularly provided for such as are capable of appreciating them. But there is a want of outside sympathy for the institution, felt not only indirectly by the patients but sensibly by the officers and matrons. People are so apt to cover up these ulcers of society and to shut them out from thought as if they never existed, that Woogaroo is never now mentioned but as a byword, with a jest and a laugh, instead of exciting the sympathy of all to be charitable. " How much could be done by the public if they would," said Dr. Smith to me, "to help to enliven the dull life of these poor fellows! What baskets of flowers and fruit might be sent; what books, pictures, and illustrated papers and toys could be given; and if amateur musicians would spare an evening now and again to give a little concert, or get up some sort of 'penny-reading' or theatrical entertainment, how appreciated it would be! and we officers would not feel that we are altogether isolated from the rest of the world." 

All but the veriest new comers know that Woogaroo Asylum is situated at Goodna, some fourteen miles from Brisbane, and upon the banks of the river. The situation is admirable for its purpose, as from the high hills upon which the newer buildings are placed a most commanding and beautiful view of the country is obtained, and the exquisite water view caused by the double bend of the river gives lightness and completeness to the scene. The place looks healthy too, for the soil is light and porous, and the air feels fresh and wholesome. The state of the hospital bears out this feeling, its inmates being only three men and one woman. It is upon Dr. Patrick Smith that the anxious responsibility of this vast establishment devolves, and on introducing myself as the representative of the Courier and Queenslander I was not only courteously but kindly received, and informed that I should be allowed to see every part of the institution. My first introduction to any patient was to old Miles, who faithfully performs the position of groom, and who now took buggy and horse to the stables. He is a quaint old fellow, a sort of privileged servant, who walks on to the verandah or into the doctor's house, and addresses himself to strangers with the perfectly unabashed air of one of our native blacks. Dinner hour is a great event in the day's routine, but unfortunately I was just too late to see the scene; but to the refractory men's ward we first went, for, as my conductor said, "It is just as well to see the worst first." The large original building on the low ground is used for these patients; it is of two stories, and built of brick. We walked down to it, and a close-boarded 12ft. high fence or wall was come to. A small gate in the wall was opened, and I stepped into the yard attached to the refractory ward. At first the feeling was as if it was simply a prison yard, the high unclimbable wall and the uniform dress of the patients giving this impression. But a glance around revealed what to me was the sad-dest sight I had ever seen.  In the centre of the yard was a large covered shed, under which was a strong and long table, and strong forms and seats, amply sufficient to shelter from the sun or weather all the patients in the yard, yet so per-vene are these poor fellows that many of them never will avail themselves of this shade, but stay out in the sun. Reader, bear with me while I glance around this yard, and tell you what I saw, for it will do you no harm this once to hear of humanity in its saddest form, for thus your sympathy may be aroused and so your charity extended. About sixty men, I should think, were the occupants; some of these were lying or sitting on the table and others on the benches; many of them big powerful fellows, with bushy whiskers (for the prison shave is not enforced here), and of manly appearance until the eye is seen; then, alas, the tale is told, for in that lack-lustre look, in that meaningless stare, we see that the soul's power is gone. Walking rapidly up and down, like a caged lion, is a powerful middle-aged man, a man whose look is dangerous and who is incessantly talking and loudly de-claiming; he is the first one to walk up and salute the doctor and the stranger with him, and he informed me that " Things were not at all properly understood in the world; that Jesus Christ was a much overrated man —at least that was his opinion; that the credit of His teach-ings should by rights be given to the lawyer St. Matthew, in fact that the lawyers were the salt of the earth; witness St. Paul and Moses and Lord Brougham." Much more like this was volubly and incessantly told me, until the doctor wished him good day. This man has actually lived twelve years in this strange home, and has given more trouble than any other patient in the place, and once even managed to escape. His chatter I felt to be a relief from the misery around me. 

In the centre of the yard, squatting down on his feet, with his head between his knees, his arms clasped over the head, and crouched up into the smallest possible space, was one poor fellow. The sun was streaming down on to his bare head, yet he was utterly heedless of anything or anyone around him. "He is always so," I was told. This sitting squatting posture seems to be a favourite one with these worst cases, for in every corner, and at the bottom of the posts of the shed, and at intervals alongside the walls were to be seen these crouching semblances of humanity. Many nationalities are represented in this ward—indeed, they are in all—and all reduced to the one level by the want of mind; the Briton, the German, the Chinaman, are as one in their vacant stare and meaningless face. There are two Australian blacks in this ward; at the call of the doctor they crept from under the shade of a huge fig-tree and stood before us. As I gazed at them I could not help thinking how different to the splendid physical proportions and intelligent vivacity of the manhood of this race as seen in a state of savage nature are these two decrepit insane remnants of what was once a happy and numerous people. A row of single cells is built at one side of this yard; these are conveniently handy for instant use, for among all these poor fellows a paroxysm of extreme violence may at any moment break out, and a separation from the others is immediately necessary. There are many epileptics here, who are never for one moment lost sight of, and who at times must be instantly attended to. These single cells are not punishment cells, but rather safety cages, yet their appearance necessarily is depressing in the extreme, for not even the rudiments of furniture can be allowed; a good thick well-stuffed mattress and a quilted cover being the whole of the fittings, and these frequently are destroyed by filth or in mania. These solitary cells—at least those lately built, are lofty and well ventilated, and all are thoroughly clean. Those poor fellow-creatures whose nightly lot is to be shut up in such gloomy confinement fortunately do not number more than a dozen or so among the men and the same number among the women of the 561 patients under Dr. Smith's care. Poor creatures, they are but as beasts, and know neither cleanliness nor decency, and there is not a ray of hope that their life will ever be any joy to them. 

"Now you have seen the worst in this ward, and these men are all going out to the recreation ground, so come and see where they sleep," said Dr. Smith; and we went into the brick barracks. Here all was spotlessly clean; some rooms had five or six beds, some ten or twelve, some more, and some were for solitaries who could not be trusted with others, but who were amenable to the rule of cleanliness. The beds were all iron stretchers, and upon them the universal thick well-stuffed mattresses, and for covering every bed had perfectly clean sheets, and a heavy counterpane. There was no overcrowding, and ventilation was excellent. The epileptics alone are not allowed bedsteads, as to fall off might be fatal, so their mattresses are put upon the floor. 

The recreation ground is a small paddock, with a pleasant green sward under foot, and the 12ft batten fence around it is not so close but that the view of the surrounding pretty country can be seen. Here football, quasi-cricket, and all sorts of games are indulged in, and even the refractories are quieter and more amenable than when in the yards, but I noticed some of these poor crouchers immediately assume their doubled-up attitude, sitting with their doubtless throbbing head again between their knees, thinking—God only knows what, or if at all, or if they are but as a figure of stone!" 

Before showing you the industrial workings of the place," said Dr. Smith, "we will go into the next ward, which I am afraid you will find to be even a sadder sight than the last, for in it are the aged, the paralytic, the epileptic, and the imbecile." Another yard is entered, this time the fencing, although high, is not closely boarded, and no single cells open into it; neither were the inmates so numerous, perhaps forty men, but I only write from a mental note. In the centre is the usual open large and cool shelter shed; running the length of this is a table; on this there were as usual one or two sitting and lounging. These were the better patients of this ward, and there was nothing more idiotic than usual in their looks; but a painful sight was around, for ranged in two regular rows, one on each side of the table, like beds in a hospital, were the well-known comfortable squatter chairs of the bush—those creations of canvas and battens which do duty for sofas in every verandah—and lying on these, each one with its own occupant, was that saddest sight on earth—the paralytic lunatic! Here is one whose idiotic stare is intensified by the constant jerkings of St. Vitus's dance; near by, coiled up in another chair, utterly unconscious of our approach, is a young man, once a lively active boy, who was kicked on the jaw by a horse, and which some way caused a cessation in the development of the brain, and now he is transformed into a hopeless idiot. "Ah, this old man must have been a shepherd," I said, as we paused before a gray-headed old man. "Yes, you are quite right," was the reply from my conductor. Poor fellow, my sympathy for him was great, for my thoughts took me back to the time when I had much to do with his class; it reminded me of the words so often, in olden times, heard by the sheep overseer, "Please, sir, I am getting very dry, could you send a man to take my flock for a week or two." And here before me is the ending of these bush "sprees"—this gray-haired, rheumatic-struck, paralytic idiot, who feebly lifts his head at the cheery salutation of the doctor, stares vacantly at the stranger, incoherently mutters a word or two, and again subsides into nonentity. Oh, ye vendors of alcoholic poisons! is it on you, or is it on the manufacturer, or on the merchant who sells wholesale, that punishment for the frightful destruction of mind evidenced in this asylum as brought on by strong drink will fall? Or is it to be, as to us on this earth appears to be the case, that the victims only will suffer? 

No need to particularise the occupants of the other chairs; one is but a repetition, with variations, of the other; in each one is, to be seen blank insanity, or aged idiotic imbecility. Poor fellows, they are as comfortable as they can be made, and are as tenderly cared for as children— which, indeed, they are, aged children—for they are fed, are clothed, are put to bed, and in the fine days are carried out into the fresh pure air, where, in these comfortable chairs, they lounge and—exist without thought! 

[to be continued.]

II. INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS.

Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), Wednesday 23 March 1881, page 5

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article919772

Leaving the paralytic imbeciles to doze away their life in the comfortable chairs of this ward, the next yard I was shown into was a populous one, the number of patients being about equal to what I saw in the refractory division, but there was a decided improvement in their physique; however, here also was much to distress the eye; for, walking rapidly up and down, shouting at the top of his voice, and so making a terrible noise, was a red-whiskered, rough-looking bush-man — a victim to alcohol. The impression forced upon the stranger by a sight like this is astonishment that no one takes any notice of another's eccentricities; all this man's bawling created not the slightest sensation; that poor fellow lying flat on the ground, with legs extended and head buried in his hands, never even stirred; those three miserables coiled up and crouching against the fence took no heed when their noisy companion came near them; even the more intelligent who were sitting under the shelter shed were utterly heedless of the raving of their fellow maniac; and the warders gave no heed to it. As long as no violence is shown the patient can rave and do what he likes; there is no restraint, the only precaution taken being to put him in a ward in which he can do no harm, and among such fellow-patients as cannot be influenced by his excitement. When I asked Dr Smith the cause of this man's excitement the answer was "Poor fellow ! It is only a case of delirium tremens, and he is now recovering."

However, the saddest sight in this yard was not this noisy drinker, but a young-looking man who was standing alone, still as a statue, rigidly immovable. Out there in the centre of the yard he is heedless of the hot rays of the sun and of everyone and everything around him; one hand is stretched out in front of him, and the eyes are never for a moment lifted from the ground. Thus all the day long he stands, apparently in the deepest thought, in reality — thoughtless! Solitary and soulless, he exists but as a living monument, for the man within is dead! Poor fellow, my sympathy for him was keen indeed. This solitary standing seems common among the worse class of patients, but in no other case did I notice such excessive immobility.

But enough of these sad scenes, they could be multiplied by one hundred, and each one be as sad as the other. May the few I have described help to increase the sympathy of the charitable, and so cause them to sometimes think of these unfortunate fellow colonists of ours!

I will now pass on to the pleasanter parts of the establishment — for even at Woogaroo it is not all dark. The domestic arrangements of the place are well carried out. The bakery was the first of those I happened to enter. It is in charge of an expert tradesman, whose only assistants are patients. The bakehouse was thoroughly clean and the bread most excellent. I was pleased with the evident pride the man took in his work as he showed me the ovens, in which were hundreds of loaves nicely browning, and insisted upon cutting a loaf to show how good it was. The number of loaves baked every day is 350 to 400.

The kitchen was a busy place indeed. Here again the chef is the only paid man; and a smart man he need be, too, to cook for such a vast establishment, with only insanity as an assistant; notable among these assistants is a powerful Chinaman, who has long been a resident of the asylum. The blacksmith's shop is a useful adjunct to the place; all the bedsteads used are of iron, and are made in this shop, and the repairing of tools and machinery keeps the forge and vice always at work. It is presided over by a paid mechanic, whose only assistants again are patients. The sawmill was a very busy sight — one that quite astonished me by its comparative magnitude, for I saw a powerful steam-engine turning a large circular saw and breaking down logs worthy of Pettigrew's mill. The adjoining timber-yard was full of sawn stuff of all lengths and thicknesses, and numbers of patients were busily at work. But the carpenter's shop was a still more surprising sight and a yet busier scene. There were, I should think, quite half-a-dozen well-made double benches, at each end of which was the usual screw, and at every bench work was going on as regularly and exactly as if it had been a city joinery. I could hardly credit it when I was told that one only of all the men before me was not a patient — that all the mortising, measuring, and other exact work going on was being done by those who were incapable of taking care of themselves, and who yet were showing every evidence of reason in their work, and who, besides, were in constant reach of tools which might prove deadly weapons at any moment. Alas, it was only necessary for me to stroll among the benches and address a word to the workmen to discover that reason had only partial control. This shop and all these men are under the superintendence of one skilled artisan, and wonderful is the work that has been done in it, both in quality and quantity. It is Dr Smith's constant thought and study to find suitable work for his patients; all that can be employed are so employed that there must be some little exercise of the mind. The work is never so excessive as to fatigue, but sufficient to ensure health. I was much struck with the difference in demeanour between these poor witless men and the workers as seen in penal establishments and gaols. At Woogaroo there was no sign of the "Government stroke;" all seemed to work with a will and to the best of their reason, and there was not the sulky dogged look of the criminal about them. The great inducement to work is the tobacco which they are allowed, but the willingness to labour is one of the first signs of recovery of reason. Tables, long and strong deal tables, constitute the principal furniture of the Asylum; I had noticed this as I went through, as they are in every room but the sleeping apartments, and in every yard. As the patients delight to sit and lounge on them they need be well made, and this they certainly are. There is an immense lot of wooden fencing around the various yards and wards; these are rather wooden walls 12ft. high and made of sawn hardwood. All this has been put up, and the strong tables manufactured by the patients themselves. The trees were cut on the reserve, the logs sawn up at the mill, and the wall built by the inmates, and it is well done too. Near the saw-mill is the dam for supplying water to the place; the watershed that fills it is kept sacred from contamination by cattle or horses. At present it has been pumped very low, and a party of patients were at the time of my visit engaged in clearing out the mud from the bottom and heightening the dam. These men were working willingly and cheerfully, and again I was struck with the difference between the prison gang and these unfortunates, to the manifest advantage of the latter. There was here no armed overseer ostentatiously standing with loaded rifle in hand, but the one warder in charge had his coat off and was busily setting an example in filling the barrow and the cart — an example which was willingly followed; but no coercion was used, each one appeared to do only just as much as he cared to do. From this dam the water is pumped into a reservoir upon the top of the highest hill, and thus, by gravity, a pressure is got which is sufficient even for fire extinguishing purposes, except for the newest building near the reservoir itself, and for this special power will have to be provided. The view from this hill is superb, and it now seems extraordinary that the original founders of the Asylum should have chosen the low lands upon which all the older buildings are erected, and which in flood time are covered with water quite up to the doors of the wards, in preference to the airy pleasant site on the hill top. The piggeries were the next "ward" to which I found my way. The scraps and waste from such a numerous congregation of people as are in this little colony must of necessity be very considerable, and the best use to make of it is to turn it into pork; no less than 140 pigs are at present in the sties. To keep such a large number in health, and so that they shall not be a nuisance, can only be done by having properly constructed sties; this end has been gained by building them upon the slope of the hill, a trap door in the floor enabling them to be easily cleaned out, and the offal falling into a barrow is at once wheeled away. Our farmers might with advantage imitate this example. The pigs all look well, and there is a pure Berkshire boar among them remarkable for its size and symmetry. Breeding sows are principally kept, and as an adjunct to the sties a pig-proof paddock is being made, for it is found that where so many are kept confined in a small space the number of young produced at a litter rapidly decreases; and the resources of the establishment are equal to the production of twice as many as are now kept. One old patient has these pigs in his charge, and he seems as happy and delighted with them as if they were his own. The cow-shed adjoins the piggery, and here again our farmers might take a hint, for each cow is allowed a separate stall, in which is a bail and feeding-rack, the whole building being comfortable and clean, and neither the milker nor the animal is exposed to weather. The cows are milked by patients, and I was astonished when told that these substantial farm buildings had all been erected by the labour of the inmates, under the guidance of the one special head carpenter. A large heap of well decayed cow and pig manure was now being carted out to the field for the coming planting of the potato crop; a group of patients were busy at this work, loading the dray, which was also driven by one of them. The cultivation ground attached to the establishment consists of a river flat, and the soil is good. The greater portion of this is in lucerne for the cows and horses, and it was a pleasant contrast to the scenes in the yards to watch the dozen patients cutting, raking up, and loading this lucerne. It is nice light work, as there are plenty of them to do it, and although they are using hayforks and scythes, which could be turned into deadly weapons, an accident never happens, unreliable men being never put to such work. I saw about five acres already ploughed and harrowed, and it was on to this the manure was being carted preparatory to at once commencing potato planting. The ploughing is not done by the patients, a hired man being required for the skilled agricultural work as well as for the other skilled occupations. Millet is grown for the cows, and a few acres of sweet potatoes; also a full acre of tomatoes for use in the kitchen. All the water from the washhouse is used for irrigating some of the low ground, and but for this an acre or two of pumpkins would have this year proved a failure. The farm of course does not pretend to supply the wants of the establishment; it would take far more land than there is here capable of cultivation to grow even the potatoes required. The object of it is to find a light pleasant outdoor occupation for such patients as require that treatment.

Notwithstanding the length to which this report has been extended, so vast is this establishment for the control of our lunatics that I find I have not said a word about the ward for pay-patients and convalescents, or about the female branch (the saddest of any), or of the new buildings, or of the merry dance that I witnessed in the evening. These subjects I must therefore leave for another paper.

III. The Convalescent Wards.

Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), Wednesday 6 April 1881, page 5

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article918938

The ward for those patients whose friends can afford to pay for their support is a one-storied building pleasantly situated up on the top of the hill; the rooms are single-bedded, but except in its isolation it is in all respects similar to any of the others. Nearby are two recently erected two-storied brick buildings. These are for convalescent patients, and are built according to the latest devised and best plan of carrying out the cottage-system of lunatic asylum. In them the "prison" is entirely eliminated, and the patient while sitting upon the upper balcony and viewing the panorama of mountains in the distance, with the foreground of forest, through which every hour or so can be seen the railway train whizzing along, has every opportunity of recovering both bodily and mental health. The spotlessly clean floor, white walls, regular beds, and scanty furniture, however, give a strong smack of the "hospital" to the place, but this is unavoidable. The large main building for convalescents is also high up on the hill. A number of men were in the enclosed ground — it is no longer a yard — but none of these showed any of those distressing symptoms so common in the other wards; indeed it would take the stranger some time before he would detect that anything was amiss with many of those around him. There is a large dining-room in the building, and on the walls are hung maps of the world, and of various countries, and pictures taken from the Graphic and other illustrated papers; these latter are pasted on a stretched calico ground-work, and being varnished give a wonderful relief to the "hospital" feeling before mentioned. I noticed a bagatelle table in the room, and many of the men were reading, for books are supplied from the asylum library and changed every week from ward to ward. Donations of books will be thankfully received; novels, light reading, or illustrated works, are most suitable. One sailer-looking man was intently poring over a map of the world; he had found out Australia, and was evidently looking for something. Expressing to Dr. Smith my impression that surely that man was sane, he stepped up to him and asked him what he wanted to find. Poor fellow! he was looking for the telegraph cable between King George's Sound and Brisbane which he had helped to lay when a sailor; he could find Brisbane and Melbourne, but when King George's Sound was pointed out to him by the doctor he would not have it that it was there at all, and we left him hunting for that place, in — New Guinea! There was nothing distressing to the eye in this ward; all was bright and cheerful compared with those lower down the hill. There is, of course, an unclimbable fence around the building, but it is some distance off and is of open battens, so that the view is not entirely obstructed, and, moreover, the area enclosed is large and includes several of these newer buildings, so that the effect of being confined in a yard is scarcely noticeable. It is Dr. Smith's intention this year to plant the whole of this enclosure with shade trees, shrubs, and flowers, and already he has had made a bowling green. Another great, very great, improvement he contemplates introducing as soon as the dam-making is finished. It is the making a 6ft. deep ha-ha, and placing this 12ft. high fence in it; thus the patients at the buildings will be able to see completely over for it is on somewhat lower ground, and the 3ft. of fencing that remains above ground will have none of that prison-yard look so distressing to the convalescent, who will be securely imprisoned without the fact being forced upon him every time he looks at the beautiful scenery around him.

The kitchen arrangements and accommodation are now insufficient for the establishment, and they are awkwardly situated, being in one of the old buildings on the flooded land. So a new and commodious kitchen and laundry is being erected upon the top of the hill, it is of brick and is being done by contract work, not patient labour; it will be built in the ornamental style of the new "cottage" wards. It is Dr. Smith's intention to have a tramway running down the hill from this kitchen to all the wards on the lower levels in order that the dinners may be easily sent down; as it is now is the great majority of them have to be laboriously carried up hill. The tramway will of course be con-structed by the patients, and the rails used will probably be discarded ones from the railway.

The intention is that all future additions shall be erected upon the hill in the form of a crescent of detached buildings; thus all will have the benefit of the purer air and of the beautiful scenery around, and will be removed beyond the reach of fog and flood. The wards being so detached the risk from fire is reduced to a minimum, and the occurrence of such a frightful tragedy as lately happened at the burning of an American asylum will be rendered absolutely impossible.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

IV. THE FEMALE DIVISION.

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Saturday 9 April 1881, page 460

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page2250554

Doubtless some lady readers will anxiously ask, "How fares it with the poor women whom fate casts into this refuge?" Well, I will tell them; for I was admitted into all, even the very worst, of the female wards, in order that I might be able to give the public an answer to this very question. Of the 561 patients in Woogaroo and Ipswich, 223 are women. Their quarters are all upon the top of the hill, and completely separated from those of the men. The sad scenes of the one are just duplicated in the other, but all is not sad; there is a good deal that is bright and lively, and I will tell it first. Miss Millar is the matron, and on this lady devolves the chief control of all the females — truly an anxious and a heavy responsibility, and one requiring the peculiar temperament which combines the nerve of a man with the sympathetic kindness of a woman to effectually carry out Miss Millar possesses both. The new convalescent cottage of this division is a facsimile of the one in the men's department. It is two stories high, built of brick, with lofty walls and well ventilated rooms, but the view from the upper verandah far surpasses that I described as from the corresponding balcony of the men's quarters, for it looks down upon the most charming river view possible—one of Nature's lovely tit-bits, a scene which cannot but have a salutary effect on the returning reason of the convalescent. These upper balconies, like the walls of the staircase, are protected by wire netting, to prevent any attempt at jumping off or down. 

I was duly introduced to Miss Millar, and that lady first conducted me to the workroom. Here was indeed a busy and cheerful sight, for sitting in a double row facing each other were some thirty women, all sewing at some sort of garment. At the end of the row was a Singer's sewing machine, which one of Miss Millar's assistants, who superintends this department, was working. At one corner on a table was a pile of print dresses in the rough; and the whole scene was bustlingly cheerful. When it is considered that all the clothes worn in the establishment, men's as well as women's, are made by the patients, it will become evident that there is plenty to do; also all needlework connected with the beds, sheets, quilted coverings, towels, &c, is done by the female patients; and the repairing is in itself a heavy item, for taking care of their clothes is the last thing thought of by most of the inmates. Leaving this busy hive, I was taken to the wash-house; here again all was bustle, steam, and slop. Order and system evidently were well carried out, for there was no confusion, and nothing whatever to indicate that there was anything abnormal in the washers. All around the sides of the large shed were troughs of convenient size and height, and at each compartment of these was a patient washing. In the centre were some half-dozen square boilers, each of which is heated by a steam coil in the bottom, and this steam is supplied from a pressure boiler in the yard, which is attended to by a paid workman, not by a patient. Adjoining the wash-house is the laundry; it seemed full to excess with the results of the day's wash, and in mates were busy folding and mangling. Neither the wash-house nor the laundry is nearly large enough to be conveniently worked; but when the latter is removed to the new building now being erected things will be better. The opinion I formed from my casual visit was that these witless women worked with more zest than do many of our domestic servants in Brisbane, and I certainly must compliment Miss Millar upon the efficiency of her working army. But some of the women will not work, and there are, again, others who cannot be trusted to do so; there are incorrigibles among them as well as among the men, and these I was to be next shown. 

The yard into which I was now taken had a shelter shed in it, and benches and a table under its shade. Here the scene in the men's yard was but repeated, only — frightful to contemplate! — all these were women. No work was going on, and there were many bad cases here, for the patients were idiotically sitting or sprawling around. Flitting about and between, over the benches and over the table, was a child of some eleven or twelve years; in her hand she carried a bunch of green grass, which I was told she never, if she can help it, parts with. This poor little girl has been an idiot from birth, docile and lively as long as she has this bunch of grass in her hand — an uncontrollable chattering idiot when without it. Poor daft child! badly begotten and witless as thou art, this love for the green grass gives hopes that the soul within thee is not entirely dead; perhaps when freed from thy wretched body it may expand and find a heaven at last; who can say thee nay? 

Crouching down in a far corner of the yard, away from all the other inmates, was a poor demented woman in an agony of mental woe. Creeping close to the fence, as if for protection from fancied devils, was another patient — a tall dark-haired woman in a paroxysm of madness; shriek after shriek she uttered, her eyes literally glaring with horror, and with an expression of extreme terror on her one-time handsome face, as she never for one minute ceased from her loud declamation and cries. For three days had this outbreak continued, and the matron told me that, although as much liberty as possible was given, to prevent her exciting the others, it was probable, this poor woman would have to be confined. What is it that these poor demented fellow-beings of ours see and hear and talk to, and are frightened of, and are the unfortunate tools of? Is it possible that there is a world of phantoms just beneath the ken of normal eye sight, to which when the body is weakened by disease or drink it then becomes a prey? Is there any truth in the old Scripture text which says that devils go about seeking whom they can devour? Verily, I believe it, and I put down many of these lunatic cases to the old Scripture notion of possession by devils — that is, evil spirits; but Dr. Smith and the medical faculty tell me I am wrong, and that the stomach, epilepsy, and malformation of body and excess, will account for it all. 

"Is there any worse ward than this?" I asked. "Yea", was the answer; "these you now see are not incurable. I wish you to see all. They are in the next ward." So into it I was taken, and I glanced around. Ah! fair reader, the sad sad scene that met my eye — I will not, for I cannot, depict it, but say, "Enough of these distressing pictures;" surely I have given sufficient to rouse your sympathy and charity. Remember, you mothers and daughters who are healthy, or happy, or fair, that many in this yard were once as you, and now they apparently are — soulless! aye, even worse than the beasts of the field. So, think of them, and send them heaps of baskets of flowers and fruit and toys and pictures; not once and for all, but regularly and systematically; and you will be the cause of giving much simple pleasure to some at least of these unfortunates; others, alas, whose present situation is the result of crime, debauchery, and lust, are beyond redemption or even amelioration of condition.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

V. MUSIC AND DANCING

Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), Saturday 16 April 1881, page 6

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article918135

It took the entire afternoon to show me over this complete establishment, but when we had finished our round Dr Smith said he could not let me go yet awhile — that I must have a counter-irritant to the sad scenes I had witnessed in the shape of a sight of the dancing in the big hall, which would take place that evening.

How strange is the freemasonry of the gaol, or of places like this and how rapidly does news spread! While I was sitting in the verandah of Dr Smith's cottage, old Miles, the lunatic groom, came up and gave me a piece of his mind about "editor folk," whom he abused right royally for writing in the newspapers nothing but "lies;" only he emphasised this word by putting a strong adjective before it. Then he went off at a tangent by telling a rambling story of his taking, in his boyish days, the sermon-book out of the coat-tail pocket of a parson, and how the parson swore when he found it gone, and then he got to growling at Dr. Smith for keeping him imprisoned. This is the end of all their ramblings of tongue; commence how they will, one and all get back to the same theme — "Why are they kept in prison?"

It was pleasant while sitting in this verandah, after having had a refreshing cup of tea, to suddenly hear the lively strains of dance music spring up from the building below. It seems that by dint of practice among the warders and employés of the place an excellent instrumental band has been formed, and that upon every alternate Wednesday evening some two hours of dancing is indulged in. This is carried on all through the year, except in the hot summer months, and it is the one bright spot that gives light to the dreary occupations of all in the place. On going down to the ballroom I found it crowded, and dancing in full swing. The patients were arranged in rows on each side, the men on one side and women on the opposite the band is placed in an alcove at one end and at the other is a raised platform, upon which was a good piano, and seats for the superintendents or visitors. Among the dancers were the young folk of the warders, and people in other ways connected with the establishment, and also some of the younger warders and nurses. These, when we entered, were dancing a quadrille. It is not many of the patients who care for the quadrille or waltz; the figures are rather too intricate and delicate for them, they prefer the jig. To my astonishment, amongst this quadrille party, going through the figures correctly and in a gentlemanly and quiet manner, was the very man whom I had observed as so excessively noisy in his talk in the first yard I went into; the man who expressed so free an opinion about Christ, and who has given so much trouble to the authorities. He never misses these balls, and he joins every dance, and evidently considers himself a long way above the rest of the crowd. On the conclusion of the quadrille Mr. Hamilton, the chief warder, and the master of the ceremonies, gave orders to "choose partners for a jig." At these magic words all was delight, instantly a number of the men jumped up and ran over to the other side, and secured their favourite partners. A long double line was formed, and the fun began. No sad scene now, no crouching and moaning alone, or dreaming of phantoms; on the contrary, all was jollity and merriment. How these witless fellow-beings do enjoy this simple jig! each one in his own style, will have it that his is the best, and the variety is extraordinary. The floor need be strong to stand that stamping. No wonder this Wednesday evening enjoyment is looked forward to by them all, it is indeed a glorious institution for giving relief to these troubled minds. In spite of the hilarity there was not the slightest misbehaviour; all seemed as happy as overgrown children, as they are. I don't think they would ever tire, but the band tires, and stops, when instantly all are in their places again. This enjoyment is kept up till 9 o'clock, then tea and cake are allowed as a supper, and the one bright day of the week's existence is over. Dr Smith was quite right in insisting on my remaining to see that there is a bright and merry evening to be spent even in — Woogaroo.

I cannot conclude these papers without testifying to the thorough order and complete systematic working of the asylum, also to the spotless cleanliness and excellent sanitary arrangements, the dry-earth system is carried out in its entirety, and the contents of the whole of the outhouses are removed every day. The general health of the patients is good, only four being in hospital, and they were incurable. It is Dr Smith's wish to carry out the cottage system to its fullest development — that is, more complete subdivision of the patients. That this is much needed is apparent even to a casual visitor like myself; more especially is it necessary among the women. But subdivision means more buildings, and that means more money, and a parliamentary vote for a lunatic asylum is not a popular one. People should remember that, although there is among the inmates the very essence of crime and immorality, and though in many cases their present condition is only a punishment brought on by themselves, yet a large minority of the patients are there through unfortunate circumstances, such as prenatal causes, accidents, excess of grief or joy, persons of emotional and affectionate nature, and all these are worthy of pity and consideration and of the most tender treatment.

Dr Smith wished me to take notice of the rapid increase in the influx of new patients for this year, no less than twenty-five fresh cases having come to him in January and February last. This is at the rate of 150 a-year — a most alarming fact when our small population is considered. However it may be only temporary; perhaps the hot summer weather has had something to do with it, let us hope so, for it is a disagreeable fact.

Reader, I was sent as a reporter to Woogaroo in order to let you know what goes on there, and neither editorial fiat nor the medical superintendent of the asylum put the slightest restriction upon my report. I have just told of things as I found them.