No. 4
We have referred elsewhere to the numerous races of India which went to form the convict body in the old Singapore jail. We found this admixture of castes and tribes a very valuable corrective against a possible chance of insurrection, and for the discovery of plots of escape; and, indeed, sometimes as a means of finding out any serious mischief that might be brewing in the jail.
It seems to delight many a native of India to be a spy upon another; and though intrigues were never encouraged, nor as a rule listened to, yet now and again an informer would appear when the matter was of sufficient importance to be reported to the authorities.
As an instance of this it may be recorded that on one occasion there was a dispute between two Sikhs, one of the "Ramdasee" and the other of the "Mazahbee" sect; and as they went from high words to blows they were placed in confinement and brought before the Superintendent[15] in the Inquiry room. After full investigation into the matter, the "Mazahbee" Sikh was proved to have been the instigator of the quarrel, and he was punished. The whole of his sect appear to have resented this judgment, and determined amongst themselves to be avenged, and to inflict some pain or injury upon the Superintendent. They began to plot and to scheme as to the best way to carry out their design; and this plotting was not lost on the observation of a clever Parsee convict, who, having traded in Northern India, knew their language. He watched them closely, and had decided when their plans were matured to inform the authorities.
The scheme was only ripe for execution, however, on the very morning of the muster, so that there was no time for the Parsee convict to acquaint the chief warder; and as a last resource, therefore, he made up his mind to inform the Superintendent at the muster as to what was in store for him. Creeping stealthily along the rear of the standing men, he timed the arrival of the Superintendent going down the front on his inspection; and, stooping down, he thrust his head between the legs of the front rank men, and level with the ground, calling out only loud enough for the Superintendent to hear, "Khabardar sahib Sikh kepas tamancha hai"—"Look out, sir; a Sikh has a pistol." The Superintendent took no notice of the warning until he had passed to about the middle of that line, then he ordered the chief warder to take a dozen of the Sikhs who were standing at the end of the line, and move them off into their ward that he might inspect their boxes, and he added, "Search them thoroughly."
As the Superintendent passed the end of the line, and was about to inspect another line at right angles to it, no shot had been fired; so he concluded that it was either a false alarm, or that the miscreant was amongst the dozen men in the ward. And so it proved; for shortly afterwards, the chief warder came to report that he had found a loaded pistol on the person of one of the Sikh convicts, and had placed him in a cell to await investigation.
After the muster an inquiry accordingly took place, and it turned out that a fellow-tribesman had managed to pass the main gate with a pistol secreted about his person, and had handed it to the man to whom the lot had fallen to do the deed.
The would-be assassin was sentenced to heavy irons, and placed in the refractory ward. The gang was eventually broken up, the ringleaders being transferred to Penang, and the remainder kept in Singapore under close observation. The Parsee convict, who checkmated the conspirators, was advanced from the third to the second class, and otherwise rewarded.
The design on the life of the late Colonel Macpherson, the immediate predecessor of the above, was also similarly frustrated by another Parsee, who, on the evening before muster, observed a man burying a knife in the sandy ground near which he had to stand for inspection. Waiting his opportunity, he proceeded to the spot and withdrew the blade from the knife, and replaced the handle just above the ground as he had found it. When Colonel Macpherson passed the man on the morrow he quickly seized the handle from the ground to make his stab, but only to find that he was unexpectedly baulked in his villainous attempt to kill his Superintendent.
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No. 5
"FUNNY JOE"
His surname need not be mentioned, but he went by the name of "Funny Joe." He was the son of a clergyman of the Church of England, sharp witted, and well educated; but his moral character, from some cause or another, became quite disorganised, and to the grief of his parents he left his home and took to the sea. His education there stood him in good stead, and under new surroundings he improved for the time, and eventually rose to be chief mate of a ship. Had he persevered in this good course, he would in all probability have succeeded well in the mercantile service; but events proved otherwise, and on his second voyage as mate he was, he said, wrongfully charged as being both insolent and insubordinate to his commander, and on the arrival of the vessel at the Cape of Good Hope he was discharged. Left with but small means, and, to him, almost on foreign soil, he bethought himself of some expedient for making money; so, getting hold of a sailor loafing at the port, he talked matters over with him, and they decided upon clubbing their resources, hiring a hall, and circulating posters that on a certain night at "so much," and "so much" for entrance, a man might be seen "walking on the ceiling like a fly." On the night advertised the hall was crowded. "Funny Joe" then went to his companion, who was collecting the money, and took from him the amount he had received, and told him he might have all the rest that he could collect. He (Funny Joe) then decamped, and was never heard of more in Cape Town. He was next at Rangoon, where he got into the same plight for want of funds; but his mother wit came to his aid again, and this time he posed before the public as a naturalist who had discovered off the coast what he pronounced could be nothing else than a "mermaid," and for the exhibition of this marine creature, which he had cleverly constructed from the head and breast of an ape and half the body of a fish, he obtained a good round sum. We hear of him next at Singapore, where he also advertised his "mermaid" as being on exhibition at a certain boarding establishment. There, however, the "mermaid" did not succeed, and his funds being exhausted he possessed himself of a watch and some cash, the property of the people of the house with whom he lodged, and for which he was sent to jail. Here he came under some strict discipline and good wholesome advice, and it was in the Singapore jail that he told the story of his life as given above.
When the term of his sentence had expired, and he was about to be discharged, he warmly thanked the Superintendent for his counsel, and declared very positively that he intended to turn over a new leaf.
We believe that he did so; at all events, the last heard of him was that he had signed articles as mate of a ship; and he scrupulously returned to the Superintendent (Major McNair) the money he had advanced to him from his private purse to make a new start in life.
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No. 6
CONVICTS WITH A COBRA AND A CROCODILE
It is well known that the Cobra di Capello is one of the most deadly of the snakes of India and the East. The palish yellow cobra of India is perhaps more dangerous and surely fatal in its bite than the black "cobra" or "kala samp," which is more frequently found in the Straits Settlements, but neither of them is very pleasant to be in close proximity to.
The Cobra.—As we have noticed elsewhere, some of the convicts were very expert in catching these reptiles and extracting their fangs. The following personal incident is given by a public works officer:—
"When the new cantonments were in progress at Tanglin I was placed in charge of the works by Col. G. C. Collyer, R.E., the then Chief Engineer of the Straits Settlements, and was permitted to occupy a part of a large house on the estate. The bath rooms were on the ground floor, and stairs from the bedrooms above led down to them. One morning, just as I was sitting down to breakfast, my convict orderly came running to me and said that a large 'cobra' had crawled up the drain leading from the main drain at the back of the house to the bath room. We went immediately to the bath room, and, finding that the snake had not made his appearance inside, I stopped up the opening into the drain with a towel, and the convict orderly, who had gone round to the outer end of the drain, began pushing a long bamboo up it. This drove the snake to the upper end. The convict, then, with a pickaxe, loosened a brick from the covering of the drain close to the wall of the house, while I stirred up the bamboo rod. The convict then gently and by degrees removed the brick, and in an instant the snake emerged fully from the drain, raising its hood and hissing at us. It then retreated back to the drain, when the convict dexterously seized it by the tail, and, drawing it out, held it tight by the neck. The convict then teased the snake with his coarse flannel 'kumblie,' or blanket, and it struck at it several times with its fangs; when, with a sudden jerk, the convict drew out the fangs in the blanket, and the snake became perfectly harmless.
"The snake was afterwards sent on board H.M. surveying schooner Saracen, and getting loose on board was summarily destroyed, for none on board had been told that its fangs had been removed."
The Crocodile.—Govindhoo, a convict employed at the Pulo Obin stone quarries, was admitted into hospital with a lacerated leg, the foot being almost severed from the body. He was visited by one of us, and told his story as follows:—
"I was walking along the sea beach close to the water, when I was suddenly seized from behind, and I at once saw that I was in the jaws of a crocodile. I had nothing in my hand but my 'roomāl,' or handkerchief, with my keys tied in one corner. I hit at his head with this, but it was of no use, and finding myself being dragged into deeper water, I suddenly thought I could dig out both his eyes,[16] and I did it, and very shortly afterwards he let me go, and I half swam, half paddled back to the shore."
The convict's leg had to be amputated.
The Malays say that there are three descriptions of crocodiles, or, as they call them, "buaya." The first is the "katak" or frog crocodile, the second the "labu" or gourd crocodile, and the third is the "tumbaga" or copper crocodile. The frog crocodile is the most active, and we have often been told by Malay boatmen, when going up a river, to keep our hands and shoulders well within the boat, for fear of their sudden attack. There are, however, known to our naturalists a dozen or more different forms of the crocodile proper, and it is said that they have been found up to thirty feet in length; but from eighteen feet to twenty feet is the longest found in the Straits of Malacca. They may often be seen in the Malay rivers, and on the coast, floating in the water, with the snout well above the surface, on the look out for prey.
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