But with us—very often I fear elsewhere, but certainly at that establishment of which we are now speaking—there is no such punishment at all. In scale of dietary among subjects of our Queen, I should say that honest Irish labourers stand the lowest; they eat meat twice a year, potatoes and milk for six months, potatoes without milk for six, and fish occasionally if near the shore. Then come honest English labourers; they generally have cheese, sometimes bacon. Next above them we may probably rank the inhabitants of our workhouses; they have fresh meat perhaps three times a week. Whom shall we name next? Without being anxious to include every shade of English mankind, we may say soldiers, and above them sailors; then, perhaps, ordinary mechanics. There must be many another ascending step before we come to the Bermuda convict, but it would be long to name them; but now let us see what the Bermuda convict eats and drinks every day.
He has a pound of meat; he has good meat too, lucky dog, while those wretched Bermudians are tugging out their teeth against tough carcasses! He has a pound and three ounces of bread; the amount may be of questionable advantage, as he cannot eat it all; but he probably sells it for drink. He has a pound of fresh vegetables; he has tea and sugar; he has a glass of grog—exactly the same amount that a sailor has; and he has an allowance of tobacco-money, with permission to smoke at midday and evening, as he sits at his table or takes his noontide pleasant saunter. So much for belly.
Then as to back, under which I include a man's sinews. The convict begins the day by going to chapel at a quarter-past seven: his prayers do not take him long, for the chaplain on the occasion of my visit read small bits out of the Prayer-book here and there, without any reference to church rule or convict-establishment reason. At half-past seven he goes to his work, if it does not happen to rain, in which case he sits till it ceases. He then works till five, with an hour and a half interval for his dinner, grog, and tobacco. He then has the evening for his supper and amusements. He thus works for eight hours, barring the rain, whereas in England a day labourer's average is about ten. As to the comparative hardness of their labour there will of course be no doubt. The man who must work for his wages will not get any wages unless he works hard. The convict will at any rate get his wages, and of course spares his sinews.
As to clothes, they have, and should have exactly what is best suited to health. Shoes when worn out are replaced. The straw hat is always decent, and just what one would wish to wear oneself in that climate. The jacket and trousers have the word "Boaz" printed over them in rather ugly type; but one would get used to that. The flannel shirts, &c., are all that could be desired.
Their beds are hammocks like those of sailors, only not subject to be swung about by the winds, and not hung quite so closely as those of some sailors. Did any of my readers ever see the beds of an Irish cotters establishment in county Cork? Ah! or of some English cotter's establishments in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire?
The hospital arrangements and attendance are excellent as regards the men's comfort; though the ill-arrangement of the buildings is conspicuous, and must be conspicuous to all who see them.
And then these men, when they take their departure, have the wages of their labour given to them,—so much as they have not spent either licitly in tobacco, or illicitly in extra grog. They will take home with them sixteen pounds, eighteen pounds, or twenty pounds. Such is convict life in Bermuda,—unless a man chance to get murdered in a faction fight.
As to many of the comforts above enumerated, it will of course be seen that they are right. The clothes, the hospital arrangements, and sanitary provision are, and should be, better in a prison than they can, unfortunately, be at present among the poor who are not prisoners. But still they must be reckoned among the advantages which convicted crime enjoy.
It seems to be a cruel task, that of lessening the comforts of men who are, at any rate, in truth not to be envied—are to be pitied rather, with such deep, deep pity! But the thing to look to, the one great object, is to diminish the number of those who must be sent to such places. Will such back and belly arrangements as those I have described deter men from sin by the fear of its consequences?
Why should not those felons—for such they all are, I presume, till the term of their punishment be over—why should they sleep after five? why should their diet be more than strong health requires? why should their hours of work be light? Why that drinking of spirits and smoking of tobacco among men whose term of life in that prison should be a term of suffering? Why those long twelve hours of bed and rest, spent in each other's company, with noise, and singing, and jollity? Let them eat together, work together, walk together if you will; but surely at night they should be separated! Faction fights cannot take place unless the fighters have time and opportunity to arrange them.