The staff is small, and consists of a Director-in-Chief at Hoogstraeten, who exercises a general financial supervision over all the Colonies, a Director at Wortel and Merxplas, and at the latter place the following officers: Deputy-Directors, 2; Doctor, 1; Priests, 2; Teachers, 5; Clerks, 19; Manufacturing Manager, 1; Warders, 81; Sisters of Mercy, 6.
All offences against the regulations of the Colony and all cases of slack work are summarily dealt with by the Director, who has full power to transfer men from one class to another, and from a more to a less remunerative form of work. He can also award imprisonment or solitary confinement, and bread and water diet in the Colony cells for any period up to sixty days at a time. This power can also, in case of necessity, be used repeatedly, so that a bad character can practically be permanently locked up.
A further help to the maintenance of discipline is undoubtedly the privilege of earning wages and of spending them directly on beer and tobacco, etc.
There is one feature of Merxplas which is at first rather startling; that is, that every day there are a certain number who escape. This does not seem to give the authorities much concern, because they are nearly always brought back again in a short time, either through capture, or because their mode of living brings them again to the notice of the police.
A beginning was once made of digging a moat round the grounds, but it was abandoned because it was thought that the possibility of escape helped to prevent disaffection. The colonists also, in the eyes of the law, are patients rather than criminals. Those in Classes I. and II. are, of course, much more closely guarded. Escape, like all other breaches of Colony discipline, can be punished by the Director with imprisonment in the Colony cells.
The results of the work done at the Colony is thus summed up in the “Blue Book” from which the greater part of the detailed particulars have been taken.
“Even more important than the economy of the system is its effect on the colonists. The men at Merxplas have retained a large proportion of whatever manual and technical skill they possessed when they first began to slip out of employment in the outside world. They have entered the Colony before the rapid deterioration, which is the inevitable result of the tramp life, has had time to take effect, and the opportunity afforded them to practise their trades has, in most cases, prevented their ever sinking to the level of the average English tramp. In every shop the keen interest the men take in their work is most noticeable; only one foreman and one warder are employed in each shop, and without coercion the men seemed all working with remarkable energy and real interest. This is, in our opinion, perhaps the most striking feature of the whole establishment.
“The permanent effect on the individual is less, perhaps, than one would at first sight expect. About ninety per cent are habituals. The reason given by all the authorities was always the same. Outside, this class of man of weak moral fibre, and generally of inferior physique, cannot keep from drink. Sooner or later he breaks down, loses his place and returns. Inside, away from temptation, they work well, and as long as the sentence does not exceed two or three years, seem content to remain. The colonies, it must be remembered, do not claim to deal largely with the temporarily unemployed, but with a class that is more or less permanently inefficient. In this connection, however, it seems that no attempt has been made to bring any strong religious influence to bear. There are the usual masses and other observances of the Roman Church, but there seems to be little personal mission work undertaken.”