Prisoners their own warders

by John Frederick Adolphus McNair; W. D. Bayliss

FORT CORNWALLIS, PENANG.

Plate II.

When Penang was first occupied it was almost uninhabited, and the whole island was covered with the densest jungle, but it was not long before Captain Light, who was appointed the first Superintendent of Trade, made a road to the highest point of the island, then called "Bel retiro" but now Penang Hill.[2] A great part of the island was soon cleared and roads made, so that in 1792, seven years after it came into our hands, Captain Light was able to report that the population had increased to 10,000 souls; this increase of population has been steadily going on from year to year, until, with its dependencies, Penang, after a little more than a century, now numbers no less than 240,000.

Since 1825, when the Indian convicts from Bencoolen were added to those already on the island, their labour was almost wholly turned to account in the construction of roads both on the island and in the province; but about 1850 some intramural work was also undertaken. The gangs in the province were at last taught to cut and burn the jungle as well as to construct the roads, and the records say at some risk from tigers which infested the province in those days, and occasionally carried off a straggler from the gangs at work. They were also bitten in large numbers by the venomous hamadryads which used to abound there, and from the poison of which some died.

About the time our treatise commences, Penang had acquired the monopoly of the trade of the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra. It also had a large traffic with China, Siam, Borneo, the Celebes, and other places in the Eastern Archipelago; but after the establishment later on of Singapore it had begun to decline, and the settlement then became second only in commercial importance. But within the last quarter of a century the trade has considerably revived, owing largely to the planting of tobacco in Sumatra by European planters, and the annexation of the native states of the Malayan Peninsula, both of which have constituted Penang the chief shipping centre for their produce.

Before we pass on to treat of the Singapore jail, it will be well briefly to describe the method pursued in dealing with the Indian convicts on their first arrival in Penang, as far back as we can trace any definite notice in regard to them. They were confined at the outset in the then existing prison known as "Chowrusta Lines," situated on the Penang road; but this proving to be too small to accommodate all the convicts from India, a larger and more commodious prison was built on the opposite side of the road. It consisted of an enclosure, surrounded by a high brick wall, subdivided into yards, in each of which were erected the wards or dormitories. These were simply long rooms open to the high roof, having windows on either side secured by iron bars. Iron gates closed the doorways to each ward, which were locked at night. A gangway seven to eight feet wide ran the whole length of the ward, and sleeping platforms about seven feet wide extended to the full length of the ward on either side of this gangway. The hospital ward was similar to the others, except that it was a two-storied building, and cots were provided instead of the continuous sleeping platforms. The hospital and women's ward were all within the enclosure in a separate yard. Warders' and apothecary's quarters were provided at the main entrance to the prison. Cooking places for the different castes and latrines were constructed in each yard; a military guard room, food and clothing stores were also supplied. Little can be said in favour of this prison, as the wards were ill-ventilated, and the sanitary arrangements were very imperfect. All the prisoners were in a somewhat lax system of association, except those undergoing punishment in cells. Prior to the receipt of the convicts from Bencoolen, Penang itself, as a penal settlement, had already been supplied from India with a number of transported criminals of all tribes and castes, who were working in gangs under free warders; but from vacancies and dismissals, and the consequent inability to supply the place of these warders, where free labour of the kind required was not obtainable, an attempt was then made to enlist the services of well-behaved convicts to oversee their fellow-prisoners. But it does not appear to have at all succeeded at that time, and we have it on record that the Governor in Council at Penang, in the year 1827, deemed it necessary to revise the regulations under which these Indian convicts were controlled; and accordingly we learn that a committee was appointed to assemble at Penang in November, 1827, when a code of revised rules was drawn up, and the following comment was made by the committee as to the employment of convicts as warders: "With regard to the present system of employing convicts as tindals and sirdars, the committee think it very objectionable, as it is impossible that men so intimately connected with those over whom they are placed can exercise that authority and control which is so essential in the management of such a body of men as the convicts. The duties at present performed by these servants are provided for in the proposed increase to the establishment."

These rules, subsequently known as the "Penang Rules," received the sanction of the Governor in Council, and were sent for guidance to the Resident Councillor at Singapore, to which settlement some few convicts had already been sent. This remark of the Penang committee, which in all fairness we have quoted, was doubtless quite true at the time when it was penned, and when the system of employing prisoners as warders was in its infancy, and, moreover, when the whole prison discipline was acknowledged to be in more or less an indifferent state; but, as will hereafter be shown, it did not hold good when the system was well established, and the choice of warders was made from those classes best suited for the control of their fellow-prisoners, especially in the outstations, or "commands" as they were called, where gangs of convicts were placed under their control in the construction and repairs of roads or in stone-quarrying.

In these early days, no organised system of industrial employment appears to have been carried on in this Penang jail, and no intramural workshops of any kind were provided, the convicts being employed almost exclusively on extramural works, such as opening up roads on the Penang Hill and throughout the island, and in Province Wellesley; also in brick-making, felling timber, burning lime, and reclaiming mangrove swamps. The ground on which some portion of the present town is built was filled up by convict labour. Much later on, however, in the Fifties, rattan work was introduced into the prison, and easy chairs, lounging chairs, baskets, and other articles of a very substantial quality were manufactured and sold to the public at a higher price than that for which the same articles could be purchased in the town, but they were far superior both in the quality of rattan and in their make. About the year 1860, blacksmiths' and carpenters' shops were established in the prison, and on the different "commands" in the country districts.