Coburg Leader (Vic.), Wednesday 8 March 1893
Behind Prison Bars
BY THE OUTCAST.
PART III.
Clink ! clink! i clink! We hear the dull clank of swinging links as it comes nearer and nearer; a sound like that of chained beasts as they pace their caged dens. As we listen, the sounds of tramping men and the sharp orders of an officer draw nearer, and the sentry in charge of a heavy iron gate swings it back, and a gang of convicts on their way to the Governor's office enters the court-yard - some in chains and some without and all clad in the sombre uniform of white moleskin knickerbockers and grey jumpers, branded with multitudinous broad arrows and letters. As the squatter brands his flocks and herds, so does the Government brand its property.
At filst glance the unaccustomed eye sees a rank of hard scowling visages, and all pretty well alike, but upon being told by our friend, X---, that in that gang of men awaiting trial for offences against prison regulations, there stand a couple of bank managers, a solicitor and a lay-reader, we look again, and begin to distinguish the intelligent faces of education and refinement, from those of cutthroat villainy. "Yes," said X---; "along that row near us may be seen old identities of Victorian crime - bushrangers whose exploits once made the colony ring, standing next murderers, who by some curious mischance, escaped the too-well-deserved hangman's noose; bank-robbers whose deeds at one time filled columns of the dailies, side by side with swindlers of unparalleled "cheek" there they are, as quiet as oysters, and as dead to the world in general as if they had never existed. Some day they'll finish their sentences and go out to their old scenes and pals and then we'll be thrilled with another tale of crime. Just look at 'em now, how quietly they line up in front of old Peter Parnell. He is a warm member, is Peter, and keeps them well in hand."
We moved past this galaxy of criminal talent just as the veteran ran a couple of them up the steps into the office where outraged Justice sat awaiting them. As he did so, two others came but, wearing a "lor-blyme" sort of swagger, and the rest of the gang filled with brotherly sympathy, and a probable anxiety to gauge their fates from that of their pals, craned their necks, whispering stagily "what did yer get, old man?" The two young gentleman addressed, who had just been in on a charge of insubordination answered airily. " Oh! he put us for the beak," - by which flowery idiom they conveyed to their confreres the fact that they were remanded for the magistrate who visits Pentridge every week to deal with those cases which are too serious for the Governor to settle.
A minute's walk down the asphalt track, past the offices where three "clerical" warders are up to their necks in the mysteries of marks and pay-sheets, prisoner's property and photograph-lists; past the stifling den - called by courtesy, "The Photographic Studio," -where every prisoner has to face the "shadow-catcher," as they term the cheery little Teuton in charge; past these, and we are brought to a standstill by another of the countless gates and wickets, erected to block the orbit of any enterprising soul who might be seized with a yearning to see how things are looking outside. But this gate is a very different sort of gate, so mysterious in its operation; seeming to open at the mere " Open Sesame" of the warder. Puzzled to find the controlling medium thereof, we glanced aloft, at the risk of cervical dislocation, and there discovered, perched in mid-air, an athletic-locking young fellow, whom our friend X--- cheerily addressed as "The Miserable Wreck," industriously working a concern constructed on the plan of a railway point-switch. This actuates a long bar which holds the gate in position. "Looks rather a trumpery job for any intelligent man to be at doesn't it?" said X---;" but its really a treat to have anything at all to do on these posts beyond watching the sparrows fighting or saluting the high officials who might pass once a week."
Another terrace of houses here caught the eye. "More officer's quarters I guess?" said I. "Yes, those are the residences of our chiefs and the hospital dispenser. Though they are situated almost in the heart of the prison, they are accessible to any ragamuffin hawker of fish and rabbits, or "bottle-oh" man, who says he has business there. When you read thrilling tales in the dailies of a newspaper or a plug of tobacco being found in Pentridge, you will know in future how it gets there." "No," I said, "I still fail to see how they can get among the prisoners."
"You do. Well, I will explain: First, you must understand that each officer living within these walls is allowed a prisoner or two to do odd domestic jobs, such as wood-chopping, scrubbing, &c., and of course these prisoners take care now and then to dodge the eye of authority, and contrive to drop a little 'stiff' (note) to the aforesaid rabbit vendor or bottle merchant, requesting him to fetch in a newspaper or some 'weed.' For this they undertake to give any information concerning the welfare of Bill Sykes, who is doing time somewhere inside.
The bargain is clinched, the job done, the paper is found and confiscated. the Press gets hold of the tale, and the warders gets all the blame. Of course the thing cannot be stopped while these quarters exist, though the people living therein do their best to circumvent any little games of that sort. Anyhow, it seems a solemn sort of life, being cooped up behind these dreary walls. How free men can stand it puzzles me."
Just then the lively strains of a piano came drifting through an open window, and a trio of fair charmers tripping lightly to the one, two, three of a dreamy vales, ceased their merry devotions to Terpsichore, and peeped slyly at us through the embrasures of the fern-embowered verandah.
"Those young ladies do not seem to be affected much by your dreary walls," I was forced to remark to X---. "No; poor little things," that cheerful young man remarked patronizingly. "Wait till they reach the marriageable age, and they sigh for some 'braw wooer' who will muster up sufficient nerve to pass through the main gate, where surrounded by grinning warders he is asked, 'where are y'er off to?' and suspiciously scrutinized with a view to ascertaining whether he is an ex-convict or a newspaper reporter. Few fellows can stand that sort of thing you know."
Then, with a reminiscent look in his eye, he continued: "young B---, who used to visit there some three or four years back, was the only fellow I met who seemed to get along alright, but he suddenly disappeared. According to Warder Verdant (that tall fellow you saw at the gate just now, and who is held responsible for all the funny yarns told here,) the young man was proceeding swimmingly with his love affair, but one evening he said to the old lady. 'Don't you think, Mrs.--- , that Dulcie's voice is improving. Just listen to that top note.' 'Excuse me, Mr. B---,' said the old dame, frigidly; "that is not my daughter's voice. It is the dog howling in the back yard." Verdant says you could have heard the dull thud of the old man's boot a hundred yards off."
A few more jokes of this sort on the way down to a large building built of the inevitable bluestone, and we find ourselves on the steps of "A" division, the most interesting, mysterious and strictly disciplined department in Pentridge.
(To be Continued.)
