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All that I knew was her description, and that it was up to me to get it into her hands. Two days passed, during which time I kept the letter in my possession; then the opportunity came. The women did the mending of all the clothes worn by the convicts. A number of our hall-men had to go to the female department to bring back huge bundles of clothes.
The first British settlement was made here in 1788, at Port Jackson, the site of the present thriving city of Sydney, and a part of the island was maintained as a penal settlement, convicts being sent there up to 1868. It was the discovery of gold in 1851 to which Australia owed its great progress.
This altercation had lasted for some time, when, in the third year of Darling's administration, a very small event was sufficient to set the whole colony in an uproar. A dissipated soldier named Sudds persuaded his companion, Thompson, that their prospects were not hopeful so long as they remained soldiers; but that, if they became convicts, they had a fair chance of growing rich and prosperous.
And how many women have left their embroidered slippers in those waves of mud! Then there might have been seen repairing those streets the lines of convicts with their shaven heads, dressed in short-sleeved camisas and pantaloons that reached only to their knees, each with his letter and number in blue.
In another vast Apartment, secured by many Iron Railings and Grated Windows, are the Female Convicts in the highest state of Discipline, and very industriously and silently engaged in making Lace, under the superintendence of a Governess.
Mudie, that when a clergyman had been able to attend, and divine service was about to commence, upon his estate, he noticed but few of the convicts there, the rest declining to come, upon the plea of their being Roman Catholics.
"I shall be very glad to don it; hoping it may possess some spell to exorcise memories of the last uniform I wore; the blue homespun of penitentiary convicts." "You must try to forget all that. The 'Anchorage' gates shut fast on the former lives we led; here we dwell in a busy present, hoping to secure a blessed future.
At first when I arrived, there were yards of it in one place or another, but the crime of having a bit of it found on the person, being now severely punished, the convicts keep it out of sight more carefully and are more on their guard, seldom having more on their person than they can swallow.
And, on the other hand, it was a pretty sure sign that the convicts, though emancipated from their shackles, were not well rid of their vice or impudence, when they laid claim, even with the aid of a governor's encouragement, and often of great wealth not very scrupulously acquired, to the highest society and most important offices in the settlement.
This is an evident proof of what these islands are capable of producing, and is worthy the attention of Government, in case the idea, which I have suggested, is entertained, of sending convicts thither from Tasmania.
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