Convicts

Well, I probably shouldn't dance around this topic much longer, it is time I hit the convict on the head. As many of you know Australia was originally one big gigantic prison, at the age of 12 you were liable for your own actions and could be sent to jail, by the age of 17 you could be executed, and by the age of 18 you could be deported to Australia, don't worry, you aren't the only one confused by that progression of logic. Anyway, the British had this idea, their prisons in England were overcrowded, and the cities were overrun by thieves and general lawlessness. Why not send all the thieves, murderers, and anyone else they don't want there to this newly discovered continent half way around the wold and use them as cheap labour to build this new colony? Which is where our visit to Port Arthur comes in. Port Aurthur was a convict prison set up on the state known back then as "Van Diemens Land", now called Tasmania. It is a brilliant location, it is an a narrow peninsula that attaches to Tasmania at this one little point a little under 100m wide, called Eagles Hawk Neck, back then it was called The Dog Line. It was called that because that is where the soldiers set up a guard dog line to stop escaping convicts reaching mainland Tasmania. The port was only accessible by ship and was located in a sheltered bay, so it was excellent to keep the convicts in. Though there were a couple of examples where convicts did try to escape, and to some extent succeeded. There was this one individual named Edward who escaped from the prison and tried to escape up the peninsula, but found his way barred by the guard dog line at eagles hawk neck. In an act of sheer genius or stupidity he decided to try to sneak by using a Kangaroo skin that he removed from a dead one he found, apparently it stunk a bit. So he waited until dusk and the began hopping toward the guard line, and it was working very well, as it was fooling the guards. Unfortunately for the convict the guards hadn't eaten all day and kangaroo is very tasty, so the guard lowered his rifle and was about to shoot when the convict through off the dead skin and said "Don't shoot, it is me Edward, the escaped convict". Alas no Kangaroo for supper that night for the guard. Then there was the tale of the constable's boating crew. The constable used 6 convicts to row his little fishing boat around, so no one was surprised to see them rowing up the harbour, until someone realized that the rowing crew had left the constable back at his house and were making a break for it. They made it as far as Sydney on the mainland, which is where they were apprehended when they pulled in for supplies. As a final insult, the New South Wales government charged the constable 6 pounds in freight to send him his stolen boat back, but the prisoners were returned free of charge. Convicts though were actually what built Australia, and let me tell you why. All of the really labour intensive jobs, such as quarrying, mining, logging, and road building required a large amount of labour, and preferably cheap labour. Enter in the convicts, they were cheap labour, and they were assigned to do all the tough jobs nobody else wanted, including the dangerous ones. Some of their work can still be seen today, when you walk down a road in Australia, have a look at the old buildings, if the stone they are built with are rough cut, they were probably quarried by convicts using pick axes. However if they have smooth edges all the way around, they were probably cut using machines, when the convicts were no longer used as slave labour. Port Artur was not the only convict labour camp, there were actually hundreds all over Australia, but most of the big ones were in Tasmania. If you served your time, and didn't cause to much trouble you were usually released, and you could usually use the trades you learned while working in the jail to gain employment once you were released. This was new thinking, not only reform the convicts, but teach them how to make a living once you send them into the real world. How strange, Australia, the continent built by thieves, murderers, and the like, though I should say most of the convicts sent down here were not really that dangerous. But still what a weird thing to use to lay down the foundations of a country hu?
That's all for now folks.