Show old prison place of horror remains of century old australian penal settlement bring vividly to mind the long ra story of mans Inhuman inhumanity it y to man alan short of hanging banishment t to van dielens Dl Di emens land tris tasmania mania wao was the worst penalty inflicted on offend ers erg a century ago the six farm laborers of sentenced for combining in a trade union whose centenary was commemorated by the trades union congress this august angust ang were sent there mr stanley unwin the publisher and mr air severn have visited the remains of this dread penal settlement at port arthur in tas mans ans m peninsula near a peaceful beach shaded by gigantic gum guin trees they state in two young men see the world they found the ruins of the village and prison with its exercise yards pitch black silent cell for prisoners who raved and long iong triangular cages ca 9 es each man was let loose in a cage to himself for an hour or so a day during which time lie he could neither speak nor make signs to the nan man in the next nest cage to him without earning extra punishment here he be clanked up and down up and down in his heavy irons that tore the skin from his bis ankles and wrists more unhappy poor wretch than the wildest of wild beasts for one man who had the strength of a gorilla and doubled up ordinary iron bars in ills his grip a special cell had been built for another a special run and house because the horrors of the chain gangs had driven him mad n and aid no one dared go near cear him it Is recorded that tant sometimes when two prisoners were confined together they drew lots to decide who should strangle the other and bo be hanged tor for it across ohp small bay was another building point where juvenile prisoners were housed adjacent was a steep rock overhanging a lagoon called suicide cliff because here cere the lads used to throw themselves to death amid the ruins of port arthur are the ivy clad walls of a once beautiful church which one of the convicts designed buying hla his freedom for work that Is superb even to in its ruined state stale many daring and ghastly attempts at escape were made but once the prisoners had contrived to elude their would be captors and gained the mainland of tasmania it meant certain death from starT starvation atlon in the impenetrable bush or murder and cannibalism among their own ranks it if there were several in their party only a few months before the visit of mr air unwin and mr a woodman had made a gruesome discovery on the densely wooded slopes of mount arthur a human skeleton with the broken iron fetters still clinging to arm bone bode and leg bone beside it in a straight row lay the buttons that had adorned the convicts clothes in those bygone days of harsh tongue and cruel lash evidently this man had es escaped contrived by almost superhuman efforts to break his fetters and struggled on until he collapsed and died itself u was as a hu huge hue e building of two floors where some of the convicts worked if a convict rebelled his irons were made heavier his meager diet was reduced his term of solitary confine went prolonged or he would be put to grind cayenne pepper the worst task of all some convicts became warders and these proved the most brutal of all we took look back in won der the two travelers remark at the callous inhumanity of those days |