  Architects and civil engineers — Men of science — Scientific societies — Medical men — Lawyers — "Tracts for the Times" — Curates' pay — Flogging in the army and navy — Crime — Transportation versus hulks — Stories of convicts. This was a reign in which both architecture and civil engineering were nascent, and yet there were some famous men in both professions. Among the former were Sir Chas. Barry, R.A., J. P. Deering, R.A., P. Hardwick, R.A., Sir Robert Smirke and Sydney Smirke, both R.A.'s, Sir John Soane, and Sir William Tite. Whilst among civil engineers we may note G. P. Bidder, once the famous calculating boy, both the Brunels, Sir W. Fairbairn, Sir John Rennie, and both the Stephensons; and, as a mechanical engineer, Joseph Whitworth was preparing the mathematical exactness of the tools which enabled England to hold her own, and more, against the whole world in the manufacture of machinery. Of the men of science there is a fine list. Sir David Brewster, C. R. Darwin, M. Faraday, Sir John F. W. Herschel, and his wonderful aunt Caroline, Sir W. J. Hooker, to whom botany owes so much, as does geology to Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir J. Murchison, The scientific societies inaugurated in this reign are as follows: in 1831, Royal Dublin Society, Harveian Society, British Association; in 1832, British Medical Association; 1833, Entomological Society; 1834, Statistical Society; 1837, Ornithological Society. In mechanical science both the gas engine and Ericson's caloric engine were known, the air-gun and limelight were novelties, and the hydro-oxygen microscope was a source of wonder to thousands. A fine list, too, is to be found of medical men. Richard Bright, Sir B. Brodie, Sir R. Christison, Sir C. M. Clarke, Sir William Fergusson, Sir W. Laurence and Sir Charles Locock. Homeopathy was only just beginning to be talked about at the end of the reign. There were some fine lawyers, Lord Abinger, Baron Alderson, Lord Brougham, Isaac Butt, Thomas Chitty, Sir A. J. E. Cockburn, Sir J. T. Coleridge, Lord Denman, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Lord Lyndhurst, and Sir Frederick Thesiger, afterwards Lord Chelmsford. Among the higher dignitaries of the Church of England in this reign were very few men of note,—all good men, doubtless; but, since the Wesleyan A Clergy Act had been passed, enjoining that a curate's pay should in no case be less than £80 per annum; and that such salary should not be less than £100 per annum in any parish or place where the The army and navy had very few opportunities of distinguishing themselves; they had a well-earned rest after 1815, but they were slow in doing away with the old bad practices in force in both services. For instance, flogging is still in force for some offences in the navy, by the regulations issued on December 18, 1871. Abolition of flogging in the army, at all events in time of peace, was advocated in Parliament in 1836, but came to nought; this was, however, done in April, 1868, and altogether abolished in April, 1881. "Mansion House.—Yesterday, a soldier, named George M'Willen, aged twenty-one years, was brought before the Lord Mayor, charged by a soldier with having deserted from the 77th Regiment. "William Rogers, a private in the army, stated that the prisoner had admitted to him that he had deserted from his regiment. "The Lord Mayor (to the prisoner): Did you acknowledge that you deserted? "Prisoner: Yes, my lord, but not till he told me I was a deserter; I was not quite such a fool. "The Lord Mayor: Why did you desert from your regiment? "Prisoner: Because I was tired of flogging. I am only twenty-one years of age, and I have received nine hundred lashes. (Here were some expressions of surprise and disgust.) "The Lord Mayor: Did I hear you rightly? Did you say nine hundred lashes? "Prisoner: No doubt of it, my lord. "Mr. Hobler: It is impossible, if you received nine hundred lashes, you can stand up so straight. "Prisoner: I received them all, and I can show the marks. It is true I received them at different times; but I've had them all. "The Lord Mayor: And what have you been doing with yourself since you deserted? "Prisoner: I have been mining in Cornwall. I thought it would be the best way of getting out of danger by going underground. "The Lord Mayor: And why didn't you stay in Cornwall? Why did you come to London? "Prisoner: I don't know why I left Cornwall; but I was looking for work when I was taken up for deserting. I am able for any sort of labour. "The Lord Mayor: Why were you flogged? "Mr. Hobler: You unfortunate fellow, you must have been a great violator of discipline, or you could not have been so dreadfully punished. "The Prisoner (shaking his head): I've had my share. "The Lord Mayor: Tell me, are you a sober man? "Prisoner: No, my lord; I can't say I am. "The Lord Mayor: By how many Courts Martial have you been tried? "Prisoner: By four. In Belfast I was sentenced to receive 500 lashes, but they only gave me 300; they forgave me 200. In Londonderry they gave me 250. He mentioned two other places, in one of which he received 200, and in the other 150. He had deserted eight months ago, and had been a miner ever since, and the very first day he ventured to town he was apprehended. "The Lord Mayor: You must be incorrigible, or you would never have been so dreadfully punished. I cannot help committing you." In Arnold's Magazine for September, 1833, a writer, speaking of flogging in the navy, says— "I saw two men who were tried for desertion, and their sentence was to receive 500 lashes round the fleet. There is, perhaps, nothing on the face of the earth so revolting to human nature, as this most brutal of all outrages upon the feelings of gallant tars under such a sentence. The day the man is to be punished is known by the admiral making a general signal to copy orders. A midshipman from each ship goes on board the admiral's ship with a book, and copies the order, which states that, at a certain hour, on such a day, a boat, manned and armed, is to be sent from the ship from which the man is sentenced to be punished. On the day appointed, the signal is made from the admiral, for the fleet to draw into a line. The hands are then turned up in each ship, and every officer appears with his cocked hat and sidearms, and the marines are drawn up in the gangway, with muskets and fixed bayonets. "The blanket is now removed from the shoulders of the poor fellow, and then commences the fiend-like exhibition. After the victim has received one dozen, the captain tells the other boatswain's mate to commence, and after the poor fellow has received the next dozen the blanket is again thrown over his shoulders, and the boats tow the launch alongside the next ship, the drummer and fifer playing the Rogue's March. The same ceremony is repeated from ship to ship, until the surgeon pronounces that the man can receive no more without endangering life; and woe be to the tyrant who dares to inflict one lash more after the surgeon has spoken. I must here remark that I never knew an instance of a surgeon in the navy being a tyrant; on the contrary, both he and his assistants are always respected for their tender regard for the sick under their care. After this degrading and cruel punishment the man is again towed to his ship and helped on board; he is next sent into the sick-bay, his back anointed in order to heal it, and, in case he has not received all his punishment, to enable him again to be tortured. When a man has been flogged round the fleet he is of no further service, his muscles are contracted, and he is no longer an able man." Luckily there was no need for impressment to fill the navy, but it was legal, as it still is. But most things were rougher and more brutal "Some useful papers have been printed by order of the House of Commons, exhibiting by a clear and distinct table the difference of expense attendant on the transport of convicts to New South Wales, as compared with the cost of their retention and employment on board of hulks in this country and in Bermuda. "By a return for the years 1820 to 1829 inclusive, it appears that, deducting from the gross expense the sums earned by the labour of the convict, the cost of feeding, clothing, and maintaining each individual, together with that of the establishment, and of repairing the hulks, did not, in the course of last year, exceed £3 17s. 4-3/4d. per man. At that time Australia, Van Dieman's Land, and the Cape of Good Hope, were so sparsely populated by Europeans, that the introduction of criminal scum could not very well prejudice anything but the criminal colonies themselves. Once there, they were irrevocably fixed until their sentence was expired, and returning before that time was punishable by death, until August, 1834, when an Act of Parliament was passed (5 Gul. IV. c. 67) which reduced the penalty to transportation for life. But if the vicious and criminal were transported, so occasionally were the good and innocent, and one case is specially pregnant; it occurs in a letter in the Times of May 1, 1833— "Sophia Hallen, a gentlewoman by birth, after having been detained in prison for several years on an execution obtained in an action at law by an attorney for the amount of his bill of costs for £100, was put upon her trial at the Clerkenwell Sessions on Thursday last, and sentenced to seven years transportation beyond the seas, for refusing, in effect, to give up her little property to discharge the debt of this person, who is her only real creditor; who, it is alleged by her, has acted improperly in not following the instructions of his client, in the first instance; in subsequently holding back material documents, and in rendering a false account in not giving credit for money he had received, and which have had the effect in making the defendant, evidently a strong-minded If we want to know how the system of transportation worked, a glance through the pages of "The Felonry of New South Wales," by Jas. Mudie, Lond., 1837, gives us details hardly to be found elsewhere. Talking about assigning servants, how husbands were assigned to wives, etc., and then became practically free, he says— "To such a pitch has this system arrived, that the streets of Sydney are, literally, almost as crowded with carriages of every class as Cheapside, or the Strand, in London; carriages not only conveying, but being the property of emancipists, and convicts assigned to their wives. "A London thief, of any notoriety, after having been a short time in Sydney, would scorn to place himself or his assignee wife in so mean a vehicle as a gig; nothing less than a carriage and pair is commensurate with the rank in felonry to which they have arisen in Australia. "A better idea of the effect of all this upon a stranger cannot be conveyed than by the following anecdote of an officer who visited New South Wales on leave of absence from his regiment in India. "Having gone with a friend in a gig from Sydney to the races at Paramatta, they were passed on the road by many genteel equipages, including close carriages, curricles, and landaus. "In answer to the stranger's questions, his companion informed him that one brilliant 'set out' belonged to Sam Such-a-one, who had been a convict, but was now a free man and a man of fortune; that another was the property of a convict who kept a draper's shop in Sydney, but was assigned to his wife, who had brought out with her a large sum of money; that a third belonged to a ticket-of-leave man, who had obtained that indulgence almost immediately after his arrival in the colony—and so on. "At the racecourse, where all the 'beauty and fashion' of "After some graver reflections on so singular an exhibition, he ironically remarked that he thought he had better return as soon as possible to India for the purpose of there committing some crime that should subject him to a short sentence of transportation; for it really seemed to him that that was the best way of getting on in the world!" His description of the "fine lady convicts" is particularly amusing— "Things are differently managed now, and when a transport ship arrives at Sydney, all the madams on board occupy the few days which elapse before their landing in preparing to produce the most dazzling effect at their descent upon the Australian shores. "With rich silk dresses, bonnets a la mode, ear pendants three inches long, gorgeous shawls and splendid veils, silk stockings, kid gloves, and parasols in hand, dispensing sweet odours from their profusely perfumed forms, they disembark, and are assigned as servants and distributed to the expectant settlers. "On the very road to their respective places of assignment the women are told of the easy retirement of the factory, and advised to get themselves sent there, without having to obtain the consent of an assignee master. "Offers of marriage are made to some of them from the waysides; and at their new habitations they are besieged by suitors. "The hapless settler who expected a servant, able, or, at least, willing to act perhaps as house and dairymaid, finds he has received quite a princess. "Her highness, with her gloved and delicate fingers, can do no sort of work! "Attempts are made to break her in, but in vain. 'If you don't like me, send me to the factory,' is the common retort; and the master, having no alternative, takes her before a Bench of magistrates, by whom she is returned to Government, and conveyed to the factory accordingly. The colonies at last rebelled against having the criminals of England imported, certainly not to their benefit, and were successful, the Cape in 1849, and Australia generally in 1864; but a shipment of convicts was made to West Australia as late as 1867. Taken altogether, crime, in this reign, was much the same as in any other, excepting the offences of Burkeing and body-snatching, for the sake of providing the anatomical schools with subjects—details of which are too loathsome to read—and the crimes themselves have now no existence. |
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