194 ANDAMAN ISLANDS AND INHABITANTS 



" The convict comes to the Andamans a creature who, by his 

 Hfe or his acts, has shown himself to be so unfitted for human 

 society that he has been cast out of it for Hfe, or for a long term 

 of years. Received thus, he is first subjected for six months to a 

 most severe discipline — hard, rigid, uncompromising. He is taught 

 what it is like to be forced to bend his uncontrolled nature to 

 the iron yoke of a regime, not of hard toil, but of soul-crushing 

 monotony. From the stern Cellular Jail he is next transferred to 

 one of the associated jails, to the comparative blessing of hard 

 labour, in company with others, but still under a strict discipline. 

 He works and feeds with others in gangs, and there is a certain 

 variety in the tasks demanded, but he still sleeps in his separate 

 cell. Here he stays for a year and a half, and then for the next 

 three years he is a slave, as the word is ordinarily understood, 

 locked up with other slaves in barracks at night, but working 

 in the open at any kind of task that the needs of the Settle- 

 ment may require of him, according to his capacity — an unpaid, 

 unrewarded labourer, but well fed, housed, clothed, and cared for, 

 and always under watch and guard. During the following five 

 years he is still a labouring convict, but the severity of his life is 

 eased down a little for him. He is now eligible for the petty 

 posts of supervision, and for the less irksome and less slave-like 

 forms of labour, and he gets a little — a very little — allowance, to 

 buy a few small luxuries, or to place in the Savings Bank against 

 future necessities. Having thus served ten long probationary 

 years, he is eligible, if he has any capacity, to take a ticket-of-leave 

 and become what is locally known as a self-supporter. 



" The convict is now in a sense ' free.' He earns his living in 

 his own chosen way ; he lives in a village, in his own house ; he 

 farms a little land ; he keeps cattle ; he can move about un- 

 watched ; he can send for his wife and children, or, the far more 

 frequent course, he can marry a convict woman, who, under her 

 own regulations, is eligible for marriage. He can thus become 

 pater faviilias^ with a little hoard of his own earning, and differing 

 outwardly in no way from the ordinary villager or properly con- 

 ducted member of human society. In reality, however, he differs 

 so greatly, that he misses all those things that ' free ' men prize 

 so highly. He has no civil rights under the ordinary law, and 

 all the affairs of his life are dealt with by the executive authority. 

 He must live where he is told ; and generally conduct his life as 



