THE PENAL SYSTEM 197 



made and every step is taken that is necessary to render convict 

 marriages legal, according to the customary personal law of the 

 contracting parties. Long is the waiting in many cases between 

 proposal and completion, and many are the disappointments 

 when the conditions are found to bar completion. Once married, 

 the husband and wife are made to clearly realise their condition, 

 and must depart together or not at all. 



" The children, of course, are a very serious question, but the 

 best is done for them, — their health is so well cared for, that 

 in Port Blair, probably alone in all the East, it is the rule to 

 successfully rear the whole of a young family ; primary educa- 

 tion is here compulsory, again probably alone in all the East ; 

 and technical training is free to all. Their inheritance of tem- 

 perament and their early associations are the points of anxiety 

 regarding them, but these matters may be fairly said to be 

 beyond control.* 



"The Savings Bank has already been mentioned as a factor 

 in the education of the convict. How great has been the effect 

 of this beneficent institution will be seen from the fact that it 

 was started twenty-seven years ago with 54 accounts, and is 

 now, and has for years past been, the largest local bank of the 

 kind in India. It has now over 2300 open convict accounts, 

 and has had 12,000 accounts opened during its existence. This 

 means, that for years, more than one fourth of the whole body of 

 the convicts have kept their savings in it, thus showing how 

 well they have taken to heart the lessons of thrift and of faith 

 in the honesty of the Government. 



" But far be it from concealing the fact that there is a seamy 

 side to life in Port Blair. It could not be otherwise ; and it 

 would be easy enough to paint a lurid picture of its inhabi- 

 tants, — easy enough to preach a scathing condemnation of the 

 envy, hatred, and malice, the uncharitableness, the evil-speaking, 

 lying and slandering, the murder and the cruel death, of the 

 amazing immorality, the callous depravity, the downright una- 

 bashed wickedness, that are so constantly forced upon the view. 

 But such is not to the purpose. Human faults are easily seen 

 and easily denounced, for such things lie on the surface. The 

 difficult thing always is to perceive aright the good that there 



* Vide Appendix E. 



