36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



than five minutes, including the young lady to whom he was be- 

 trothed, because she had followed the advice of her father and 

 mother, and had broken off the match upon the morning of the 

 day on which they were to be married. As the narrator ended 

 the story, which was told in all its dreadful details, he remarked, 

 " And so you see he was almost justified." 



This instance, which is simply an example out of a great many 

 of a more or less similar nature, is mentioned for the purpose of 

 illustrating one of the most deplorable facts connected with the 

 administration of the affairs of the island — that is, the inevitable 

 influence upon its inhabitants of familiarity with crime. This 

 young man, neither a criminal nor an executive officer, had come, 

 by constant contact with criminals, to look upon crime with pity 

 in some cases, and with actual approval in others. 



It is not my purpose to repeat here in detail the stories of the 

 lives of these people, for those stories are sensational to the last 

 degree, and should be looked upon simply as so many facts in a 

 social study. But, while some of the convicts were indulged, 

 others were treated with unnecessary severity, which merged into 

 cruelty. This unequal justice, or rather the disproportionate pun- 

 ishment meted out to offenders, and over which the officers in 

 charge had full jurisdiction, was, in itself, demoralizing to the 

 great body of convicts, and held out no hope or encouragement to 

 any one to be anything short of the most abandoned criminal. No 

 effort was made to fit the punishment to the crime. Flogging was 

 the one remedy for everything, and, as it always took place in the 

 presence of the assembled prisoners, this became a new element of 

 degradation to the entire community. A convict having stolen a 

 pig, was sent for and flogged. The very next morning the com- 

 mandant was called to the front door, and there on the veranda 

 stood a man horribly mangled by an assassin. " What does all 

 this mean ? " said the commandant. " Fulano has killed me," said 

 the convict. " Away with you to the hospital " ; and, turning to an 

 officer, he continued, " and bring Fulano here to me." And Fulano 

 was brought and flogged.* The influence of such a system of 

 treatment upon the less depraved classes of criminals may readily 

 be imagined. 



* I undertook to witness a flogging once, but, as I did not get through it with credit to 

 myself, the less said of that occasion the better. I was informed by one of the officers that, 

 not long before, one convict had been so severely flogged that he had died of his injuries. 

 In the light of these facts it is interesting to read article 179, section 19, of the Brazilian 

 Constitution of 1824. It is as follows : " From this time forth flogging, torturing, branding, 

 and all other cruel punishments are abolished." It should be added, however, that in 1879, 

 since my visit to Fernando de Noronha, the Minister of Justice of the Brazilian Empire has 

 directed that corporal punishment of the convicts should cease. 



Postscript. — The " Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society" for July, 1888, con- 

 tains an article upon Fernando by a gentleman who visited that place in 1887. The convict 



