Excursion to Port Arthur . 
287 
necessity, rigidly severe—not a fault, no, not the most 
trivial, is overlooked: but the most anxious, the most 
searching enquiry ever precedes punishment; and the 
offender is made to feel that its infliction proceeds from 
no arbitrary, capricious tyranny, but is the inevitable and 
well-known reward of his own mal-practices. The felons 
are of course distributed, as much as possible, in various 
classified gangs. Upon their first arrival they are closely 
searched, being prohibited from having money, tobacco, 
or any document. The standing regulations of the 
Settlement are then read, and an earnest caution to act 
in conformity given. They are next taken to the hos¬ 
pital, where each undergoes an individual examination 
of the medical officer. Labour proportionate to their 
strength is then assigned, the physically incapacitated 
being employed in stone-breaking. Men are removed 
from the more laborious gangs according as their behaviour 
is good, or their sentence expires. All new comers sleep 
in silent apartments (a sore punishment) for periods com¬ 
mensurate with the nature of their offence, such periods 
increasing in a twofold degree to those who have pre¬ 
viously been at the Settlement. The carrying gang is 
deemed the most severe. This body, sometimes 60 or 
70 in number, transport on their shoulders immense 
spars (the masts and yards of a 300-ton ship for example) 
from the forest to the dockyards. The inequality of 
pressure will at once be obvious; some men during the 
different stages of transit sometimes sustaining a couple 
of hundredweight, sometimes less than 40 lbs. The 
dockyard gang is scarcely less laborious than the 
carrying, the men being frequently immersed in water 
to the neck while securing naval timber to the launches 
for the purpose of transport to the arsenal. It must be 
borne in mind that no beasts of burden are permitted 
either at Port Arthur or the probation stations; and 
