The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-12-23 00:00:00

enough exercise to keep them in good health., without
width, with their good living, they would be extremely
liable to sicken. Alit:lost the beet proof of its belies no
toil is that the men tliemeelves like the "outing.
They work in gouge. t .Ik, laugh, soil jest. end arrange
awing theltheelees theie little "plaits" for g,thieg
tobacco and other little Wearies forbidden by the
prison rule, from the free tabodreisj in Which. is we
shall see, they are ganef.* aucoeseful. In thid
manner they while away the time easily and lightly
enough—in winter till 4 o'clock, in summer till half-
past 5, when they are again marched hack to prison,
and, having attended evening prayers in chapel, go to
supper in the cells. The supper populists of one pint
of grind And nine ounces of bread to the recent
embers, bet theta iti the third and North stsge have
the privilege of changing Vied' gttiel tor 114 saine
quantity of tea, "if preferred." These letter hate
also the further indulgence of being allowed to sit up
and read in their cells till 9, the others going to bed an
having their lights out by 8 o'clock. All the men rise
at 5 in summer, and half past 5 in winter,
and, after washing and sweeping out their cells,
get their breakfasts served to them like their
dinner. Their breakfast on Sunday and three
days a week Ise pint of tea and 12 ounces of bread; on
the other three days, • pint of eoeots and the same
quantity of bread ; and in this meal only is there no
difference made, men in all stages of their captivity
faring alike. After breakfast there is chapel, and at
7 io summer and hilf-past 7 in winter there is the
usual muster and walk to the quarries, when there is
the usual " hard labour" we have described till half-
past 11, when they return to wait for dinner as before.
When we add that every prisoner has half a-day's
schooling every 'seek, and that on this half day he
takes a bath and has his hair cut; that on Saturday
afternoon all work ends at 430; that on Sundays after
setvice the ptidoliere may *elk about the yard, or nit
in their cells and real, we have told all the terrors iif
'penal servitude" gild " hard labour" on the public
works, It is impossible for the free labourer, working
very herd fur very little, not to draw bitter thntrunite
between his oWn eundition and tile liduivici's, when he
awls the tenet can collie to hint and batter meat for
take°. As we have said, the convicts boalehow or
other manage to get money from their friends, and
this in epite of every check which the really admirable
vigilance of the Portland Officials can devise to Stop it.
The money comes, either in come or notes or Stamm
in covers of bibles, in the becks of Photogrephiti minus.
tures, tinder the wax of apparently clumsily sealed
letters, and with shilling postage stamps under the
common penny ones, which are carefully fastened over
them, so that the latter, which are of course worth
money, remain unoblitenstai. They arrange with the free
labourer with whom they have covertly made friends to
leave money, a note, or stamps under such a atone,
which he takes in due time, keeping helf the money
or whet money the Astute may fetch, for himself and
returning the rest in t baeco or writing materisls.
What its effects are upon the poor people in the neigh-
bonthood Of the prisons We bete already mid. They
may dislike the crime, but they ire Maid eliongh in
envying the lot of the crinimals ; end when they
simply state whit their own hard work and poor fete
is who can blame them f—Tiiiii.i.
,s. . . . •. ,
.„ . .
Tile GMAT Bileatitetett AT PRV:AND. —111;
lionlitrnetion of i greet realswater, with a nab
Harbour of Refuge behind it, is Ore of those nationa
acts of charity to all Inch, of which the greateit
nation my feel jnustly proud. As a people we have
•ii theirs works cast our nioneY uncut the waters more
i
,heradly then any thee; thotigh lby, M
no meens follows
,nehhe that We ate better reaßvolters or ote
Harbours than other nations who have not spent a
tithe ...f our outlay upon them. It is almost a charac-
teristic of our great public works that there should be
at least half a dozen failures to one succees, and there
has been no exoeistion to this rule in Breakwaters till
now, the prodigal history of their construction being
about the last theme which one would Cllootie by
which to illustrate Admiralty Wisdom and economy.
In the midds of economists the very name of these
Works has not unjustly been considered a synonym for
Waste; amid is always associated With million§ of limey
throttn,broldmist, into tile adi 41 oat-Of-the-Way bays.
and hiletil; Whish, etan without Miele, übsteeles td
their ebtrithem, were always dangerous. Where they
ought never to have been attempted, as at St.
Catharine's, Alderney, or even Dover, the most
stupendous works were begun. At the first named
place they were abandoned, many years ago, after an
immense expenditure had been incurred. At the two
latter they are being prosecuted with equal zeal and
cost to this very day. 'Where, as at Holyhead, • small
sea wall would hate stifiloodi a whole monntain has
been thstewn into the sere,eritli 4011. efteut
fray the
port la tich* diflionit toeritiir, still More di Milt to
leave, and by no tneins entirely cafe to remain in.
lielyhead will cost nearly £2,000,000; Dover, nearly
£700,000 • while Allereey is estimated to require
£1,300,0(10, of which nearly a million is horelessly gone
and said to have been spent in vain. St Catherine's
has a melancholy preeminence in this list, inasmoch
as when several hundred thousand pounds were thrown,
as it were, into the ocean, the works were stopped
from their obrions hopeleasnelis end Mail*, end the
Only farther outlay iticdrred Vide to - break down What
hid been constricted, which made the wretthed, tacky
bey more dangerous even than it had been before. It
id a comfort, after Stith a sefies of doetlY agnefiences,
to be able at least, to 414 N . oils gfeet end coliiplete
adepesa in the noble feekweter and Harbour of Port-
land. Compared with the other unlertakings that we
have enumerated, sled judged by the results which
have been obtained froip them, the Money spent upon
Portlaod inay fairly, be termed a profitable- and a most
wolthY itivestwent of otir national wealth, The
Hathotir Whiell ;tit hat how tendeied Ad com Plate is
the Most spacious of its kind in the kingdom. The
anchorage is admirable, the water is deep, and the
whole bay free from rock or shoal. It gives us a strong
naval station • it is a tangs for distressed ships where
it is most needed in the Usannel ; it lilts been cam,-
'pleted for less than double its first estimate (£500,000),
and in not very munch over the time it was promised.
If any one shoold think these feint praises, or that in
every met given outlay should heve a commensurate
advantage In retturn. he, ran hive eery little apetience
pfnt. mos . Omit *OHM . Unforesidetelel hi kith tiedtli-
takings the &flier the pretensioth the smaller is often
the result. Na more WM said for melting the Harbour
of Refuge at Portland than was said for all the other
atheism+ of the serail kind; the only difference is in the
result, for here the a .notry has fairly got every iota of
edventage that was p sad in return for its money.
It amattaits with otlnißeeekwaters And ,Harbours also
hit Whereas our Wetly (Antes *eke dechle.l on at
once, this was recommended almost year after year for
more than half a century before anything was done.
From 1791 to 1847 was spent in sugseeting it and peso.
sing it on the notice of Parliament, and it was not till
1849 that the first ...one woad dd. Now it is complete;
the gigantic circular fortress at its outward extremity,
a fortreee almost as stupendous and as difficult to erect
its the dreek*ater Heel', ISA* all that is rouirea if,
put the finish to the greatest and most sucaessfill of all
our recent national works. Viewed from the shore be-
neath the bold headbands of Portland Bill, the !Pug
thin stony reef whion,stretchei out Ida tipeting line
into the sea till it, wroild he alfflost Wei a view bdt
roe the Mart of black scaffolding which sannounts it
has nothing just now very imposing in its appearance.
It does not appeal to the senses, and has little to point
out to the superficial eye where thousands and thou-
ssnds have labeured doily for the last 14 years. The
fruits of all these years of toil lie deep beneath the
sea, never to be seen again. If the waves were away
what a monument of persevering ingenuity and labour
would they not ley bare ! The divers employed see It
all, and know that the thin teat above Clue Water tepees
gents a *all of stone lietiettle- to *Welt that of China js
Mere ifiesuereila wet.* ; it Wall of ithilia lieatljf,__l mile
and • half long, neatly 1.00 test high, and 11U0 feet
thick at the base, and all raised beneath the sea. To
make this wall nearly six million tons of atone have
been consumed, and nearly a Millen cubic feet of
timber required for scaffolding. The mass of stone
alone, if built in a solid column 100 feet in dismeter,
would reach to the summit of Mont Blanc ! One, in
fact, is alinont at a loss for standards of comparison be-
fore the immensity of this work, the materials for
which were heaped in at the rote of 2,500 tons a day,
sad sometimes at 3.01), It is only by lookleg at the
tosults it has achieved diet We begin to understand
the greatnese and Importance Of Whit is effected by this
submarine mountain. Portland Harbour Was always a
safe shelter agaiost south-west, north-treat, or northerly
winds. It won exeosed on the east and south, and a
mere open roadstead to the strong gales which blew
from the Knuth-east The Breakwater was designed by
sheltering it here to shelter it from all pointe, an 1 this
it has meet effeethelly done. The Harbour' now
&mote enclosed by this stupendous sea *all, hen at
lo* water an estent Of no less than 2 100 acres.
Taking three fathoms' depth as the eland 41 it low
water, the acreage of our made Herbours is as
follows :
Kingston ... ... ... ... 140
Holyhead ... .., „,
~. eey
over (when made) ... ... ... 374
Portland ... ... .., „, 1,590
Plymouth .., ~ ... ~. 1,741
The average of deep shallow water is, however.
greater at Portland than at Plymouth, there being 4290
acres varying in depth from stoll f. theme. The
Breakwater itself is built in two distinct parte, in the
shape of an obtuse angle. It stretches from what we
may call the island of Portland for a length of about
3,1500 feet towards the north-east, and then for a
length of nearly 5 000 feet more turns due north into
deep water across the bay. The break of the two parts
oceura at the east ea , and just before the angle of
turning north. Thus opening is made in other that
Ares going out in a northerly wind niay not have to
heat up the whole length of the Breakwater, bat peas
at once through the opening into smooth water, and
take a fair wind down Channel. There are 11 fathom
water through this gap, which is wide enough. to allow
two line-of.battle ships to pass out side by side. The
length of this eastern portion of the work has been
entirely completed, even to its rowel parapet and Rea
well. The roadways along the summit are divided into
itwo broad platforms. That on the inner side next the
land ma 40 feet broad and 12 feet above the sea. The
Outer platform above this is carried on a series of arched
*teems, and is 18 feet broad and 28 feet shove the
Sea. These arches are to be used for Government
stores,—coals, shot, &c.,--of which they will bold
Many thousand tons. There has also been erected •
coal storehouse on the land end, capable of containing
6,000 tons of fuel, and in connexion with this are a
series of cranes and cool shoots worked by inschinery,
by means of which men-of-war can be coaled at the
rate of a ton • minute. In fact, the only limit to the
tepidity with which fuel can be poured on board by
these means is the rate at which the crew can fill it
sway in the bunkers. On the east end of thie part of
the Breakwater is a small solid circular granite fort.
It moonts eight 68-pounders, which command every
wave that pours through the opening, and would be
able to fire almost down into the decks of any vessel
trying to break through into the Harbour. It is crenel-
leteel for musketry, too, nn all side.,, and would be a
formidable defence against anything but an iron frigate,
which would have to be cleat with by the heavy
.. . .. .

lines of earthwork bateries called the "cant
weir," whickh are out in the slopes of the Portland
bill overlooking the whole Breakwater. The northern
tkortion of the Breakwater has none of its
superstructure yet begun. It is a mere rurged
and very undgidly reef, formed of im:uense blocks
of stone tumbled about in confusion just as they were
" tipped in." The ridge of scaffolding by which the
whole was constructed is still in its plarga taking daily
its long trgins of hundreds of tons of granite to the