The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-12 00:00:00

FUTURE FATE OF FRANCIS

John Francis, when he reached his destination, will not
be placed in a comfortable situation, and after a short time
obtain his liberty with a chance of advancement. There,
confined to a spot where there is no escape but through a
line of armed officers and fierce dogs trained to give an
alarm, and to seize, if need be, with devouring fury, the
flying convict, he will have to perform the most irksome
labour, and become, probably, " the wi etched prcedial slave
of some harsh master, compelled by the lash to work till his
strength fails, and liable to be placed i❑ chains for the
slightest offence. There have been cases in which the con-
vict appears to have committed a new crime, in the hope that
the hand of justice would terminate his deplorable existence.
Dr. Ullathorne, a Roman Catholic priest, gave evidence to
this effect.

In 1831, he said, in Norfolk Island, to which place John
Francis will probably be sent, a conspiracy to take the island
had been formed. The attempt was made and failed. Some
of the prisoners were killed and wounded, and thirty-one
were condemned to death. Dr. Ullathorne and a Protestant
clergyman were sent to attend those who were to suffer. On
his arrival at the island, though it was late at night, as those
who were to be executed had but live days to live, he went
to the prison, and there he witnessed such a scene, he says,
as be never witnessed before. The thirty-one wretched men
were confined in three cells, and on his proceeding to an-
nounce the names of those who were selected to suffer, the
effect of his speech was exactly the opposite of what would
have been anticipated. As he mentioned the individuals who
were to be put to death, one after another dropped on his
knees and thanked God that be was to be delivered from that
horrible place, while those whose lives were spared stood
mute and weeping in profound dismay. This gentleman
added, it was very common for culprits, on their way to the
scaffold, to express joy that they were not going to Norfolk
Island ; another Catholic minister, who had attended seventy-
four executions, declared that the greater number of those
he had attended in their last moments had exhibited the
same feeling.
It would be to sicken our readers to enlarge on all the
horrors of " the living death," which is the unhappy lot of
him whose crimes send him to Norfolk Island. There may
have been some abatement of them, and such we hope is the
case since the report to which we have referred was made ;
but hard fare, hard labour, and misery in every shape, awaits
the guilty being, whose forfeited life is not taken by the
executioner. Eight long years must pass before any material
relief will be afforded, and when penitence has earned
some moderate amelioration, the criminal must still remain,
till the close of life, a despised exile, far from his home, his
relatives' and all who would look upon him with kindness,
or cheer him with their society. Let those who have listened
to the nonsense which has been uttered about Oxford bear
this in mind, and repress the mad throbbings, before it is
too late, which would urge them to seek wretched notoriety,
beset as it is with enduring reproach, and intolerable pain.

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ROMANTIC
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oldan autumnAbbeyal
awfigure h
eem rapiditye rge emerged
of from ol m the dark gothic
Westminster,archway
anddawrhteedn,
side of the old wall which marks the site whereightning, along the
brethren formerly had their dwelling. The the monastic
dressed in a darn; tunic falling to his nee a
istranger was
his neck a profusion of mohair, which fell in wore round
and was fastened inside his vest by some invisiblen ample folds
His legs were covered by a woollen material, shapedicess.
garment, in accordance with the age in which he lived;
a
his feet were cased in leather, cut into the fantastic;fand
characteristic of the period which we are writing of. form
head, which was moulded much after the models which Phi-
dias, Carew, Praxiteles, Behnes, Canova, Nollekens, or
Westmacott might have produced, was disfigured in some
degree by a round black covering, which was pulled down
almost to the eyebrows, and the finely chiselled chin of the
stranger was concealed in a bird's-eye handkerchief. His
nose looked as if it was fresh from the studio of the sculptor,
so delicately did it appear carved out into alto relievo from
the countenance, and the stranger's eyes might have been
just wet from the easel of Michael Angelo, Buonarotti, or
Martin Archer Sbee, so strikingly did the pupil appear to be
thrown in between the lowering lashes. Scarcely had the
stranger gained the eastern angle of the cloister, into which
he was about to dart, when an individual muffled up in a
cloak stood before him, and producing two papers, placed
one in the hand of the mysterious individual in the tunic,
retired.
liaving merely called his attention to the other, hastily
The stranger sunk exhausted upon the stone bench
that runs round
the cloister, and the paper fell from his
hand. I darted forward-1
picked up the writing that had
produced such an effect upon the stranger's frame, for be
was by this time in strong convulsions. Having restored his
animation by the usual means, I proceeded to peruse the
paper * * 4{ it was--the copy of a writ I—Punch.