The Mena weekly star., 1896-09-16
LIFE ON A CONVICT SHIP.
AN OLD SAILORS STORY OF AN
 EVENTFUL VOYAGE.
FIogging an IncorrigabIe Man-Not Pretty Sight, but the Prisoner stood It Like Spartan
 A Break for Liberty.
From the New York Recorder

Where are you going. my pretty maloS
 Way Riop'
 "Way down on the Rio Grande.
 Way Rio Oh Rio.
 Fare you well, my pretty young glfl'
 For I'm bound for the Rio Grande
 "I never sing that song" said the old seadog. as he flung out the ''yVay Rio in q voice like a foghorn that it doesn't bring back the day we left London docks for Gibraltar with load of soldiers and convicts. That was one of the most in teresting voyages ever made. l was an officer on an East Indisman which was chartered by the English government to take out these convicts to work in the stcne cuarries at Gibraltar. We left the Victoria docks and were towed down the river of Grayesend where we tock on beard hundred of the Seventy-hrst Hlgn- landers as guard also some or the 1"en5 ty-eighth, some of the Thirteenth anu some of the military train. Many or the Seventy first Highlanders had been a1 Lucknow There was one. great char, acter, called Anchor Jack, because ne nad an anchor tattooed in the center oI ms forehead. He was very proud or thls lIs.- or nament and when he went into Lucknow among the very first when the breach was made in the wall. he cried out: dere | go. boys. Don't let them take my anchor. | Though a brave fellow, Anchor Jack was always in trouble. and spent most o1 hlS i time in the guardhouse.
 l s'The Twenty-eighsh was famous also, be- 1 ing the only regiment in the English aEmy | 3r{yiIeged to wear the numerals both in ! front and rear of their shakos You see 1 the Twenty-eighth was at Waterloo. and, | being charged in front and rear by a reg | iment of French cavalry. the rear rank | faced about and fought Dack to DdcA -Mitn
 They made a brave display as they came | aboard. l can see them nows and 1 can | hear the sailors singing, Way Rio, Oh Rio! i Fare you we'll my pretty girl, for m | bound for the Rio Grande.' as they pull 1 "At .Sheerness,'' continued the ex-sailor, | i've took on board fifty convicts who came l from Chatham, hundred at Portland ana 1 the same number at Portsmouth, making | 250 in all I tell you, there were stories. 1 The wife of one of the convicts came down | in a carriage and pair to see him off. He | had f20ooO stored safely away somewhere. l Another convict had been lords jockey
 and instigated by rival or ms master,
 had injured his horse so that he could u. n hot
 little trick. Another man had been sailor
 on the ship Hibefnia. It was the brutal l custom of the mate aboard that ship to hit the last man down from aloft, with 2 | belaying pin. The man had been 90 struch | one day, when, in fury, he drew his kni1'
 and stabbed the mate Then there wa
 Dan Gretorex, the great Scotch Iorger
 sent out for twenty years. He was al
 educated man and wrote a poem on boar' i on the death of a sailor who was lost over { board during big storm we had crossln the Bay of Biscay There was anotne ils
 man in the boat to go to the rescue Q
 this young sailor. These men were al a lowed to assist me III deallnS out tnS SUI E ] l and I became well acquainted with ther l i and found in their cases, as Tn many otf r CTS. that the devil is not so black as he
 painted.
 r 'sThe whole ship was for the time bein r transformed into d military camp Th n front part of the ship before the maiI
 mast was barricaded off by stout bull
 head crossing the deck Here the convict
 were quartered. On each side were dool
 that were guarded by sentries. sentriss
 were also placed in the fore and mai r hatcbways. Abaft this buIkhead were th I quarters Of the soldiers and their farnile