The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1899-02-04
QUEER NJ Ar RIAGES.
HOW MATINO6 ARE MADE IN
PENAL COLONY.
Ticket OF Leave Prisoners P0rmitted
20 Select Life Partners - Allowed
Three Weeks for Courtship-Murder or
Occasionally Follows.

IN the twenty years / have knocked
about the world, but think the pair
ing on Of the jailbirds at Andaman
was the strangest of them all. For q
couple OF years I commanded the
steamer that runs down monthly from
Calcutta to the penal colony for Brit
lsh India on the Andaman and Nico-
bar islands. I was youngster then
ana interested in all sorts of things,
and 1t didn't take me long to strike up
An acquaintance with the Chief Com
missioner or President OF the colony,
who used to let me go all over the
place. The female prison was an OBJ
Ject OF special interest to me, and I
must have been an object OF special
interest to the prisoners, for, except
the gray-haired superintendent, they
didn't see man from one years end
to another. l had a smattering of the
language, and enjoyed several harm
less firtations with dusky beauties
whose eccentricities even India had
been unable to put up with.
The prison Is as inaccessible as any
Sultan's harem. It is built on a
promontory and protected on the side
toward the sea by sheer cliff 200 feet
nigh, while on the land side the
grounds are surrounded by a fifteen
foot wall. There are several guards
stationed at the entrance, and in or
der to get by the first of these man
has to give certain password. In re-
turn this guard gives him another
password. which takes him by the Sec
ond, and SO on, past half a dozen,
maybe. These police, as they are
called, are the Oldest and most ,hideous
women in the Jail. To be eligible a
woman must have gray hair and a
face that would stop a clock.
All the convicts went down from
Calcutta in my boat, and when saw
them afterward in the prison they al
ways remembered me, and some Of
them would have fallen on my neck II
they hadn't been afraid of the super
tntendent, who was generally along
side Of me. All the prisoners have to
work, and In the female prison they
weave all the cloth for the mems
clothes and their own, and make them
up, too, I believe. The first punish
ment Is to cut OF their hair. This
they don't like very much, and the
threat of it will generally bring them
to terms, for they are just as vain as
other women, and don't want their
long hair cut of. II this doesn't con-
vince them that it's better to work
In the shop, they are made to wear
mems clothes and work in the
grounds, which are beautifully kept,
entirely by the women prisoners. The
trousers and Jackets given to those
who are punished in this way are Of
the coarsest material and are very un-
becoming, and the women have to
trundle wheelbarrows and dig in the
dirt, Just like men. II even this fails,
they are further punished by being
put to sleep in cell with the floor
covered by branches laid in rows, and
then in cross-rows, grill fashion. The
branches are full Of sharp thorns,
which make it impossible to stand, sit
or lie down in comfort. Generally one
night of this Is enough to make the
worst case ready for the workroom,
but there was one girl who stood the
extreme penalty Of three nights in
this room, and still refused to do q
lick of work. She was mighty pretty
woman, and had been sent to the is
land for numbering her lover. She
made nothing but trouble from the day
she came into the jail. She wouldn't
work. and nothing could make her
work; so finally they gave her up as
a bad Job, and made her sit all day
long in mems clothes on sort OF ele-
waited Ounce block. One day got the
superintendent to give me her history.
It's too long to tell now, but It's
enough to make your hair curl. She'll
never get chance to make one OF the
marriages I'm going to tell you about.
When they have maybe a dozen
ticket leave men and women. they
have q sort Of matrimonial reception.
II any matches are made, the couples
are allowed to go up to the Nicobar