The Portland daily press., 1899-05-27
MARRIAGE ON A PRISON IS
LAND.
The Brides Of the Andamsns-The Penn
al Colony for British India.
(From the New YORK SUM-

the Jail-birds at Andaman was the
strangest thing of them all. For a couple
OF years | commanded the steamer that
runs down monthly from Calcutta to the
penal colony for British India on the An
daman and Nicobar islands. l was
youngster then ana interested In all sorts
of things, and it didn't take me long to
strike up an acquaintance with the chief
commissioner or president of the colony,
who ussd to let ne go all over the place.
The female prison was an object OF
special interest to me, and / must have
been an object OF special interest to the
prisoners, for, except the Rray-haired SUI
rerintendent, they didn't see u man from
one years end to another. had smat-
tering of the language. and enjoyed sew
eral harmless flirtations with dusky beau
ties whose ecoentriclties even India had
been unable to put up with.
1.-THE prison is as inaccessible as any
sultan's harem. 1t is built on promon.
tory and protected on the side toward the
sea by sheer cliff 200 feet high, while on
the land side the grounds are surrounded
by q 15.foot wall. There are several
guards stationed at the entrance and in
order to get by the first OF these man
has to give certain password. In re-
turn this guard gives him another pass
word. which takes him by the second, and
SO on, past half dozen, maybe. These
police, as they are called, are the Oldest
and most hideous women IN tibet Jail. To
be eligible a woman must have gray hair
and face that would stop a clock, be-
sides a record for sobriety and obedience.
"All the convicts went down from
Calcutta in my boat, and when l saw
them afterward in the prison they al
ways remem bered me, and some of them
would have fallen on my neck If they
hadn't been afraid of the superintendent,
who was generally alongside 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. believe. If any of
the women refuse to do their stint of
work they are punished. The first pun
ishment is to cut off their hair. This
they don't like very much, and the
threat of it will generally bring them to
terms, fer they are just as vain as other
women, and don't want their long hair
cut off. If this doesn't convince them
that it's botter to work in the shop, they
are MADE to wear mems clothes and
work in the grounds. which are beauti-
fully kept, entirely by the women priso-
ners The trousers and jackets given to
A. tn
of the coarsest material, and are very I'M
becoming, and the women have to
trundle ,wbeelbarrows and dig in the dirt,
lust like men. If even this fails, they are
further punished by being put to sleep IN
u cell with the floor covered by branches
laid in rows, aad then in cross rows.
grill fashion. Tho 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 work
room, but there was one girl who stood
the extreme penalty of three nights in
this room, and still refused to do LICK
of work. She was mighty pretty wom-
an, and had been sent to the island for
numbering her lovar. She made nothing
but trouble from the day she came into
the Jail. She wouldn't work, and moth
ing could make her work, SO finally they
gave her up as bad job, and made her
sit all day in the workroom in men S
clothes on sort of elevated 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 a chance to make one of
the marriages I'm going to tell you
about, because those are rewards for
good behavior, and she Is the worst wom-
an on the island.
"When they have maybe q dozen ticket
of leave men and women, they have
sort of matrimonial reception. If any
matches are made, the couples are al
lowed to go up to Nicobar group some
distance away and settle on the govern
meDt land There they get commissary
stores, and are left to themselves. The
tickets of leave don't take them any
where except to the Nicobars, for they
nearly all have life sentences. These ma
trimonial receptions are the funniest
thing I evsr saw. The men are brought
one by one into sort of reception room,
where the women are standing in long
row. There are generally breaks in the
line, to separateI those OF different caste
and religions, for they are very par,icu-
lar about that in India. Some of these
men haven't seen "a woman for 10 years,
may be, and they look very curiously at
them. When man is brought into this
room statement is made of his name,
his history, his religion, his age, the
crime he is there for and SO on. There
are, maybe, half dozen women of his
religion ON the eligible list, and he is
taken to the first one in the row. If,
after talking with her for few minutes,
he doesn't think he would like her, he
goes ON to the next one. He is always
covertly casting his eye along the line to
see If there are any further down that he
likes better than those near the top.
Sometimes he sees one near the end Of