Middletown transcript., 1914-08-08
PRISON Ships NAME
Old Floating Prison Recalls Days
When PeOpled With Failures
MANY LIFE-LIKE PRISONERS

1 AAOW lAAC AdJCo AAAlASL nave ClluChlCu
when the good ship Success" the last
of Great Britian's floating prisons, now
at Warmers wharf for exhibition pur-
poses, was so named! For only brief
period of years was the appellation
justified. All too soon did it become a
word of mockery, that Jeered with sar-
donic twists of its letters, down upon
the unfortunate wretches that peopled
the boats decks.
Success! And all the men on board
were failures, as failures are counted in
this world. Some few deserved punish
ment, but the offenses for which the
majority were convicted were of the
most trivial sort. A present-day judge
would probably be dismissed from the
bench and tried for lunacy dare he
pass such sentences.
At that period (18O2) there were more
than las offenses for which the decreed
penalty in England was death, but the
hangmen were kept so busy that for the
less heinous crimes the sentence of
death was commuted to one of trans
portation for life, or for fourteen years.
The minimum time for a transported
convict to serve was seven years. Such
sentences were given for the stealing of
piece of bread or few apples, for
impudence to those in authority, for al
most anything that happened to offend
the authorities. There are recorded in
stances of women and children being
sent into transportation for the theft of
a piece of bleached linen or two-penny
pork pie.
1t takes little Imagination to see the
Success as it must have looked at that
time. Away down on the lower deck
are tiny, crude cells, without light and
without affair as you and l know it
their chief adornment the massive
chains and locks with which prisoners
were fastened to the walls. Some of
the walls sloped outward. They were
really the side of the ship. This left
little or no foot space for the convicts
who, held fast by their irons, bumped
and tossed about as the ship rolled,
helpless and hopeless. If they became
refractory" as the ships records
called their mental condition, and were
seized with the lust to kill their way to
the top deck, and freedom, even though
freedom meant but the jumping into
the sea and drown, can one do aught but
sympathize?
There is the tigers den, so called be-
cause the worst convicts of all were
herded there together, to brawl their
days away among each other. When
their fighting became too uproarious it
was the first mates pleasure to stand
before the cell and shoot a gun above
their heads, scattering shot in all di-
rections/ This would be keft up until
the shouting and cursing subsided into
dull, threatening murmur that boded
no good for the jolly first mate, should
one of the convicts happen by chance to
reach him.
Today the Success is peopled with
surprisingly life-like prisoners in wax;
prisoners that glare threateningly from
behind their bars; pallid prisoners, de-
fant and uncrushed by their experiences,
whose glast eyes glare from their wax
en- faces in a manner sure to the nerves
of the timid; prisoners whose wits have
snapped under the strain, who smile
idiotically, in happy unconsciousness of
the hell in which they live, and whose
cries only become human when the cat
circles itself about their
protesting bodies; prisoners in the dark,
dingy ''hospital, " where broken bones
were set to suit the fancy of the 'sur-
geon'', and teeth were gently extracted
with huge iron forcepts that could bare
ly force their way into the mouths of
the doctors" victims.