Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-06-03
OLD PRISON SHIP /
SUCCESS ARRIVES
Vessel 123 Years Old, and of
Historic Interest,
Docks.
WILSON AND OFFICIALS
WILL INSPECT CRAFT
Once Carried England and Austria
has Most Desperate
Criminals.


prison ship Success. one OF the Oldest
vessels aaoat. arrived in Washington last
night and today is being made ready for
visitors at dock in the Potomac river
at the eth street wharves at the foot
OF NJ street southwest, adjoining the Mare
shall Hall steamboat wharf.
No one will be permitted to board tho
vessel until Friday. when four or five
hundred persons prominent in public lifes
including President Wilson, Attorney Gene
eral McReynolds. officials connected with
the Department Of Justice and others.
an inspection which will be in the nature
Of a private view
Crosses Under Own Sail.
The Success, which is now owned by
Capt d. H. Smith. a young British sailing
master. came here from Baltimore, where
she attracted Isl, 900 visitors. including
formal calls from Mayor Preston. Gov.
Goldsborough and others. She sailed from
England April IA, 1912, the day the
Titanic steamed for New York on her ills
fated maiden voyage. She carries a crew
Of nineteen men, with First Lieut.. e. w.
Nottingham as navigator. and crossed the
Atlantic under her own sail. notwith-
standing the fact that she is 123 years
old. She was built in 1880 at Moulmain.
Cells. strong and gloomy. are on the
tween and lower decks. just as they were
when they were used to accommodate the
most desperate criminals that England
and Australia could produce years ago, as
well as manacles and other instruments
Of restraint and punishment.
Once Prison for Women.
The brutal and inhuman treatment that
prisoners on this ship received created a
fierce outcry in Australia, amounting 10
a revolt against the British government in
1857 Later she was used as a womans
prison.
She is built of teak throughout. and so
celebrated is the wood Of that very ship
for its indestructible qualities, that
piece was cut from her and placed in
the Royal Naval Museum at Greenwich,
London. being marked: Timber taken
from the old Success" and admitting IT'S
superiority for shipbuilding to that Of
British oak.
The old convict vessel is 565 tonnage.
135 feet long, % feet beam and copper fas-
tened throughout. She is as stout and
stanch as ponderous and huge iron knees
can make her. while further stinening
was Internationally added by the rows or
convict cells that run on both sides of the
ship on two of her decks. the material OF
these cells being thick enough to form the
sides of a good. strong ship.
Had Honored Career.
For ten or twelve years after being
launched the Success had an honored and
adventurous career, sailing the Indian
seas, engaged in the spice. ivory and tea
trade, and carrying many an Indian
prince and nabob, for the traces that re-
main to this day show elaborate heraldic
devices, gilded scrolls, quarter galleries
decorated with massive and artistic carv-
ings and escutcheons from stem to stern.
all going to show that she led the way in
the fleet of that time as one fit for kings.
She then carried her own guns. for rings,
portfolios and bolts are still shown.
Afterward rows of gloomy, horror
haunted cells were built for the reception
of her human freight. to be carried in
them, without sunlight, without ventila-
ton, almost without food. with the scan
test Of raiment and the utmost infiiction
of cruelties and depreciation, across the
16, 600 miles that separated England from
her new colonies in Australia. On an
average 80 per cent of the unfortunates
embarking on the Success and her sister
ships died before anchor was dropped at
their destination in Australia, and OF
those surviving the fearsome voyage few
were strong enough to go ashore I'M
aided.