Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1920-01-30
HELD IN M0ckERY
Kangaroo Courts" Instituted by
Australian Convicts.
Prisoners at Botany Bay Said to Have
Invented Idea to Relieve the Mo-
notony of Their. Existence
- Spread to United States.

Kangaroo court is an expression
which, however strange it may he tc
the layman, is familiar to most United
States marshals, post office inspectors
and the police forces of large cities
remarks writer in the Detroit News
What il really stands for is explained
by post Office Inspector who has had
much experience with offenders and
criminals.
1t appears that in a number of the
larger prisons in this country the pris'
oners, from time TO time, are accus'
toned to hold what they call kangaroo
court, and that every notorious GRIM
inal in the United States is probably
not only familiar with the term, but
has no doubt presided, often enough
as judge or prosecuting attorney In
this relation, or perhaps has been tried
| for some of the numerous mock
charges that are preferred against
those who have the misfortune to be
hailed before such a tribunal.
Such u court is held only in the
great prisons of the country, being
entirely unknown in the country jails.
The institution of Kangaroo court
seems to date back some 40 years in
the United States.
In the days when Australia was a
penal colony the convicts at Botany
Bay, by way of amusing themselves
and relieving the monotony of prison
life, used to organize a sort of mock
court al which the shrewdest and oft
en- the worst criminals of the lot pre-
sided as judge, while, others acted as
jurymen, prosecuting attorneys, bail
ifs, crers and the like
At such trials the prisoners were
wont to take ON recent arrivals from
England on all manner of mock
charges, such as snoring too loudly,
washing their faces with soap, and SO
on. If it was found that among the
batch of newcomers, convicts just
from the old country, there were sew
eral who possessed money, court was
Immediately convened and the ones
suspected of having funds were hailed
up on the charge Of having red hair or
wearing box-toed shoes.
The trial was held with mock grayi-
ty and decorum, and in the end the
prisoner would be found guilty and
fined whatever amount he was known
to have on his person for the offense
charged. The money thus obtained
would be divided among the old, long
term convicts, who would buy tobacco
and other luxuries with it. while the
victim of this form of eXtortion would
have no recourse except to await the
time when he himself got chance to
preside as judge or sit on the jury
ut the trial of some new arrival.
It was called kangaroo court because
in those days the Botany Bay convicts
spoke of themselves as kangarooS, an
animal very abundant, as everybody
knows, in Australia. a.
The institution, as well as the term.
travelled from Australia to England.
whittier il was brought. by returning
Botany Bay convacts. whose terms had
expired. 1t had a short life in Eng
land, however. where il, was speedily
discovered by the jailers and .turnkeys
and broken up; but it was not long
afterward that it found its way into
rlle prisons Of the United States, where
it has remained ever since.