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Past Brutality Proves Progress!
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An aboard the’Success, in which convicts
were tortured.
Men Find Courage Sometimes
in Looking Backward and Con
templating the Dreadful Cruel
ties and Abuses Left Behind.
Our World Is Barbarous Still,
and Our Civilization a Mock
ery. But at Least Things Are
Better Than They Were.
Copyright, 11*12. by Amer, an-.Toiirri! t laminar. Grtat Britain Hights Beserrad
good and beautiful
Pictures, stories of heroism and idealism, lift the
mind and inspire noble ambition.
Study of magnificent mountains and valleys and
of great human careers elevates and encourages.
The greatest teachers, writers and poets have em
phasized the beauties, the great accomplishments, the
unlimited possibilities.
But there is also a useful teaching that can be done
by showing that which shocks and offends, but which
ACTS AS A WARNING AND AS A CONSOLATION.
You can warn young men against the effect of dis
sipation and evil conduct by showing them the result
of such conduct.
You can encourage human beings to endure the
suffering and injustice of to-day—since they must en
dure them—by showing them the conditions infinitelv
worse endured by men in the past.
Usually on this page the effort is to put before our
readers, however crudely and simply, some suggestion
of an idea elevating, encouraging and pleasing at the
same time.
1 o-day, for a change, we call your attention to
pictures of conditions as they have been in the past.
These pictures are shocking, but they teach a les
son and carry a message of encouragement.
Those that are pessimistic feel that the world does
not improve rapidly enough to suit them. And those
dull and unable to read the history cf the past and of
the present even dare to say that 'he world is v O ing
backward
Look at these pictures, study their meaning, and
you will see THAT THIS WORLD DOES PROGRESS
MARVELLOUSLY, THAT HUMANITY 7 IS MOVING
ON FROM CRUELTY TO KINDNESS WITH A
SPEED ASTONISHING AND CONSTANTLY IN
CREASING.
# * a
These are pictures of prison life, as it existed on
the old Australian convict ship Success. That ship,
which carried convicts, miserable victims of the English
system of justice, is the only survivor of the old British
prison fleet.
This vessel now is used as an “exhibition ship. ’
The old scenes that made her a disgrace to this planet
are reproduced inside her ,? jlk iu iireiike fashion.
• When you study these scenes of cruelty and atro
cious torture, when you realize that they have disap
peared forever from this earth, except in isolated, sav
age corners of the world, where m«n revert to animal
ism. and when you realize that <hcse cenes of cruelty,
brutal e*rthey are, were as nothing = omnare'l with
what preceded them, you realize that this world DOES
HERE are two ways of teaching in
this world, two ways of encouraging
and inspiring hope.
One way, and the better way, is
to show to young children and to
grown men and women that which is
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Thu Lash awd the Flogging Frame ih-Use.
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Branding a prisoner with a
red-hot iron.
On that prison ship there
were seventy -two cells,
and into these cells were
crowded one hundred and
twenty prisoners. No pris
oner ever escaped. Not one
ever succeeded in throwing
himself into the water to end
his torment.
Twenty • seven warders,
armed with lashes, with
red-hot irc>ns for branding
the prisoners, with heavy
chains and heavy halls of
metal, guarded and pun
ished the one hundred and
twenty miserable convicts.
What a scene of terror,
degradation and cruelty.
And how iong ago did this happen ? it happened AS
RECENTLY AS 1852, WITH VICTORIA QUEEN OF
E.nS ! « ND ’ WITH INTELE !GENT, KIND-HEARTED
MEN RULING THE BRITISH DOMINIONS. YET
UNABLE TO RULE ONE SINGjI,- HUMAN BEING.
OR TO CONTROL INDIVIDUALS, EXCEPT WITH
VIOLENCE, BLOODSHED AND BRUTALITY.
* .• .♦
It ts not necessary to enumerate in detail the cruel
ties inflicted upon the miserable creatures, huddled into
this prison ship of death and sorrow.
They were flogged until the blood ran for the
slightest offense, and then bathed in salt water to add
to the suffering.
They were branded with red-hot irons, strapped
down while petty officers holding the branding iron
burned the marks deep into the flesh.
They were packed twenty and thirty at a time in
one single cell, known as “the tiger’s cage”—-a cell
barely big enough to accommodate one human being.
.And there they were left to practise upon each
other a brutality and savagery excelled only by the bru
tal treatment that a “civilized” government inflicted
upon them.
They were loaded with heavy irons and chains and
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The old Australian convict ship Success.
breaa when driven by hunger, and others, thousands
of the:.;, were hanged for thefts very little more im
portant. ... .j
The world and its historians, poets and sentimen
talists mourn the brutalities of the French Revolution.
They talk of the horrible massacres of v hich the
French Revolutionists were guilty. They forget that
while the Revolution lasted, for every man executed
legally in France for outrageous injustice to the poor,
there was another man hanged in England for some
pettv crime for which a man to-day would scarcely be
sent to jail.
And remember that they hanged those men,
thousands of them, in England for taking petty sums
of money, whereas in France, the leaders of the Revo
lution, that set the whole world free, executed human
beings as a punishment for centuries of oppression and
despoliation.
It is suggested that this prison ship be brought tn
America. A sad but r valuable lesson it would be.
It shows what government did to the poor, the ig
norant, the helpless—making them infinitely worse
than they were at first, even though they were the
worst of criminals
And one exhibit on this same ship shows that even
the horrors and cruelties of the English prison ship
were as nothing compared with the terrible cruelties
The compulsory bath in salt
water after flogging:.
compelled to drag a “pun
ishrnent ba!!” weighing sev
enty-two pounds.
* * *
No mind can imagine the
horrors of such a prison ship
—and she was only one of a
fleet
And remember, in order
tn realize how recently we
have emerged from absolute,
unmitigated barbarism, that
a man was sent aboard this
ship, sentenced to transpor
tation for life, “for stealing
a two-penny pic.”
Men were subjected tn this
horrible punishment for
stealing a pie or a loaf of
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The iron jacket, and the punishment ball, weighing seventy
two pounds.
Men Were Tortured in Days Past
With the Lash, the Red-Hot
Branding Iron and with Every
Infernal Device of Torture,
They Arc Punished and Tor
tured Still with Anxiety, Worry
and Overwork. But CONDI
TIONS ARE BETTER.
of the past, the vile and shameful tortures bom of re
ligious bigotry and superstition—the dreadful suffering
to which thousands and hundreds of thousands of hu
man beings have been subjected—-BECAUSE THEY
WOULD NOT SHARE THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF
SOME BLOODTHIRSTY HUMAN TP .ER.
« A $
This old ship carries a reproduction of the famous
“iron maiden.” That instrument of torture, which
may still be seen in the Castle at Nuremberg, is a
big figure of a woman, hollow, lined with sharp spikes.
The human being to be punished was put inside of thia
figure, and the figure was closed and the spikes entered
the body at every conceivable point—the blood run
ning out at the bottom.
THAT PARTICULARLY ATROCIOUS CRIME
WAS COMMITTED OVER AND OVER IN THE
NAME OF RELIGION
If religious brutality inspired such crimes, you can
imagine what other forms of brutality were accom
plished in the way of cruelty.
a « e
The entire past history of the race on this planet,
the story of the rule of the weak by the strong and the
cunning, is dreadful beyond description.
Lucky for us that we read and do not entirely
realize.
But while we cannot know what unfortunate men
and women and children have suffered in the past, we
can at least be grateful for the progress that has been
made.
We can thank God that burning alive and boiling
alive and tearing with red-hot pincers in His holy
name HaS BEEN STOPPED. We can thank God that
the prison, ship, with the men tortured, flogged and
branded, is to-day an exhibition intended to educate
and no longer a dreadful reality planned to punish and
to brutalize.
As you look at these pictures, and consider the
crimes of government against human beings, think how
wonderful the progress of the race has been during the
last century.
Think of the marvels accomplished since th»t
great day when the French attacked and tore down the
Bastile, and when the great leaders of French inde
pendence and thought abolished the torture of wit
nesses, abolished special privileges for special births,
abolished the rights of men to rule and tax and torture
in the name of religion or heredity.
The pictures that you see here were pictures of
real life while Victoria was ruling in England, whik
the educated men whose intellect added so much tc
knowledge were witnesses, indifferent, callous or hplr,
less, cf shameful brutality.
A * .•
Be glad that there has been so much progress
Rejoice that physical torture sanctioned by eovern
ment has ceased.
REALIZE THAT THE WORLD DOES MOVF
FORWARD. Vt
But don’l forget how much REMAINS TO BE
DONE. Don’t forget that the long drawn out torture
cf hunger anxiety and overwork, to which millions ol
mothers and fathers and children are subjected, is ax
brutal as the brutalities of a prison ship in the long run
and as disgraceful to the human race. J ’