A Prison Wall Twelves Thousand Miles Thick
by Clark Henderson
Quick!-name a large modern country that began its existence
with a three-day sex orgy! The fact that you can't is a tribute to our boring
history andgeography books. And what connection has this fact to prisons,
anyhow? Keep reading and you'll find out. The story begins in Britain a
little over two centuries ago, where something very familiar was going on;
the country was in the grip of what we term today a 'crime wave.' Basic
cause of the problem, then as now, was a combination of unemployment and
employment at below subsistence levels, due to a growing population; but
in 18th-century Britain, it was due to a high birth rate. As you would imagine,
in the 18th century they were really tough on crime. Stealing just about
anything was a felony, punishable by death; oddly enough, something like
attempted murder was only a misdemeanor. It was crimes against property
that they were concerned with in those days.
A man stole a woman's handkerchief-death. A boy stole two pence-death. A
hungry person invaded a cucumber patch and destroyed twelve cucumber plants-death.
A twenty-two year old woman, likewise hungry, stole two pounds of butter-death.
Don't tell me that they weren't tough on crime in those days! Problem was,
no matter how harsh the judges were, crimes against property kept on increasing.
People had the choice between starving and stealing. In other words, things
in 18th century Britain were like what the conservatives in this country,
in the 20th century, are trying to achieve.
To try and deter crime in 18th century Britain, people were hanged in public
for stealing; pickpockets found rich business among such crowds. Obviously,
to those in authority in Britain, something more severe than the death penalty
was needed. And the solution came, strangely enough, through theology. You
see, in those days everyone knew that when you died, you went, eventually
to heaven, perhaps with a detour through purgatory. If the authorities could
have been quite sure that those they hung went to hell, then nothing needed
to be done, but the thought of all those criminals spending time in heaven
was what really got to to them. Was there no justice after all? Hanging
people, instead of letting them suffer here on earth, was NOT justice at
all! Finally, somebody came up with a solution that satisfied both even
the theologians and the British government; transportation to elsewhere.
In this way the criminals could not return, except by stowing away on a
ship bound for Britain. And in those places, where the criminals would never
see their loved ones again, they would have to work at hard labor, where
the crops they produced would pay for their existence, and the burden would
be shifted off the British taxpayers, who just like the rich these days,
couldn't afford to pay another penny in taxes.
For that reason, there were few prisons in Britain; the convicts were imprisoned
on 'hulks,' old wooden ships that were moored out in the estuary of the
Thames and Medway rivers. That, however, cost the government, in practice
the nobility, money; and the number of convicts so imprisoned was rising
at the rate of a thousand a year. Escapes from these hulks, set in vast
marshes, were few; that was not the problem. But it cost money. This was
why transportation of the convicts was so popular; it saved money. All of
that wasteful government spending could be prevented.
Originally the convicts were shipped to a place known as the 'Colonies,'
but by 1776 the inhabitants of that region had declined to pay a tax on
tea, and the problem of what to do with all these criminals again became
a problem.
At this point the recent discoveries of Captain James Cook in the South
Pacific came to the British government's attention; he had mapped two large,
virtually unknown lands in that region, one called New Zealand, and the
other termed New Holland; the latter country we know today as Australia.
The climate of New Zealand was very similar to that of Britain-obviously
quite the place to send convicts to; nothing like inflicting extra punishment
on them with a climate like that. But New Zealand had a warlike population
highly disposed to cannibalism; one of the early explorers thought that
they survived by eating their enemies. But the convicts had to be taken
to a place where they could produce crops and materials for export, not
just be eaten (even though such a fate does sound like the ultimate punishment),
so New Holland (Australia) was chosen by default as the natives there were
not warlike.
After due consideration the British government decided on a penal settlement
in the region of Australia which today is known as Sydney. And on May 13,
1787, three ships carrying 736 convicts sailed from Britain, bound for the
South Pacific, the 18th century equivalent of Outer Space. Fitting punishment
for those who stole rather than starve to death! The voyage was remarkably
fast for those days, taking eight months; the ships stopped in the Canary
Islands, at Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town in South Africa; then they picked
up the westerly winds which blow unceasingly at that latitude, to go round
Tasmania, the southernmost part of Australia, then north along the coast
to the place of which Captain Cook had spoken favorably.
They were now in the location which had sold the project to the British
government, so far that it had been termed 'A prison wall twelve thousand
miles thick' separating it from Britain, a wall of land and ocean that no
prisoner in those days could hope to breach, the place of no escape.
Finding an excellent harbor at Port Jackson, as it was then termed-now known
as Sydney-first, supplies were unloaded from the ships, and the male convicts,
most of whom, like the female convicts, were between the ages of fifteen
and thirty-five, spent two weeks constructing crude huts for themselves
and (in a separate location) for the female convicts, who remained on board
the ships until this was done. And the supplies were well guarded as they
contained a year's supply of rum, which medical opinion in those days regarded
as essential to life.
Two weeks later the disembarkation of the female convicts was begun, at
a considerable distance from the male ones, of course. Just as the majority
of them were off the ships a storm blew up, of a violence astonishing to
the British. And as it began, and the authorities were blinded by the rain
and wind, there was a mutual rush of the sex-starved convicts toward each
other, and a mass sex orgy began as the men and the women copulated together.
And pretty soon, they broke into the supplies, drank up most of the rum,
and this caused the orgy to go on for three days and nights. And it only
stopped then due to the complete mutual sexual exhaustion of both the men
and the women.
And on the third night they slept it off. On the fourth day the authorities
regained control, and, appalled by what had happened, decided on the only
course of action possible, seeing that a number of the women were undoubtedly
pregnant by then. The unmarried male and female convicts were 'forcibly
married.' Now this is a contradiction in terms; marriage must be voluntary.
What they did was give each single male fifteen minutes to make up his mind
which woman he wanted to marry; if he failed to name someone, he would be
shot. One can imagine the choice was not a hard one; after all, after a
three-day sex orgy, they had certainly been introduced to one another!
Upon making his choice, the woman named was asked if she wished to marry
the man, and there were very few refusals. If the woman did refuse, the
man was given another fifteen minutes to choose a mate, and upon consenting,
the couple was married by the ship's captain. And history records that at
least two of the marriages made in this fashion lasted fifty years!
The British authorities made every effort to cover up what had really taken
place at the founding of Australia, and only by the private writing of the
convicts which survived have the facts come to light in recent years.
Ultimately 162, 000 people had this sentence passed upon them: 'It is therefore
ordered and adjudged by this Court, that you be transported upon the seas,
beyond the seas, to such place as His Majesty, by the advice of His Privy
Council, shall think fit to direct and appoint, for the term of your natural
life." All of this, naturally, had no effect on the crime wave in Britain;
then as now, the real cause was economic. Crime gradually subsided during
the 19th century for two reasons: first, during Queen Victoria's reign,
industry developed and employment increased as Britain became 'the workshop
of Europe,' and the reason for crime-abject poverty-diminished; and second,
from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, to the start of the First World
War in 1914, twenty million people emigrated from Britain, seeking better
prospects elsewhere.
By the end of Queen Victoria's reign in 1901 Britain had become the most
law-abiding country in Europe, as there was work for everyone. The strict
and ridiculous laws mentioned earlier in this article were quietly abolished
as they had accomplished nothing; the last convicts to be sent to Australia
were in the 1860's. So even "a prison wall twelve thousand miles thick"
did nothing to stop crime, as it was the economic situation-then as now-that
produced the crime rate. But the events surrounding the original settlement
of Australia caused it to be known as the 'Lucky Country,' though few Australians
themselves know that! In the 18th century it was one strike and you were
taken to the other side of the world! What does that say about today's policy
of stopping crime?