Ned Kelly’s remains to be returned to his family.

The ABC news today is reporting that the remains of the famous bushranger Ned Kelly will be exhumed and returned to his family for burial.

We should all be pretty happy to hear that, no matter what your opinion of Ned Kelly’s crimes. Why should we be sympathetic to someone like him, you ask?

Because until now the remains belonged to the developer who bought the old Pentridge Prison site where he was buried. Not family, not a museum, a residential property developer who was going to use them as a tourist attraction.

Gallows at Old Melbourne Gaol.

Ned Kelly was a bad guy, no doubt about that, but I don’t think that anyones bones deserve to spend eternity owned by a property developer when there is family out there wanting to give you a proper burial.

Once you have been executed for your crimes I think you have been sufficiently punished.

_________________

If you are interested, other posts I have done on Ned Kelly are.

Old Melbourne Gaol.

No rest for Ned.

Where will Ned rest in peace?

An unexpected punishment. 1938.

Cairns Post 9 Apr 1938 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article42122917

Sometimes when you see misbehaving children you wish that some sort of horrible punisment would be meted out to them right then and there.  Annoyingly though, they usually get away with it and you have to go on your way wishing that their parents knew what discipline meant. Grrrr.

In 1938 a young Indian boy was misbehaving in class and was banished to the woodshed as punishment.

Unfortunately for the boy, a passing boa-constrictor took a fancy to him and being squeezed and eaten became part of the punishment.

When this terrible thing was discovered they freed the boy from the snake’s innards and he was found to be still alive, although unconcious. Sadly, he died later in hospital.

Can you imagine this teacher ever having discipline problems in his class again? I expect that once the terrible fate of this boy became known the mere threat of being sent to the shed was enough to make any of the other school children behave!

Of course, expecting any of them to ever go out to the shed for wood again might have been a bit much…

A Pirates Punishment. 1905.

We all know what pirates were rumoured to do to their victims, make them walk the plank, preferably with circling sharks below, right? Not a nice way to go.

Examiner 28 Mar 1905 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article38776171

Apparently the punishment meted out to one pirate by these particular landlubbers was far more bloodthirsty!

This article from 1905 retells a story published in the 18th century in a book called A History of Essex.

Apparently a Danish pirate was caught in the act of defiling a church at Hadstock, Essex, 900 years earlier.

It was clearly a bad move on his behalf, and the priests decided to make an example of him to discourage others who thought a church might be an easy target.

Interestingly, they thought the best way to teach this lesson was to flay him and nail his skin to the front door. Eeeek! I expect that such a display made sure the parishioners were a little more obedient for a time too.

Over the years, this pirate’s hide was taken away piece-by-piece by souvenir hunters until the story was almost forgotten. Now, I love an unusual souvenir myself, but bits of human skin? No thanks!

The reason this story was being retold in this 1905 article was that the door had recently been taken away for repairs. Under a hinge was found a last remnant of flesh.

Obviously bits of old pirate were still quite collectable all those years later. That last scrap was mounted in a box with a collection of literary references and sent off to be auctioned. It was sold for £3 which was probably more than a weeks average wage.

A series of drunks, ornamental drapery and another weasen. Police Report. 1832.

It has been a while since I have posted a police report or had any buried words so today you are getting a rather long police report, and it is one of the types that I love to read. Not just a boring account of crime and punishments, we get the story of the amusing goings-on in the court as well. I also get to put in a buried word I have used before, weasen. In this article it is clear the word is being used to describe a throat although it is very hard to find it used that way in other places. Judging by this police report, and many others, I wonder if the courts would have had any work at all if alcohol was taken out of the equation?

Sarah Crane claimed she was only ‘slightly inebriated’ although it sounds as though the Constable was treating her far more politely than he would have been for a man found in the same situation. There are a few other stories of drunks here that didn’t get treated so politely.

Mary Jones was found having a swim in the foundations of a new house. Although she was drunk she was discharged, as they considered she had atoned for her crime by being thoroughly wet on the outside. I think she got off quite easily really. After all, she had chosen to have the swim, it is not as though she was thrown in as punishment.

Jeremiah Wilson was drunk as a fiddler on three glasses of licher and got seven days on the mill.

Ann Burridge was wonderfully described as having a taste for ornamental drapery. She may have been well-dressed, but she wasn’t sober or polite, and after abusing her master she received a bucket of water over the head prior to being punished by the courts.

Joseph Hasley uses the word boroughmonger against the Constable accusing him of drunkenness. My Routledge dictionary of slang tells me a boroughmonger is old Scots for rabbit. Not much of an insult really. A boroughmonger is also a person who buys and sells the parliamentary seats of boroughs. I doubt the constable had that much influence in government, so I am guessing he is using the word to accuse him of impropriety.

Pat and Peter may have said they were just having a lark but it sounds as though the scrimmage was a little more serious than that. Fie-for-shames is a term used for female genitals. I think it is safe to say that Skinner didn’t possess any of them, and it was more likely that the thing Pat ripped with his teeth was the seat of Skinner’s trousers.

The perfectly named John Drink was, unsurprisingly, drunk and skinning the constable like an eel. I am not sure exactly what being skinned like an eel is. Maybe he was verbally abusing him? (Suggestions appreciated!)

The spoilt and overdressed Jane Williams, who probably liked herself a little too much to actually cut her weasen as she had threatened, sounded like she should have understood her situation a little more clearly than she did. She was charged with refusing to work and insolence. ‘If I was allowed to do as I though fit, and my mistress did not find fault, I dare say we might manage to get on.’ Did she not realize she was a convict? Being allowed to do what she though fit would have to involve her being free. She received a months sentence and I am sure she will not be offered any bombazeen dresses there. (Bombazeen or bombazine is a cloth usually used in mourning dresses)

Martha Ward, cruelly described as fat, not fair but forty, needed to learn to keep her mouth shut.

Daniel Mahony got 25 lashes for laziness.

Tom Bowers got a nice seat in the stocks to dry out in after getting all muddy. Not sure how public dirtiness is a crime though.

Eliza Hurley clearly used her hospital leave to go to the pub. She might have got away with it if she hadn’t demanded a ‘stiffner of brandy’ on her return.

Sitting drunk in the street singing heavy-vet (malt liquor, porter or stout) will only get you the attention of the charleys and both Easton and Merrit were given a seat in the stocks to sing themselves sober.

I am a little unsure as to why Margaret Cains was sent away for a month for dancing her Irish fling. It sounds as though the crowd were quite appreciative, and she was at a soiree after all. Perhaps her dancing wasn’t all that good.

The Sydney Herald 2 Aug 1832 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12844964

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12844964

The tread wheel.

At times I have posted articles where the punishment for crime was a certain amount of days on the tread wheel. I thought I would write about the tread wheel just in case you had never heard of it before.

The treadwheel was described as ‘the endless staircase’ and was just that, sort of like walking around the outside of a small, but heavy, mouse wheel. The one in Hobart was 50ft long and could take up to 150 prisoners at a time. Carters Barracks in Sydney had two mills; a large and a small and each of these were composed of two tread wheels. The small took two teams of 10 men, in shifts of  40 mins on and 20 mins off. The large took 18 men on each wheel, 36 mins on and 24 mins off. This wheel revolved twice a minute and the men would each cover 1344ft (409m), or 72 revolutions, per shift.

The ‘staircase’ powered the machinery that was used to grind wheat and corn etc. The punishment wasn’t just the fact that they spent the days of their sentence on this torturous, unending climb. Convicts were often in heavy ankle chains. At times these chains were weighted according to crime and could be more than 28lb (13kg).

It is often stated that convicts dreaded being sentenced to the tread wheel but in my newspaper searches I have only found reference to others begging for mercy on behalf of the sentenced and at times paying a fine to allow them to be discharged from that particular punishment. I have only found one of the convicted begging for mercy himself. (That is not to say that they didn’t, just that my searches haven’t turned up any others yet.) I have found many reports of them begging to be let off fines and to be given extensions to the payment of such though. Does this mean that fines were more of a deterrent that the tread? Perhaps the tread was something that was dreaded but those convicted just didn’t protest against the sentence. The only one I have found was Martin Collins, a person described as ‘corpulent’ in 1835. They sent him anyway, suggesting that it would do him good. Maybe fines were easier to get out of but a protest against the tread would possibly lead to an increase in the length of the sentence. Generally the sentences were quite short, anything from 24 hours to a week seems to be the most popular amount of time given, but often there are sentences that are for months for the more terrible crimes.

I have wondered at the effectiveness of a punishment that makes the bad guys stronger. It might be a terrible punishment for just the week or so, but if you were a really bad guy and spent a considerable amount of time there you would come out of it with legs that were able to endure quite a prolonged chase. I am not sure that you want the worst offenders in your society to be the ones with the best ability to run away.

I haven’t found any reports of injury or death resulting from the treadwheel though. That doesn’t tell me that it was safe though, it just tells me that once you were in there you were not heard of until you came out the other end of your sentence, and that what happened in there was not made public. It doesn’t seem to have deterred repeat offenders though.

I have also found sentences that were handed down in the same court at the same time for both the tread wheel and for hard labour on the tread wheel. I am not sure what the difference would be. Is it just a turn of phrase or are there different versions of the same punishment? Maybe this is just code for the application of the ankle chains.

This doesn’t seem to have been to popular a punishment with some groups in society and there are often negative reports about it. I wonder if it was as effective as they expected or if it was just a good way to get the machinery turning without the expense of hiring people or maintaining a stable of mill horses.

An extreme punishment!

I know I said in the last post the they really knew how to punish crime in the old days but this one, if true, might be a little extreme (Bells Life in Sydney and sporting Reviewer 27th June 1857). Wound up in cotton and dipped in tallow like a candle then completely burnt? Not sure that it even possible. Maybe the Mythbusters could get onto that one. Kind of them to leave holes for him to breathe through considering what they were about to do to him….

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59866779