Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/391

Rh his family: the ship was a permanent institution and was roofed in. Then to the club, a handsome and comfortable building, with a good library, and had a game of billiards. From the club balcony, too, I watched various cricket matches.

Another day we inspected the prison, which was a clean, bright, airy place, cells and all being very well kept. A little garden of palms in tubs decorated the site of the scaffold, standing on the trap-door, which opened, when there was an execution, to allow of the drop to the cavity below. There were many prisoners, mostly Chinese, some of whom were there for life, and many for nine or seven years. Some of them were pirates, supposed to be of those who had looted the Macao boat, as I have related. Looking through the little window in a cell door I was startled to recognise in the European prisoner within—who was unconscious of my scrutiny—a young Englishman who had been on the Hamburg with me. It seems he had embezzled money in the Malay States and had run away, being, of course, at once arrested on arriving at Hong-Kong. He was awaiting trial, and looked despairingly miserable, poor youth. Naturally, there had been no escape for him, as the people in the Malay States simply wired to Hong-Kong to have him arrested.

What I did not like in this prison was to see numbers of bluejackets there for trivial offences—such as breaches of discipline and the like—mingled with the Chinese thieves and murderers, surely an unnecessary degradation for the sailors, and in many ways a great mistake.

, 1901.

Canton has always been noted as being a turbulent place, and just at this time, with all the