Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/125

 forces, and is now Government Resident and Convict Superintendent in this paradisiacal little island, which the Perth people would like to purge of its criminal associations and convert into a summer watering-place for their wives and olive-branches. The difficulty is to know what to do with the native offenders who would quickly die in the close confinement of an inland gaol, whilst at Rottnest they can be afforded reasonable liberty of movement without any fear of their escaping. Even at Rottnest, the colonel told me, he regarded five years of the mitigated restraint in vogue there as tantamount to a death­ sentence on these nomadic children of the "bush." It may be imagined what would be the effect, therefore, of working them in chain-gangs, or keeping them locked up in mainland prisons. The colonel, loyal to his office, tried to persuade me that as far as their feelings went they were happy enough, and preferred Rottnest to their old wilderness haunts. But like perverse children called upon to "show off" before their parents' guests, they entirely repudiated the soft impeachment, and in reply to questions, put in the most insinuating tone of voice, unanimously expressed a desire to return as speedily as possible to their old hunting-grounds, "Me like um bush, possum, kangaroo," the answer of one of them, being the gist of the answers of them all. Most of them presented fright­ fully animal, repulsive-looking physiognomies, but I could not help pitying their sad fate, dying by inches £or the breach of enactments in direct contravention of their tribal laws. Many of them, too, were "in" for sheep-stealing, which they regard as only a just toll on the men who have driven them back from their old fishing and hunting grounds, and who have thus deprived them of their normal means of livelihood. When some great Roman Catholic dignitary—Cardinal Moran, I think it was—inquired of one of the Rottnest prisoners whether he was not sorry for having killed an unfaithful wife, his attitude was expressed in the indignant, "What for me sorry?" which was the only answer the shocked prelate could get from him in response to a homily on the heinousness of his crime, which in no way abated the savage's belief in the conjugal code of his ancestors. I should have liked to have lingered in this charming