A Contrast in Accomodation

While Bridget was doing hard labour at the Female Factory, Ephraim was at Ross. I have found very few references to the Probation Station there. The gaol was converted into a female factory in 1848 and it seems men were sent to the probation station. These two exerpts from newspapers, both a few years before Ephraim arrived there, tell a little of what was going on. I really think it was kind hearted of them to remove all the invalids to Launceston and allow them to break stones. Maybe the definition of invalid at the time was a little different from that we use today. You can be assured that it would shorten the lines at Centrelink!


Cells at the Female Factory where Bridget was held




Remaining walls at the Cascades
Female Prison



The second article shows the difficulty authorities had in employing all the men under their control and echoes the thoughts of many on how gaols are conducted.

25 March 1848 The Cornwall Chronicle

THE CONVICT DEPARTMENT,

It has been known for some weeks that his Excellency has been in possession of ' Despatches' directing the speedy breaking up of the Convict Establishments, with a view to save the enormous outlay connected with the department in these colonies, and in order that all available funds might be appropriated in giving the ' separate' system at home a fair trial. With this, intention, a large number of tickets-of-leave have been latterly granted and many conditional pardons recommended by his Excellency so as to facilitate the intentions of the Home Government as much as the circumstances of the convicts here will permit The sane object will, we under stand, induce the Comptroller-General to re commend a change in the mode of regulating indulgences, so as to be assimulated to the orders sent out to New South Wales last year, by which the Government was directed to give tickets of leave to all prisoners of the Crown indiscriminately who had been three years in the colony free from offence, and in like manner conditional pardons to those who had held tickets-of-leave for three years. In the course of a few weeks several convict establishments are to be broken up. The hiring depot for females in St. John Square will be discontinued immediately, and the women eligible for service be removed to a wing of the Female House of Correction prepared for the purpose. The children at present in the Female House of Correction with their mothers are to be removed to the Ross station. The Probation stations at Fingal, Rocky Hills, Lymington, and several other places will be broken up, and all available labor placed on the main road. About a hundred invalids will be forwarded to Launceston from different stations, to be employed in breaking stones for repairing the streets, and a suitable shed is to be erected on the Commissariat green to protect them from the inclemency of the weather, so that their operations may not be impeded by rain, & c. We are likewise informed that a new hospital is to be commenced on the Cataract Hill, it having been long felt that the situation of the present Colonial Hospital is unhealthy, contagious, and otherwise inconvenient.

19 May 1847
TO THE EDITOR OF THE LAUNCESTON EXAMINER. THE SYSTEM. Sir,-Allow me to bring under the notice of the public, through the medium of your widely circu lated Journal, the working of the probation sta tion at Ross: the colonists may judge how all the stations are managed. The station at Ross con sists of about 80 men, who being colonially sen tenced, are supposed to be employed on the roads, but few of them are so employed. The party are distributed pretty nearly as follows :
Servants to the officers ..3 Watchmen.., 4 Wardsmen .. 2, Washermen .. 1 Drawing water and harnessed to the hand-cart like beasts of burthen.. 5 Messenger to the gangs..0 , Cook at the station ... 1, Baker at the station .. I ,Assistant cook at the station. 1, Cook to the gangs .. 1, Gatekeeper .. 1, Labourer to the storekeeper .. 1, Clerk to the Storekeeper.. 1, Cook to the Military ... 1, Minding tools.. 1, Watching the government pigs..1,  Burning charcoal ... 1, Blacksmiths ... 2, Employed raising vegetables for the party to compete with the settler.. 6, Total ... 35. Thus sir it will be seen, that out of about eighty men, thirty-five are billited. These men can finish their daily tasks by about eleven o'clock, the remainder of the day is then passed away in sheer idleness. To look after these eighty men, there are no less than eight officers, whose united salaries amount to the enormous sum of eight hundred and four pounds per annum,-a sum sufficient to pay as many useful officers as could make all the roads required in the colony. I could give you an account of the work per formed at this station both on and off the roads, for the last three years; but it would be useless, the public being already aware that probation in this colony is nothing more than teaching the men the most idle habits, as my list will plainly show, and of which I defy refutation.-I am Sir, your obedient servant, A WAY-FARING MAN. Antill Ponds, 13th May, 5th month '47.