SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

                                             A Scary Room

 Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, operated 47-years (1830-1877) as a prison and never was a town. On the way to Port Arthur we rode through rolling hills and farmland passing by Barilla Bay, famous for its oysters. Stopping at the Tasmania Devil Park I saw and learned all about the small, black, rather ugly Tasmanian Devil.

     Port Arthur, located on the isolated Tasman Peninsula, was just as much a natural prison as Alcatraz was in this country. Surrounded by hungry sharks, the peninsula is connected to the mainland only by  100-yard wide Eagleneck Neck. Guarded by chained angry dogs it made escape nearly impossible. All deliveries to the prison were made by boat as the road overland from Hobart, the capitol, was not built until 1893.

     Of the 73,000 English convicts sent to Australia, 12,500 of the worst offenders were sent to Port Arthur. Originally established as a timber settlement there were no permanent buildings for three years. Although the conditions at Port Arthur were brutal, the prison was progressive. All convicts were gainfully employed in one of 47 trades.  Young boys were required to attend school at a time before education was mandatory.

     Whipping punishment in front of the entire prison complement was replaced with solitary confinement.  The small windowless concrete walled room was  totally dark. The approximate  

6 X 6 –foot room left little space even for exercise. Claustrophobic me took my turn entering the room. It wasn’t ten seconds after the door was shut that I was yelling, “Open the door NOW and let me out.”  It wouldn’t take long to go mad, and so many prisoners actually did that a psychiatric building had to be built.

    Today the whole area is peaceful.  The visit was very interesting, but the solitary confinement was dark and scary indeed.  What would those walls say if they could talk?