The daily fear of the lash produced in the prisoners a peculiar expression of countenance, and a cowed and slinking gait, which I have never seen in any other men, white or black.  And that gait and expression, like that of a dog crouching at the heels of a cruel master in fear of the whip, remained still after the prisoners had served the time of their sentences, and had recovered their freedom.  They never smiled, and could never regain the feelings and bearing of free men; they appeared to feel on their faces the brand of Cain, by which they were known to all men, and the scars left on their backs by the cruel lash could never be smoothed away.  Whenever they met, even on a lonely bush track, a man who, by his appearance might be a magistrate or a Government officer, they raised a hand to the forehead in a humble salute by mere force of habit.  There were some, it is true, whose spirits were never completely broken—­who fought against fate to the last, and became bushrangers or murderers; but sooner or later they were shot, or they were arrested and hanged.  The gallows-tree on the virgin soil of Australia flourished and bore fruit in abundance.

The trial of a convict charged with disobedience or insubordination was of summary jurisdiction.  Joe Kermode, a teamster, chanced to be present at one of these trials.  It was about ten o’clock in the morning when he saw near a house on the roadside a little knot of men at an open window.  He halted his team to see what was the matter, and found that a police magistrate, sitting inside a room, was holding a Court of Petty Sessions at the window.  It was an open court, to which the public were admitted according to law; a very open court, the roof of which was blue—­the blue sky of a summer’s morning.  A witness was giving evidence against an assigned servant, charged with some offence against his master.  His majesty, the magistrate, yawned—­this kind of thing was tiresome.  Presently a lady came into the room, walked to the open window, clasped her hands together, and laid them affectionately on the shoulder of the court.  After listening for a few moments to the evidence she became impatient, and said, “Oh, William, give him three dozen and come to breakfast.”  So William gave the man three dozen and went to breakfast—­with a good conscience; having performed the ordinary duty of the day extraordinarily well, he was on the high road to perfection.

The sentence of the court was carried out by a scourger, sometimes called flagellator, or flogger.  The office of scourger was usually held by a convict; it meant promotion in the Government service, and although there was some danger connected with it, there was always a sufficient number of candidates to fill vacancies.  In New South Wales the number of officers in the cat-o’-nine tails department was about thirty.  The danger attached to the office consisted in the certainty of the scourger being murdered by the scourgee, if ever the opportunity was given.