New Britain Herald Newspaper, June 6, 1929, Page 5

NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 199. [ The World’s MOST REMARKABLE Exhibition! The Ancient Famous and Infamous British CONVICT SHIP Now in Hartford—Foot of State Street This Ancient Craft Has Been Visited by Over 21,000,000 — Twenty-one Million People INCLUDING MOST OF THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE, AND HAS RECEIVED THE PATRONAGE OF MANY OF THE LEADI AND CLERGY OF ALL DENOMINATIONS SINCE HER ARRIVAL IN The Oldest Ship Afloat (Launched 1790) ---Raised From Bottom of Sydney Harbor, Australia, and Now on a Final Tour of the World STATE AND CITY OFFICIALS AMERICA. This Wonderful Vessel Made History Through Three Centuries She is the oldest ship in the world and the only convict ship left afloat out of that dreadful fleet of ocean hells which sailed the Seven Seas in 1790 A. D. She is unchanged after all these years, nothing being omitted but her human freight and their suffering from the cruelties and barbari- ties practiced upon them. Aboard her are now shown, in their original state, all the airless dungeons and condemned cells, the whipping posts, the manacles, the branding irons, the punishment balls, the leaden-tipped cat-o’nine tails, the coffin bath and the other fiendish inventions of man’s cruelty to his When the Convict Ship Was Launched in Far Away India in 1790— 1—Buffalo was the western frontier of America. 2—George Washington was serving his first term President of the United States. 3—There were 145 offenses punishable by death in England. 4—Napoleon was only 21-years-old aml the battle of Waterloo was still 25 years in the future. of the softening and civilizing influences that are now animating human progress. AMERICA Mr. Arthur Brisbane, the distinguished editor of the New York Journal, in a full-page editorial, which was reproduced in other leading daily pages throughout the United States, devoted his brilliant pen to picturizing the “Success” a vivid and striking lesson in the progress of humanity and civilization. Describing the Convict Ship as a sad but val- uable iesson to the people of America, he wrote: “When you study these scenes of cruelty and atrocious torture, when vou realize they have disappeared forever from this earth, except in isolated savage corners of the world, where men revert to animalism, and when you realize that these scenes of cruelty, brutal as they are, were as nothing as compared with what preceded them, you realize that this world DOES advance. “* * * We can thank God that the Convict Ship, with the men tortured and branded, is today on exhibition, intended to educate, and no longer a dreadful reality, planned to punish and brutalize.” Devoting its entire editorial space to the “Success,” “LIBERTY" said: “The Convict Ship is not only an evidence of the brutality of condition. 1t is evidence of brutality of law and social thought. This old ship, linking the present with the not distant past, is cause for optimism. Progress may be slow and long delayed, but the observer who walks the decks of the Success, looks into its dark cells, imagines that they must have been filled with the living, dying and dead, all shackled, has a new confirmation of belief that democracy is a humanitarian evolution. The grade is up.” i BOSTON TRANSCRIPT: “Let us send this convict hulk, this eloquent rebuke to penal system, around the world. She is a floating parable of the crimes of man against man. And when she has finished her mission, search out the deepest soundings in the Pacific and there sink her and the things she signifies in a thousand fathoms of dishonored oblivion.” The Governor of Massachusetts wrote: had this opportunity 1o see the strides that alveady have been made toward better methods of treatment, for 1 think your exhibition will act as an added incentive toward further improve- ments. obsolete prison methods.” The Governor of Virginia wrote: the contrast between the old and new methods of treating those who have violated the law vesult in good to society.” The Governor of Louisiana wrotc: fellowman. She has held lurid horrors and dreadful iniquities beside which even the terrible stories of the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Spanish Inquisition pale into insignificance. She marked the beginning and the end of England’s monstrous penal system. From keel to topmast she cries aloud the greatest lesson the world has ever known in the history of human progress. “I am very glad that the people of Massachusetts have I think you arc doing & great public scrvice by the exhibition of these horrible and “I trust that the ‘Success’ may be visited by many people amd “As 1 look upon the galling heavy chains, the dark dungeons, the instruments of torture, and the death cells the idea came to me that probably mot ome single prisoner who was ever set free after having served a sentence on board the ‘Success’ became a valuable member of society. 1 hope that the ‘Success’ will long continue its mutc but comvincing advocacy of rational prison reform.” The Governor of Rhode Island wrote: inhuman treatment as was practiced in the day of the convict ship. “Public opinion in our day would not tolerate such It has become the great power of the world and its voice makes thrones tremble and governments sttentive.” What the Press of Two Continents Says of the Convict Ship “Success” No other exhibition ever received the publicity accorded by the world’s press to the “Success.” Leaders of public opinion everywhere realize that in her lies a great and striking object lesson GREAT BRITAIN LONDON TIMES: “No exhibition of recent years evoked the editorial attention as that given to the Convict Ship ‘Success,” the sole survivor of our felon fleet—now at the Thames Embankment. A visit to this ancient penal craft filled with official and authentic government documents dealing with transportation of convicts to our colonies in the early part of the past century, must convince the most skeptical that our penal system was at that time a disgrace to the Mother Country.” PALL MALL GAZETTE: “In all the world it would be difficult to find a craft with a more interesting history than the old teak-built barquentine ‘Success.’” NORTHERN ECHO: the breeze today.” LLOYD'S SHIPPING GAZETTE: “The departure of this remark- able vessel will remove from this country a unique relic.” ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS: “As a relic of the days when a man would be transported for stealing a two-penny pie, and hanged for very little more, she is of remarkable interest.” STAR: penal life.” DAILY CHRONICLE: “This wooden vessel built in 1790, with her antiquated hull, bluff bow square stern and high quarter deck, is typical in many respects to the ancient caravel of Columbus.” CORK EXAMINER: “Her story is the most extraordinary one that could be told of the real life of a ship; it exceeds in weirdness the legend of Vanderdecken's Flying Dutchman and vies in horror the wondrous phantasy of Coleridge's ‘The Ancient Mariner."” “The most historic ship in the world braving “Associated with some of the most horrible episodes of A few extracts from many thousands:— AMERICA DR. FRANK CRANE, the brilliant editorial writer, wrote * * ¥ * Here you see punishment raised to its highest power. The record of the cruelties here practiced by the English people is so frightful that no one can be blamed for not believing it; the truth is more incredible than the wildest fiction. It is impossible to believe the story, vet it is perfectly authentic. * * * Qut of the past this ghost ship sails to us. can touch. Its rusty iron manacles are all too tangible. our feet explore. with our own eyes.” Its solid teak we Its hideous cells [ts appalling record books and documents we can see R. H. L., the distinguished columnist, in his daily “Line O'Type or Two” in the Chicago Tribune, said: “One of the biggest four bits’ worth of value we ever got for our money was a visit to the Convict Ship. It's like turning back the clock, and after you see the way men and women were herded on the ship, taken for a voyage of thousands of miles, the paths they made in the hard teak deck, the whipping post, the airless dungeons, the branding iron and the leaden tipped cat-o-nine tails, as punishment for people who had stolen a piece of pie, one gets the idea humanity is getting on.” NEW YORK EVENING SUN: “One of the strangest ships in the world—a strange ship because it is hard to realize that the inhumanity of which she is a floating reminder could exist under the rule of any nation calling itself civilized.” BOSTON TRAVELER: “The ‘Success’ today is as the hulks they (John Boyle O'Reilly and James Jeffery Roche) pictured; the same in her barred cells, the same in her gibbet-halter, the same in all ways except that the prisoners are not inside her to clutch the gratings which close her hatchways and cry out to the square patch of sky above them.” H' The Convict Ship Will Never Again Be Seen In Hartford Your opportunity to visit her is NOW. If you do not seize it, yours will be regret at not having seen the greatest and most extraordinary exhibition that ever visited your city. grooved with the chains of her miserable victims, the past will speak to you its sad and mournful lesson, but you will leave feeling better because you live in a better age. When you walk her decks, Wealthy Americans spend millions annually visiting Europe’s old castles and their prison dungeons. Today a street car fare brings you alongside the oldest and most notorious floating prison the world has ever known. Do not miss this prefeund illustration of one of the most vital factors in the betterment of the age. During the period of the ship’s stay in Hartford the public will be admitted aboard daily from 10 A. M. to 11 P. M. OPEN EVERY DAY ---INCLUDING SUNDAY---10 A. M. to 11 P. M. ADMITTANCE 50 by gangway. PLENTY OF FREE PARKING SPACE The Convict Ship is lighted throughout by electricity and can be inspected by night as well as by day, and can be boarded direct from the Pier The charge of admittance includes services of lecturers and guides, who conduct visitors over all parts of the vessel. 50c¢ "z