मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

no more did such a thing happen again during the remainder of my stay in that prison.
Eight years back it was a common thing for the jailor to call upon his myrmidons to teach
the prisoner a severe lesson. "Make him straight"—that was the watch-word. But the old
order had changed. The incident narrated above was the last of its kind under that order.
For the rest of the time—a year and a half—that I had to pass, nothing of that kind ever
happened again. The young man, for all the beating that he had got for it, did not give up
his work for us. He had already filled his fourteen years in that prison and had not come
out when I left the Silver Jail. What happened to him later I do not know.
Mr. Diggins
After many transfers and changes, one Mr. Diggins fame to be appointed Jailor in
the Andamans on a permanent basis. He was the brother-in-law of Mr., Barrie and had
filled several offices in the Andamans before he was promoted to this post. Even a
good man could not continue to be good in the reactionary official atmosphere of the
Andamans. It was all the more creditable for Mr. Diggins to have worked in the several
responsible offices he had filled so far, with justice and fair-play. As such his
appointment as jailor was a matter of rejoicing for us all. Mr. Barrie was the best hated
man in the prison-world of this place, while his brother-in-law, Mr. Diggins, was
all along looked up to with gratitude. He had high regard for Hindu culture. He was an
Irishman and a theosophist. I have already quoted a depreciating remark of Mr. Barrie
on Theosophy in connection with the story of Indu Bhushan, that its reading had a
softening effect on a man's brain and ultimately led to insanity. Mr. Diggins was a long
and devoted student of theosophical writings and there was no sign in his behaviour of
actual or approaching insanity. The Government that had appointed him to several
offices in the settlement felt absolutely sure that he had a sound brain. Mr. Diggins was
a lover of learning and a man of culture. He was a strict and an honest officer, and
while he maintained strict discipline in the prison in his charge, he never allowed him-
self to forget that the convicts were human beings and were to be ruled for their
intellectual and moral well-being, and the jail was a penitentiary and a house of
correction, and was not to be used for turning them into beasts of burden and to their
utter demoralisation. He worked steadily on that plan, of course, within his limits; and,
several times, had to incur the displeasure of his superiors on that account.
The Jail Commission
While the jail administration was passing through this transition, news came to us
that the Government of India had appointed a Commission to visit the Andamans and
report on the reforms in the colony and the jail of these islands. One of the problems
before the Commission was the future of the settlement as a whole. One of the prime
causes that had led to the appointment of such a Commission was no doubt the agitation
we had carried on in prison and outside during the last eight years to draw the attention of
India and the world to the wretched condition of all the prisoners at Port Blair. The