Explore "Moreton Bay" by F.W. Mole on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Admitting the ferocity of Captain Pearce Lannigan's disposition in the exercise of his merciless and tyrannical prison discipline, this must be said of him in extenuation to a certain degree: he was, though used to society, cut off by remoteness from all the finer attributes of civilisation and obliged to throw in his lot not only with criminals, whose record for blasphemy, mutual hatred, and the unrestricted indulgence of unnatural lust, was perhaps unexcelled, but with officials who were almost as blasphemous, corrupt, and degraded as the felons over whom they exercised their sway.
The element of female society was non-existent, and the yearning of his heart towards such society was indescribable. It was a torment not only to himself but to the convicts as well. To him it was a punishment that forced him to make a pet of a lubra; to them it was a punishment greater than the lash or any other than the cruelty of man could inflict upon them.