Mebourne City

Old Melbourne Jail

We traveled through the city by bus this morning. We passed a lot of historic buildings from the center of the city out to the beaches. Along the way we made a couple of stops. First was the Royal Exhibition Hall which was built for an 1880 international exhibition Our most interesting stop, however, was the Old Melbourne jail built in 1854 and closed in 1924, though it was used as a military prison during World War II. The bottom floor was used for the worst offenders. Here everyone had solitary cells and silence was observed. They wore a silence mask when out of their cell which prevented other prisoners from knowing who they were. They exercised outside for an hour a day, but even then they were separated from other prisoners. The upper floors had communal cells and here you participated in some form of labor. Men would pound rocks to gravel and women would work in the laundry. The ratio of prisoners here was 60% men and 40% women. Why such a large population of women? Largely because orphans had to exist by stealing or prostitution, ending up in jail. Corporate punishment for infractions was caning for the woman and children, and flogging with a cat of nine tails on the lashing triangle form men.

Ned's armor modeled by John

The most famous occupant of the jail was Ned Kelly. Kelly was originally jailed for three years for stealing horses. He fled to the bush in 1878 after he and his brother shot three policemen. When Kelly’s attempt to derail and ambush a police train failed, Ned and his gang dressed in homemade suits of armor. All but Kelly were killed, but he was severely wounded with 28 bullets in his exposed arms. He was captured nursed to health, put on trial, and then hung in the prison. His last words are reported as “such is life”. The gallows were right in the prison, and the trap door was rigged to bang into the walls, making it clear to all the inmates that a prisoner had been hung.

We toured St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest church in Melbourne. The Catholics, who were mostly Irish, often built larger churches than the Church of England throughout Australia. Our final stop was the Shrine of Remembrance, originally built as the State of Victoria’s World War I memorial. Over 300,000 Australians volunteered to fight in World War I, and over 200,000 never returned. The big battle served by Australians and New Zealanders was Gallipoli in Turkey, an attempt to open up supply lines to Russia. The memorial is designed to light the word “love” in No greater love hath a man… at 11 AM on November 11^th, Armistice day.

Shrine of Remembrance

In the afternoon we had a cultural experience: we attended “Aussie Rules Football”. The game was played in the Melbourne Cricket stadium, it’s designed to keep cricket players in shape out of season. Most of the rules are pretty simple. The primary methods to move the ball are running (but you have to dribble the ball every 10 steps), hand-balling (like a volleyball hit) or kicking. You cannot throw the ball or get caught holding the ball. The key play, called the mark, is to kick the ball to another player, if he catches it without it hitting the ground, he gets a free kick. This allows you to approach the goal posts. A kick through the center posts is worth 6 points and on either side 1 point. We had such fun, we stayed for almost the entire game between Carlton and Collingwood.