The denizens of Port Arthur would furnish a curious collection of biography: the muster would be a living calendar. Among the more celebrated were, Ikey Solomon, the receiver, whom they made constable: the chartists--men, in whose fate millions have publicly expressed an interest. There was Collins, the mad sailor, who threw a stone at the last king; May, who murdered the Italian boy; and Cohen, a jew, who resigned himself to despair, and refusing sustenance, died: they now rest in the "_Isle de Mort_." The establishment at Point Puer was intended to reclaim and control, rather than to punish, the unfortunate youth submitted to its discipline. Until a very late period, boys had been transmitted to the colonies in company with the men, and were treated without much discrimination: some at an age to understand crime only as a trick, or to deserve aught except pity and correction. Thus at Preston, a child, only seven years old, was transported for life. A boy, three years older, perhaps the same, called by his fellow prisoners, "King John," after three years imprisonment, arrived in this colony (1829) with sixty other lads; of whom, on their embarkation, not one in twenty could repeat the Lord's prayer.[206] It was stated by a Lord Mayor of London, that nothing could be kinder than to transport juvenile offenders to a country where their labor would be useful and their prosperity sure. It may be presumed, that in this spirit a girl and two boys were committed to take their trial for stealing some wood, valued at twopence, the property of the crown.[207] These acts of severity forcibly contrast with the happier fortunes of other classes. It is said of George III, that he arrested two Eton boys in the act of poaching: they took him for a keeper, and offered their pocket-money as a bribe. He threatened to inform their master; but next day sent them a present, requesting them to cease their depredations. They were peers when the monarch told the story, and he observed that they were most rigorous preservers of their game--"according to the old proverb, set a thief to catch a thief," said the king! A better authenticated anecdote was given by Lord Eldon, of his juvenile adventures; such as a rigorous magistrate might have turned to a very different account.[208] By what construction of equity the poor man's son, or the orphan, could deserve to be branded with an indelible stigma for no heavier crimes, it would be in vain to ask. Infractions of the law cannot be tolerated in any age, yet its administration has been often both partial and unmerciful.