[Footnote 7: The old mystic symbol of the Swastika of India, for instance, [Illustration: A clockwise Swastika] is common amongst the Mongolian races, and other signs of an early union between these races might be given.]
Among the many works of utility carried on by convict labour during the tenure of the office of Superintendent of Convicts by Captain Man was the widening and improving of the Bukit Timah Canal, in order to drain the adjacent low lands, and render them capable for cultivation by market gardeners. In the cutting of these artificial channels the convicts from India had great aptitude, and some of them had been employed on similar work in their own country. The largest work, however, commenced in Captain Man's time, was the erection of the whole of the permanent buildings required for the location of the then large number of Indian convicts. They were built within the surrounding wall of the jail, near the "Brass Basa" or "Wet Rice" Canal, and entirely by the labour of the convicts themselves. The estimate for the work made by the Superintending Engineer for their execution by free labour was 100,000 rupees, but the money cost to the Government was only 12,000 rupees, when executed by convict labour and with convict-made materials. To effect this, the convicts were trained to make the bricks, to dig and burn coral for lime, to quarry stone for foundations, and to fell the timber in Government forests in the island, and to dress it for roof timbers, door and window frames, and so forth.
When Captain Man went to Malacca as Resident Councillor, Captain Ronald Macpherson, of the Madras Artillery, succeeded him as Superintendent of Convicts, Singapore, and carried on the works in progress at the time. This was in the year 1855. The most prominent work commenced by the convicts in his time, and subsequently carried to completion, was the erection of the new church, now the cathedral of the diocese. It must be acknowledged that it was a courageous act on the part of Captain Macpherson to have designed a church in the early English style of architecture, and to have pledged himself to the Government that he would undertake to construct it wholly by convict labour. We think it showed both confidence in himself and in his convict workpeople, and nothing could more clearly have proved to what perfection their skilled labour had advanced than that he felt himself able to embark on so elaborate a work.