APPALLING STATE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 90, 26 January 1934, Page 5

APPALLING STATE

NEW YORK GAOL. CONDUCTED BY GANGSTERS. PRISONERS WHO PAID BOARD. EVIDENCE OF OTHER LAXITY. WILL TAKE A YEAR TO SIFT. (United Press Association-Copyright.) (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) NEW 7 YORK ; January 25. Investigation into the Welfare Island Penitentiary were continued today with more appalling revelations that are likely to make prison management under the previous Tammany Hall administration one of the greatest scandals in New York’s history. An extended search of the institution produced more lethal weapons, great supplies of narcotics, and large quantities of “home-brew” beer fermenting in milk tins. Fourteen hundred of the inmates were found to be practically on starvation rations of inferior coldTood, while the remaining 200 were able to pay 50 to 75 dollars a week as “board” to a clique of gangster rulers who <ate a special fare from money appropriated to feed all the inmates. One convict, crazed by the stoppage of narcotics, attempted to commit suicide in his cell to-day. The prison library, of 2000 volumes, has completely vanished. The cooks admitted that they used it as fuel. Meanwhile, investigations into laxity in other city departments reveal what the officials termed the “champion-stayer-away-f rom-work. ’ ’ Political appointees’in the Department of Markets, during six years on the pay-roll,'had-been absent 1680 out of 1800 working days. , Others took extended leaves without the restraint of their superiors. In the first 25 days of the La Guardia administration! over 1000 gangsters and gamblers were arrested and enough evidence of graft and corruption was unearthed to require a year or more of investigation, officials say.