DOMINION GAOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 201, 25 August 1919, Page 10

DOMINION GAOLS.

iTo the L.litor.i _ ' c-. r ._l h a ve read with considerable in--toresT the "letter of in.ii_nant protest | " provoked by the Rev. J. K. Archers in- ' aiictment of our gaol system as it at present obt_i:is in New Zealand. Some o; the protests. 1 am willing t\> allow. , may he due i-o la. k of real knowledge of i t:-e" fact*, for no nun who ha-* no: a.-tu-aUv served a sentence in a civil prison j is "reaiiv acquainted with it other than v,-n- s-nperfk-jally. Mr. A- K. Hunt. S.M.. j viiritiixr .Justice at the Auckland Gaol, however, outrht to know more i-iian in* letter implies. He -ays; "Dark cells and : irons, or other such relics of savajrery not exi-t in New Zealand prison*-" This statement is wrong an 1 Mr. Hunt ought to know it. The dark evil, rightly characterised a* a relic of savagery, though kept in the background when visitors are about, looms very large upon the horizon of th.' unfortunate prisoners. | The writer h.ivintr serve.i a term of two years _.« a conscientious objector, l and seen the insMe of several gaols during ( that period, speaks from personal ex- ' perience. Many L.i'.'s have \:-itel the [ '•digger" or dark cell, either because some business ooea-ioned their doing s-j or for purposes of punishment.—l am. etc, A. li. VAKNiiAM.