PRISONERS AND TREEPLANTING.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 226, 17 June 1908, Page 9

PRISONERS AND TREEPLANTING.

. .— EXPLOITS AT DUMGREE REVIVED i OPEN CONFESSION. The general quostion of tho Government 'co-planting loomed largo in the üblic eye of late, and has now brought to light some confessions from a prisoner who served a portion of a Eentonce at tho Dum- , greo camp near Seduon, which camp was -recently worked out. Tho prison camp was situated in a natural hollow on tho river bed, on the: old Dumgreo sheep station, and was within a few miles of Scddon. Our ; informant _ admits that he was ono. of the leading spirits in a campaign 6f persistent and systematic breaking' of the rules of the camp, but ho had a definite object in view. He had a number of grievances against tho administration of tho prisons, generally, and defied the rules in every conceivable mannor, in an endeavour to bo brought boforo the open Court, whero he could state his case. That he dofied tho rules is made abundantly clear in his story, but his effort to get taken before tho open Court was .not attended with success. In the words of our informant,. "a section ■of the men had. an absolutely free run of the place, although everybody was expected to keep within certain boundaries." During the day time the prisonors wore engaged .at tree-planting about'tho camp. When evening , camo on the men would bo locked up in little cabins, each of- which held four prisoners, - aiid the warders would retire to their own quarters, leaving tho men' to sleep tho sleep of the-unrighteous. As soon • as things wore fairly .quiet in tho cabin in which our informant was caged lie and his mates would proceed to screw, tho lock off the door. This done, and the way clear, three of the quartette would pass outside, and number four would remain at homo and refasten the lock on the door, ,on the chance of a warder trying it at any time during tho evening. The party would tour the .countryside to their hearts' content, and on returning any time ; before daylight would be admitted to the cabin again by tho stay-at-home mate.

After 'a time the warders found out what was going on, and a padlock was subse-quently-placed on the outside of the door. This secured, tho main'outlet safe enough, but . thero was a smal window in each ' " cabin, -i hardly big enough to nllow of a man getting through it. ' With a little manoeuvring it was found that tho window, frame and all, could be lifted out bodily. Here was anr.othorb means 'of egress, which . tho three men availed themselves of, always leading a fourth in ■ the cabin to jnind the camp and answer any call the tVarders might nappen to make. The night parties from the camp ranged from - six to eight men; one from one crib, two from another, and perhaps three from another, and so on; The little band scoured the countryside and preyed on anything movablo they could lay their hands on. "Wo had a great timo at Seddon on ono tour,'' said the ex-inhabitant of the Dumgree camp, "and broke into the local store, where 'we got a big haul of tobacco. Another time wo had a go at a truck load of goods, left at the Dumgree flag station. Wo robbed all tho rabbiters' camps for., miles around, and made, periodical, raids on tho station camps. Food, drink, money, or smokes, it was all, the .samo to.us: wo took what we could get, When wo'got the chance we used to stick people up and de-. mand money or tobacco. Every night wo were out thieving. . "These are pretty strong statements to make, aren't they?", questioned ; tho oxprisoner.. "But it's fact, every word of it, and the officials know-it; On'two occasions the gaoler cut rations, the result being that we killed two_ sheep on, a neighbouring run, buried the skins, and cooked the mutton at the camp.. During tho day time- we used to v plot what now place we could ?ob. Com'plaints were made in'the district occasionally, but we-did not;:get from' the officials whatever was said, outside.. On one occasion the gaoler called- > tho prisoners together and informed us that one<of tho crowd Bad been .to Seddon. .Ho said ho did not it was>. but..warned all and sundry to be careful, as any prisoner seen-about tho place would be shot. Things got so bad that I used to throw tools- in- the river, cut the roots of. trees before putting them in the 'ground, and bury bundles 0f,20,-in the plantation.. I've seou as many as 600 buried in one .day. "..A select, company, of us got a pull over the others and used "to get drink into the camp. We gambled in our spare time too, but card-playing was allowed under t'w regulations, and we were not supposed to have'any money. Two men-deliberately refused to go to work for two weeks once, .and it was ho uncommon thing for a man to pretend to be ill. Ho would not go to work, but would be well onough to go out thieving during the day. "From what I've told you," concluded tho ex-prisoner, "you can get:a pretty fair idea of what one Government prison camp was like; for a' considerable number of weeks' while I was in it."