“THE AWFUL FACT”

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 226, 12 June 1923, Page 8

“THE AWFUL FACT”

HANGINGS AT TERRACE GAOL ANOTHER PROTEST

The Minister of Justice, Sir Francis Bell, has received from Mr. P. Fraser, M.P., the following letter of protest against hangings in the Terrace Gaol:

“As member of Parliament for tho district, I have to direct your attention to the grave wrong and injustice done to the young children attending the infant department of the Te Aro School, which is situatd in close proximity to the Terrace Gaol, by tho carrying out of the death sentences imposed on certain prisoners in one of the gaol yards there. It would appear that the Prisons Department could not have given much thought to the matter before ordering the last execution to be carried out there, but as considerable attention has been directed to the subject since that date, it is to be earnestly hoped that some other place will be .selected, for future enforcements of capital punishment.. I am informed by those closely associated with the children that on the last occasion the nearness to the place of execution had a very visible and disastrous effect noon tho minds of the children. It was unavoidably the subject of much of the conversation, and they were broright into close contact with the whole horrible business. There are certain disagreeable, dark, and terrible occur-. Fences in our state of society, the knowledge of which should not be imposed upon the child mind. Children should be protected from any intimacy with the awful fact of capital punishment, and the revolting crimes which lead up to the imposition of that sentence. The carrying out of. further death sentences in close proximity to the Te Aro infant school can only have a most deleterious and disastrous mental effect upon the children of tender years who attend it, and therefore I earnestly urge that you take, this matter into vour careful and immediate consideration, with a view to preventing any further executions being carried out at the Terrace Gaol.”