PRISON HORRORS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 98, 22 October 1904, Page 13

PRISON HORRORS.

Herr Herfurth, who first drew attention to the South-west African scandal rising out of the alleged murder of a negro by an official named Kossak, has contributed another article to the Koloniale Zeitschrift, in which.be exposes the prison system in that colony. In Bethanien, for example, where Kossak was an official, 60 per cent, of the prisoners died in gaol. The prisoners, he says, are treated worse than farmers treat their oxen, and their mortality is certainly higher. In the prison/at Keetmanshoop a friend of Herr Herfurth's saw thirty to forty native prisoners confined in a cell 10ft high, 13ft long, and 12ft broad, and in another still smaller cell were ten women. Children from four to six years old were punished with imprisonment, and maltreated by native jjolicemen. One child of five was in gaol under a long sentence for stealing milk. Prisoners sent out to work on public works were sometimes so weak that they fell dead on the roadside. Sometimes they are left to lie there, the wind and sun soon turning their emaciated bodies to mummies. These revolting particulars have made a profound impression here. Herr Herfurth writes his article in a most dispassionate way, and what he says bears the distinct impress of truth.