A PRISON FOR SALE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 90, 12 October 1929, Page 20

A PRISON FOR SALE

NO BUYERS APPEARING

If over we are hard up for evidence that England is a better place than it used to be, we can' poiiit to the decrease-' ifi the number1 of prisons" (says the ''Manchester .Guardian.''). -: All over tho country, gaols, havo' been closed because, there were, not prisoners -enough to keep-them .'open. ■ ■ ■ ■ . .There was tho- county gaol at Knutsford, for instance. Tliat became a theological college, presumably because theological students wero the only people ready, to live; tho ascetic lifo which tho nature of tho placo'demanded. And now the Homo Office are trying to sell Warwick Prison,-and the' Warwickshire County Council-have just refused to pay £22,000 for it. One doesn't'quite see what'use a county council' would have for it at any price. With its lingering and sinister associations, it would hardly, do for a child welfare centre, an.art gallery, or a block of flats; it could scarcely bo used ovon for municipal offices, now that wo have recognised the right of local government employees to work under- normally comfortable conditions. Perhaps tho best thing would bo to pull it down and sell tho cleared site.

Hut thorn is one more profitable possibility. Tho Americans aro always threatening to transport our historic buildings stono by stone across tho Atlantic. Moreover, their prisons aro notoriously overcrowded. Could they not bo persuaded to carry out a sentence nf transportation for life on Warwick gaoli „ . . . .