LIVING HIGH

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 39, 14 August 1930, Page 15

LIVING HIGH

CHAMPAGNE IN PRISON

The French Council of State is «hortly to determine whether a prison may run a restaurant in which diners pay for their' favourite dishes, says th« "Daily Telegraph.'For many years a restaurant keeper whose establishment stands opposite the Sante prison, has •, been, accustomed to sell meals to prisoners who could afford to pay for them —and these were many. There were financiers awaiting trial who ordered oysters, roast chicken, asparagus, champagne, and so forth from the restaurant, and had the meals delicately served in their cells. : But the restaurant-koeper now complains that he gets very few orders. He states tliat the reason is that the Governor of the prison has established a restaurant within its walls, where prisoners may supplement prison fare to the extent of their means.

The first result of his coraplauifc of unfair competition is that the name of what he calls the "prison restaurant" has been.changed to "Canteen No. 2." But the Aiiame, he says, makes no di£-fp-ence. It is the business that counts, and he has put forward1 the case that prison authorities jhave no right to enter the catering business. Their duty is to hold ' prisoners within their walls and nourish them sufficiently, but not to have'commercial transactions with them.

The inquiry about to be opened will probably reveal whether oysters and champagne figure on the menus of the prison canteen as they do on tbitt of tho restaurant.