TO EVADE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 45, 22 August 1939, Page 10

TO EVADE WORK

EASE OF HOSPITAL

PRISON RUSES

EMULATION OF THE SHARK

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, August 14. A recent investigation has resulted in interesting disclosures concerning the swallowing by prisoners of articles recorded by gaols as "foreign bodies." A prisoner, Joseph Bourke, a few weeks ago escaped from the hospital at the Long Bay (Sydney) gaol after he had swallowed a needle, but most of the "swallowers" perform their stomach-testing feats merely to malinger out of hard labour. j Bourke is one of 10 prisoners who, within a comparatively short period, have swallowed a remarkable collection of iron, steel, and wooden articles, many with sharp edges and prongs. Doctors have been amazed that any human being could swallow such articles and escape severe internal injuries. Some of the "foreign bodies" have been placed in a glass-case in the office of the Comptroller of Prisons.' All of them have been removed following operations on prisoners, and apparently none of the prisoners felt any after-effects. One man serving a sentence of 18 months in the Long Bay gaol cut the steel handles off two dixies, used as; food buckets in the gaol, into pieces from three to seven inches long, and swallowed 17 of these pieces. Some were bent, with jagged edges. Then he "ate" the metal handle of a fork more than three inches long. All were successfully removed after an operation. Four years later, when serving another term of imprisonment, he swallowed the handle of an iron spoon, and two jagged pieces of tin. Another prisoner complained of abdominal pains. An X-ray showed a nine-inch fork with four sharp prongs firmly fixed across his stomach. After it had been cut out, he said he had pushed it down his . throat handle first. WOODFN SPOON THAT BROKE. A young man serving a sentence of ten years tried to force a wooden spoon, with a bowl about two inches wide, down his gullet, but it broke in halves and doctors were able to retrieve the pieces with instruments inserted into the throat. Another prisoner at Long Bay tied the steel clasp from a pair of braces to j a piece of wire, to which he attached I string six inches long. To the string he fixed a steel trouser button. He said his idea was to force the braces clip with the wire down his throat, and pull it back with the string if it pained too much. He held the button in his teeth, but the string broke, and he swallowed the whole contrivance. Doctors opened another prisoners abdomen and extracted a brass coat hook, seven inches long, which he had swallowed after breaking it off a door in the Long Bay gaol. ( Many prisoners have "eaten nails, needles, and safety razor blades broken into pieces, first binding them with cotton or cigarette paper. One man smashed the glass of an electric globe and swallowed all the pieces. | Prisoners sometimes try to harm themselves in other ways, though prison officials are satisfied that they seldom attempt suicide. One prisoner who wished to be placed on the sick list forced 22 pieces of needle into an arm. Others try less painful means.