NEWS INDEED.

Evening Star, Issue 5914, 23 February 1882, Page 4

NEWS INDEED.

I In a very elaborate and important report recently published by the American|Government, entitled "The State of Prisons and of Child-saving Institutions of the Civilised World," edited by the Hon. E. C. Wines, LL.D., and Honorary President of the International Penitentiary Congress of Stockholm, the following exaggerated account occurs of the prison system of New Zealand : —"There is one prison at least in New Zealand, perhaps more, which is more than selfsupporting through the labor of the inmates, that of Dunedin, Otago, under the governorship of my friend Mr James Caldwell. This gentleman has achieved a work unparalleled, 1 think, in the history of criminal treatment —the removal, not by 'faith' exactly, but by convict labor, of a solid mountain ' into the midst of the sea.' Less than twenty years ago Bell Hill, a mighty headland, a huge mass of basaltic rock, rose higher than the steeple of St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, in a part of what is now the great city of Dunedin. That proud bluff—wild, rugged, and romantic—where the waves of the bay sang their mournful dirges as they dashed into caves and hollows, and where children climbed and romped among trees and thickets and velvety lawns, has entirely disappeared, or rather has changed its locality, and is now seen in the form of solid acres—scores upon scores of them—where once the sea disported itself; those acres covered with a network of streets, avenues, and rows of warehouses and dwellings, interspersed with magnificent churches, halls, banks, and public edifices of all sorts. The slaves of ancient Egypt reared artificial mountains in the shape of pyramids and massive tombs. Mr Caldwell's prison gangs have removed a mountain into the sea, and converted that restless element into broad fields of term Jirmu, to be the site of a splendid city. The removal of this gigantic mass of rock and its conversion to purposes of trade and social life form a striking commentary on what can be effected by a judicious application of prison labor. The sea reclaimed is studded with stores and commercial warehouses ; the iron horse travels daily, and ftnds a central resting-place where boats once sailed; swamps have been converted into gardens and ornamented with stately buildings—all through the skilled and effective use of convict muscle. The work was begun by the convicts in 1863, and the finishing touch was given to it on the 24th November, 1877. It was the largest public work ever undertaken in New Zealand."