A CASE FOR INQUIRY.

Evening Star, Issue 7174, 30 March 1887, Page 2

A CASE FOR INQUIRY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin,—Who will dare say, after reading- the lamentable aoconnt of the death of the .unfortunate man Douglas John Parsonage, Who was sharaefnlly and negligently allowed to murder himself in the Napier Gaol,' that our prisoners are well managed? Thert -is scarcely a week but something reflecting on prison management appears in the newsstill a portion of ■ the public and the Press suppose that our system is a model of perfection. If the report of the Coroner’s inquest is correct, and I have no reason to think otherwise, that no notice was taken of the prisoner from 6 p,m. till 6 a.m. the-following meming, but he was left alone and allowed to batter his brains out .against the walls of his cell, surely there-must be gross negligence on the part of the authorities. I could hardly credit that such could happen even in the Western States of America, where all maimer of rowdyism prevails, let'alone in a.civilised country like New Zealand. I have noticed leaders and letters in the * South Canterbury Times ’ calling on the Minister of Justice to have an inquiry into the cause of the officials' of Mount Cook Prison allowing prisoner Crabtree to smuggle tools into his cell, being the means by which he effected his escape. But the Minister declines to act. Not long since a similar case to the Najtfer one happened in the Addington Prison. A man named Nolan, who was committed to prison for forty-eight hours, was suffering from the effects of a spree, and was locked alone in a celL No notice was taken of him, and the warder opening his cell the following morning found Nolan * corpse. Sir, the prisons of the Colony cost a large sqm of money annually, and therefore ibe public have a right to demand that they shall managed more efficiently.—l am, etc.. Good Blanaqemknt. Dunedin, March 29.