BEHIND PRISON BARS.

Evening Star, Issue 14040, 22 April 1909, Page 2

BEHIND PRISON BARS.

[By Long Sentence.] . . lI—PRISONER'S COUNSEL.—AN APPEAL. The late Mr F. E. Severne, for many fears gaoler at Auckland, while he held some opinions it was impossible to agree s-ith, possessed many of the qualities which ro to make an ideal gaoler. He was always courteous, ahvays approachable, yet he was the last man a brisoner would have thought of taking liberties with. He never had to assert iimself: his position; was assured. At srst the velvet glove only was visible—•a'ter the iron hand was felt. He would lever punish if he could awoid it by giving i lecture. When ho did punish he had a aabit of keeping it up. His propensity :o lecture, hoivever, occasionally was the .-ource of amusement. A man would say : " I w-ent in to see ' the )Id man'" (the usual name applied to ihe gaoler, if it isn't George or Pat). "He started giving mo advice, and kept going. [ never got a show to chip in and tell him. ivhat I wanted. He wound up with: That's all right, Martin; xomerober what I say. Next man !'" On the other hand, instead of the usual ibnipt " Yes " or " No," he frequently gave lis reason for refusing a request or-whal-sver it might be. '...... Mr Severne's opinions on &ome subjects ,verr\ to me, most extraordinary. He seemed never so bappy as when every cell .vas full. The way he and his chief ■varder could squeeze men in wjjs wonderad, and how, when every crevice and shelf .vas full, they could still rind room for nore was amazing. t believe that had ie been able to accomplish it he would have lad half the people of Auckland in prison. He certainly thought they ought to bo ihere. Nor could he understand why men .it prison were not contented. He would wy : "If they could only 6ee it. they are Setter oil where tfiey are. They have no lnxiety for to-morrow, they have every - jhinrr they need, they cannot make themselves ill by indulging in excess. If their .ioors are locked, what difference does it j nake? Tliat is a mere detail." I He was very dryly humorous sometimes. •Are you ever troubled with indigestion?" ne inquired one day. "If I eat too much," war, my reply. "Yes, that's just it." Pointing to a fat man about five-and-thirty : " Look at that man. Hes in the doctor's hands; he eats too much—all his awn rations, and everything lie can get from others. • And I cant find an excuse to send him to solitary, where his - diet could he regulated F' In the Supreme Court, a prisoner who had been there before asked if Mr Severne would give him a character. "I have known him for a number of years," said Mr Severne, '" and liis character' has Iwen meet exemplary "—he paused—"under lock and key'." A young fellow, who was more of a nuisance than anything else, but was always well spoken and civil, was brought before him for some trine. " Stop his tobacco," said Mr Severne. "I'm not on tobacco, sir," said the culprit. ■ "Well, stop his nifirks." "I am not on marks this time, sir." "Then lock him i*p in his cell on half Tations."

"I'm-'in my cell on half rations by the doctor's orders, sir." The gaoler eyed hirn for a moment, then paid: "Under the circumstances, can you make any suggestion that would eefc over the difficulty?" A warder who thought he'd been over : looked—so the story goes—applied to the inspector of prisons for promotion. The latter, turning to the' gaoler, inquired r "What's your report on this officer?" "Well, he is ah\avs here," was the reply. * * * ■ * ■ # * ■ * " When these notes were commenced it was with ihe intention of confining them to the- lighter side of prison life; but one thing ,so runs into another that it is next to impossible to do'so. In what follows the injustice referred to is of such a. slaring kind that it is difficult to understand its existing in a British Dominion in the twentieth century. It i 6 with the hope that, by drawing- public attention to the subject, it may thortly be remedied, that it is introduced into these notes. j Looking at a man crossing one of the yards—the man had been in his office that morning complaining about his trial—Mr Severne -emarked: "That man thinks if he'd had a lawyer he'd have got about four years instead of fourteen. From what I know of the case, perhaps he would." This was touching on one of the arreatest grievances prisoners have—that persons at every session of the Supreme Court are charged with serious offences, tried, and sentenced to anything up to fifteen,years without being defended. There is a good old boast that under British law an accused is assumed to be innocent .-.oritij. proved guilty. Who invented this? delightful piece 'of satire? It would be -Interesting to know. When once a charge is >la,id, everything is done that can be darg> to make the case look its blacked"against the accused. It is the practice to- Charge him in its most serious form with what he is assumed to have done, and everything is worked up by the prosecution to bear this out. If the accused has not the means to retain counsel the case goes to the jury, as represented by the prosecution. There is a polite fiction, also, that the Judge watches the case on behalf of the accused ; but as he (the Judge) has never seen him until he entered the dock, and has had no opportunity of hearing his version of the affair, how can he? H» may have .some qualms, some inner consciousness that the storv is overdrawn and an his summing up may attempt to modify Jt somewhat; but he win exactly the same position as the jury—he knows the case only as presented by the prosecution. Tf the case is defended by counsel, a great deal put forward by the prosecution may be broken down by cross-examination of witnesses. If innocent, the accused has a chance to get off. If guilty, the case wall look less black, and the sentence may be three years instead of ten. However black a case may look, however 1 guilty an accused may be," the spirit of Justice demands that he should not be made to look blacker than he is, or receive more than the merited punishment. It ia a. blot on the English character, a travesty of justice, that the present system should have continued no long. It is like taking a pair of scales—symbol of Justice—placing all the weights in one scale, and expect innthe other not to go up. The chances of the undefended accused, innocent or guilty, are about equal to the chances of the early Christians, who were driven into a Roman amphitheatre to be devoured bv wild animals. Tlie process is much the same : in the one case the accused is the butt of the trained advocate, for the Crown on his own prearranged stage; witnesses questioned only on what will tend to convict—and blacken. Eve rything- : that would make the case less so, or would' exonerate is carefully avoided and "' suppressed! Should the accused blunderingly ask nuestions, shoulders are shrugged and innuendoes and asides indulged in. In the other arena, the great cats similarly play with their victims before finally consuming them—in both cases the result is the same. Take a public platform, place on it two men—one an orator, the other casually picked up in the street. The first is on his own ground, perfectly at home/with every tool of bns trade to his hand ; the second —just an ordinary man—cannot open his ™ uth > is utterly bewildered. Yet the difference between these two is not nearly so great as between a Crown J?rosecuto'r and the man in the dock. It is. often said that an accused's innocence or guilt can be judged-by his ".demeanor As a fact, from their exposure—rem their position-from their miserythe innocent look the most guilty " * It is often pitiable to .watch mi accused in the dock, struggling to get answers out T hXffi*' }u' U it>R ™ M y «« pitiable to hear them tell you therr steiy—of their nervousness, ol their heJplessn t \s of their inability to get certain evidence out'which ac least would have put a different aspect on, the affa«r-T-shown mitigating circumstances and modified the eentence, Only in cases where the- charge j 8 capital is it usual for the accused to have CDoneiel found them