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Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 September 1924, Page 10

Even in the gloomy eoufiines of a prisoner s cell humour—and pathos—nnd their vent. This is revealed hv an inspection of‘the white-washed walls 1 ‘ e . e cel,s I)en «ath the main hall or the old and historic Supreme Court building (says the Auckland »tar). Here, men awaiting trial 01 sentence are compelled to spend theii time. After a convicted man has heard the judge pronounce sentence, he stumbles down the dock, and is lefi alone with his thoughts. Soon the van will take him to the stone-walled Pile at Mount Eden. The cell i s \a foretaste of what is to come. The soul, destroying years stretch in melancholv vista, before the nrisoner; in such a mood, with the stub of a pencil, he makes the walls hideous or amusing—or pathetic, perhaps—according to +Jv trend of his thoughts. Many a one has scrawled his name, addin? the date crime, and sentence. As if to s ay. “All hone abandon, ve who enter here.” Others have executed a crude representation of the cross, bearing an epitaph referring to the length of the sentence “God will help von and me,” remarks another inscription. ’Tis a grim study criminal psychology.