PECULIAR PRISONS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 25 June 1927, Page 11

PECULIAR PRISONS

pRISOKS are not what they were. A different spirit pervades them. I read, for Instance (writes “A Traveller” m the “(Jape Argus”), of a charming jucitlent over ait the quiet little gaol of St. B.ierre, in Versailles, the other evening. A doorkeeper-warden had become friendly with an alleged murderer awaiting trial, and suggested that an evening out would da them both good. But whiait of the door" They took a burgjair out t>f his cell and into their confidence, dressed him up in the warder’s clothes, and had a- merry night out. Again, dose to the Look County gutul, near Chicago, was it bootlegging establishment, to which thirsty prisoners just whistled onto when they wanted beer, and twice when they wanted whisky. A messenger promptly went over with the stuff, carrying it in rubber hot water bottles. The native prison, in Fli.ji had mv wialls round it when I saw at-. It looked more like an hotel, and the inmates looked on it a-s .such. The blank matefactors were out

all day making roads, clearing jungle. Lumbering, and forth, accumulating a heiailthy appetite in the process. They had to be in by a certain time in the evening. If they were late they found the gates inexorably .shut—•which meant no supper. One used to see tardy convict? outside the dosed, portals of their pleasant penitentiary. beating with their fists ‘and asking the warder to have O' heart and let them in. Siberian convict prisons have an undeservedly bad reputation. 1 found that the pris-

CONDITIONS IN MANY LANDS

oners enjoyed themselves more often than not. They were confined not in damp, solitary, stone cells, but in large, well-warmed, log-walled rooms, with permission to .smoke, sing, talk, play cards, and play the haiUiaiika or the accordion. They were allowed all the - food that friends supplied, and instead of unpalatable official rations they received a daily subsistence allowance in cash. This and gifts of food were generally pooled, one man of the couple of dozen or so in the room doing the catering for the rest. Large' numbers of prisoners escaped every spuing by the simple process of laying down their toolbs and walking off into the forest while the warder looked the other way. All the oUiiictinls of the gaol, from the governor to the humblest warder, stood to gain by these disappearances—for the money for their sup port continued to be drawn from the Treasury and shared by the staff. When the cold weather came on in October, however, and one felt the need of a roof and four walls to which to retreat every evening, back most of them came, inisisting on their right to ibe locked nj> and resume drawing their pay. A mild Hogging, to comply with, the regulations, and all was well again. America' has the pleasantest, and the mi pleasantest, prisons in the world. The convicts of Sing Sing, most of whom ktaried life in the slum® of southern Italy. Poland, and Galicia, now have “cells” a. good deal more cosy and comfortably furiii>sihed than any room in the Iho-mes of their relatives back (in the old country. Book shelves, flowers, luxurious armchairs, and wireless isets console the burglar, the coiner and the hold-up man for IPs bad luck in getting caught once in a while.