'YOUR PRISONS ARE TOO GOOD.'

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 124, 24 April 1895, Page 3

'YOUR PRISONS ARE TOO GOOD.'

So said John Burns in America. Mr Tallack, secretary of the Howard Association, writing on the matter, says : ' Suppose we take the case of an honest workman, say in New York or San Prancisco, toiling from morning t'U night, just able to get a living, but with few comforts and little amusement, for himse)f and family. He may have, for a neighbour, on one side, a lazy theivish loafer who never works and on tho other side a violent bully, girlty of cruel assaults on man and beast, and of indecent outrages on womon and children. Yet is it Sot a fact that if cither the loafer or the bvVy is sent to an American prison tho chances are, at present, that ho wi 11 there find comforts of dietary, recreation, music, newspapers, novels, gymnastics, and professorial teaching, even in tho higher branches of education, which the honest worker can never hope to obtain? And not only so, but the bully and tho thief, ■f obliged to work in prison, will probably bo put to labour of a higher character and shorter daily continuanco than tho other, and perhaps, also, be trained to somo fancy trado or profit-art wHch ho, too, most glac'ly learn."