DEATH OR MADNESS.

Inangahua Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 508, 29 July 1895, Page 2

DEATH OR MADNESS.

In a bri«f oomment on the close of the trial of Oscar Wilde, tke Daily Chronicle said :— " His senteiee, •■• foraed as it will br by the iiwwrt rigors knowa to our abhorrent penal system, it virtually a sentence ol death or madness, a fate to whisk we confess we hesitate to Goadeaw aay human creature whatever." A correspondent next - day asked' vhafc this meant, and ke was ealigktaaoi as follows:— Two years' kard lakoi is the severest aeaience, while^it lasts, known to tke English eriatiaal lav. It is a form of punishment never inflicted oa criminate sentenced to penal servitude, inasmuch as it ii calculated to produce tudnesf amongst them* Nine months' separate confinement is as muoh as ft oot> riot gets, and is considered as auwk as bis mind can sand. The, Prisoni Committee report that even aiae saonths 1 eeparation often injuriowijr affeot the nervoms system, and recom. mend a reduction of the *"■••* prisoner under two years' hard l«or may be kept during the whole «»• ia the solitude of his cell, with the exception of one hour a day. .. During a porc'on of his detention he is allowed no ordinary readiay bo*", has a wooden plank m » b«d, aa * has to engage in occupation which tke late Chairman o* the Priso* Board deolares to be " irritating, depressing, and dtbising to tke *«ntal faoul'ies, and decidedly brutalising in its effects." So severe is this form of tinte»«e considered to ke, tint many judge* will not inflict it at all, »ad last year ma total of 160,000 short seutencet, only 34 persons were eoimni'ted for tw> yrears by the ordinary criminal cenrts.