THE TRANSVAAL PRISONS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2293, 5 January 1900, Page 2

THE TRANSVAAL PRISONS.

+ A Britisher, who has been twice detained in what he calls " Paul Kruger's prisonhouses of detention as hotels," has told his experiences. He says the Johannesburg gaol, the largest and roost important in South Africa, is an enormous, solid mass of buildings of huge blocks of stone with iron routing, which overlooks the place from Hospital HilL He divides the inhabitants of the place into three classes—those who have beeu in gaol, those who are now in, and those who have still to go there, but have been fortunate enough to escape. On entering, the prisoner is entitled to a plate, mug, and spoon of tin, a towel a bit of soap once a fortnight, three rugs for bedclothes, *nd a straw mattress, if the floor happens to be of stone. The rations are half a pound of mealie-meal boiled into porridge at daybreak, the same at night, and at mid-day a pound of coarse meat, which is often exchanged for tobacco with the Kaffir prisoners. Four whites and 20 blacks are the usual complement of one cell. The gaol at Pretoria is described as a small edition of that at Johannesburg, with black and white men's yards to the right and left, and a separate yard for white and untried Kaffir prisoners. The cells are eighteen by 12ft, and stone flagged, with three prison blankets for a covering a'id one for a pillow. Unless political prisoners those who are untried are allowed to get any kind of food from outside they care to pay for.— 4 Sketch.'