TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 27 October 1936, Page 4

TIMELY TOPICS

SHORT OR LONG GAOL SENTENCES? Mr Glbert Hair, Governor of Cardiff Prison, said in a recent speech: ‘Short periods in gaol give prison officers no opportunity to train these people. It is the, duty of the prison governor and his officers to train citizens. To achieve that end we have to make the gaolp as much -like the putside world .as possible, To that end the prisoners must be fit. Their minds must be trained; their outlook changed; Prisons -todayare : big factories v where men and women work at useful tasks for 10 hours a day making goods which are of use to the community. Thereby they learn the habits of industry, and over them are the prison officers. No longer are these representatives of vengeful society, but leaders of men —men who are being led back to the paths of society.. Nevertheless it is no use being sentimental about prisoners. Any number of people are willing to shed tears for the criminal, yet few are willing to Welp him keep' straight.” S 8 B ' « a TRUE HAPPINESS.

■ “What does it mean to be great?” asks Roy Sherwood in “Things We Should Know About Mind*.” He answers ths question by saying: Just this, that if a man can hold within hintself not one, but a good many urges, interests, convictions and sympathies, and can sink each one and all of them in his ,still greater humanity, then he is great. But only then. “True happiness,” says Mr Sherwood, “except in short bursts of rapture, is unattainable. Not for the hackneyed reason that we can appreciate Jcliss only by the force of its contrast to misery, but because it is contrary to the wider urge of the universe. For it is inseparable from happiness that we must want it to last, must want the world and time itself to stand still, to remain where we are, as we are at the moment of our contact with bliss. And that is too magnificently selfish, and therefore impossible.” ■ ’ ® (S ® ®

Words of Wisdom.

I do not mean to expose my ideas to ingenious ridicule y by maintaining that everything happens to every man for the best; but I will contend that he who makes the best use of it fulfills the part of a wise and good man. —Cumberland. 'IS !S ; " "IS 'IS ■ Tale of the Day.

“Bobby, will you have pie or ice cream?” “Pie.” “Pie what?” /“Pie first” ' ■■■■•■• -'•