THE TERRACE VARIETY SHOW.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 692, 4 October 1913, Page 6

THE TERRACE VARIETY SHOW.

A Convicts' Strike and the Degrading Folly of It. WELLINGTON has heen lamenting or enjoying (it is all a matter of the point of view) the speo"taole of a sort of revolt of prisoners in the Terrace Gaol. The men have been flinging their bread, which seems to be reasonably good bread, about in the streets, defying authority, and harangue lng the curious crowds in city streets. * * * * It is m obvious that such a state of things is in the last degree abominable and preposterous. In the first place, convicts in a state of revolt should not be marched through the streets at afl.In the second place, convicts should only be permitted to air their grievances through appropriate channels. The discipkne at the Terrace seems lax. Indeed., we have one of the officiate there assuring us that his gaol-is a sort of home from home, that prisoners like it—

like it all the better, the assumption is, because they are apparently able- to leave it whenever they,: want to. - public is becoming very sick of the constant scandals at the Terrace Gaol. The spectacle of prisoners being marched daily through the streets is a degrading spectacle. In/ the case of short-sentence prisoners, it is a brutal spectacle. It is stated that one man in the gaol is daily marched past his ownpoor home, so that his children and his neighbours may gaze- on his humiliation: However that may be, ft is obvious that the condition .of things at the Terrace calls for the strictest investigation. As things are, the gaol is merely a public jest.. ■-.'._--.'.