LONG HUNGER STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19382, 17 July 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

LONG HUNGER STRIKE.

PICTURE THIEF'S OBSTINACY. % "I AM GOING TO DIE." FOOD GIVEN BY FORCE. " Ten years' imprisonment! I would sooner die." 1 Tho hospital orderly to whom George Ingram spoke these bitter words has given to a London paper some details of the amazing hunger-strike which the young picture thief has been carrying on in Rarkhurst Prison since early in June 1924. Ingram was reported a few weeks ago, to be seriously ill as a result of his unparalleled period of deliberate starvation. " His hunger-strike began almost immediately he entered prison," said his former hospital orderly, the interviewer." "He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for the theft of valuable pictures, and had three years of an unexpired ticket-of-leave to serve 1 in ajddition. He is only 29, and after brooding over the severity of the sentence he came to the calm decision to starve himself to death. Ho at once put his

decision into action, and within a month he had readied such a stage of weakness that Dr. Forwood, the forcible-feeding expert, who was responsible for administering food by force to Mrs. Pankhurst and other leading suffragettes, was called in. " Ingram—or Tredegar, as he was once known— w^5..... Removed,, .to., the prison hospital, and food was forced into , his stomach through theqjong, flexible rubber tube. "I shall not -easily forget the horrible experiences of those feedingstwo or three times a day. The young prisoner, with his dreadfully emaciated face and glittering eyes, persistently rebuffed the pleading -of the doctors that he should take food in the natural way. Every time he refused. Then a heavy belt, riveted with wrist manacles, was strapped round his waist, securing his arms, and the eggs beaten in milk, which formed his sole diet, were given to him by tho method which Dr. Forwood has discovered after long experiment to be the most humane and satisfactory. " Oranges, apples, beef tea, custard, and similar delicacies were placed beside the bed, but if they tempted him, Ingram gave no sign of an inward struggle. The battle between the will to live and the determination to die was not shown in the

way he waved the dainties away and it seemed that his long; battle against life was to bo crowned with "success.""

" The food given by force did not have the effect which food naturally consumed has. His energy waned, his body grew more sunken and emaciated, his complexion more ashen, while the unnatural brightness of his eyes grew more pronounced. For 15 months on end I saw him fed by force. 'I do not care. lam going to die and cheat the prison ' were his last words to me. I know he will not give in."

A curious coincidence in the case of Ingram is that lie occupies the cell in Parkhurst which Stinie Morrison occupied when he carried out liis prolonged hunger-strike on similar lines until it ended fatally. The Home Office has refused to release Ingram on the grounds of health, and has ordered that he shall forfeit all remission of sentence for his stubborn ess.