DRAMATIC SCENE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 15

DRAMATIC SCENE.

INCIDENT AT A LECTURE.

" BATTLE" AFTER PRISON. EX-CONVICT'S EXPERIENCES. There was a dramatic incident at King's Weigh House Club, London, last month, where Mr. E. A. Joyce, DeputyGovernor of Wormwood Scrubbs Prison, gave a lecture. After Mr. Joyce had spoken, a man of about 45, wearing a black coat, got up and said quietly: '-Perhaps, after the speaker and chairman, I am the most important man in the room—l am an ex-convict. I am what is known as an obi 'lag.' and T liavo seven convictions against me. I was at. Dartmoor, and you can take it from me that an exprisoner's real trial starts on the day of his discharge. "It was my birthday, as T call it, on January 16 last; you see I was last discharged from prison, it was Pcntonville, on January 16, 1923, after having done 18 months. Tt, was then my battle started. I have a delightful wife, faithful, loyal, and true, and five beautiful children. When I left Pentonville my wife was there waiting for me; it was about 7.30 in tho morning. "The first thing she said to mo was: 'Charles, you can't come home, Mrs. won't have you in the house.' We got as far as Balham, and there I had to part from her. I met some old associates. 'What are you going to have?' they said. Fancy offering a man a drink when he has not had one for eighteen months. "I Have Had a Battle." "The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society had provided nio with a week's * board and lodging, and they sent, my wife 30s. After that first week tho battle began. It, was all up in about three weeks, and we had to go into an institution, and if it were a, choice between an institution and prison 1 would say prison tomorrow. "I have had a battle. Tam a clerk, and I daresay I am about, as clover a writer as any man in London. 1 have done many and many a 'kite,' which is a. vulgar term, or prisoner's nam© for a cheque. I had an offer at Christmas; they said: 'Ginger, do this kite: you will get £2o.' But no. For one thing fear has kept mo off it, and also inv word to the chaplain when I last left prison that I would not go down again. "1 do not say it now. but a few years ago Scotland Yard realised that I was one of the five or six men in London who could forge a signature. Three weeks ago I was ejected because I could not pay my rent, but I shall not go down. [ have found a roof for my wife and children." The man added that Wormwood Scrubbs was his first prison. Conditions in Prisons. Mr. Joyce, in his lecture, said that prison never reformed any man. The only thing they could hope to do was to make tha conditions in a prison such that a man was able to reform himself. "I met a man last month who will be in prison for another twelve months vet. Ho leaves outside a wife and a baby not yet six months old. and between him and his wife at the time I met, him there was fifteen shillings. "You read in the paper that a man has beon sentenced to six months' imprisonment, but you never read —no Judge would dare say it—-that the Judge said: 'John Smith, I sentence you to six months' hard labour. 1 sentence vour wifo to six months' misery, and I sentence your child to a Migrna the child j itself does not understand.' " Discussing' the cause for the increase i in crime. Mr. Joyce said that there was a lack of moral standards due. in the j main, to a lack of parental control.