BOTTOMLEY IN GAOL

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11657, 23 October 1923, Page 6

BOTTOMLEY IN GAOL

“NIL DESPERANDUM” LEIFT AT THE POST. LIFE'S DREARY DERBY. LONDON, October 7. I know not whether laws he right Or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that tho walls are strong. ■uch echoing words of Oscar Wild*, v nose prison life gave two classics to English literature, were, doubtless, tlm first reflection after his incarceration of Horatio Bottomley, former M.P., orator, financier and journalist. For not long could his active mind lie fallow. Now he is writing with a vivid pen the impression of the life the law had compelled him to lead. It is most-interesting reading. TYith shoulders only slightly stooped, and grey hair not yet whitened by his experiences, he is serving seven years in the 31 a ids tone Gaol, under the wardeiship of a man who lost £2OO in Bottomley’a Victory Bond soheme. Even in Wormwood Scrubs, where the first stage of his imprisonment was Bpijnt, he had a reminder of bis former associations. His cell was cleaned by a political supporter, from whose shop he nad delivered election addresses. W.ia food was brought by a man on whose breast he had pinned war medals at a Welsh celebration. The first person Bottomley. recognised in the exercise ground was Hoolcy, the bankrupt friend of kings and princes, whose gift of a gold altar service had been rejected by St. Paul’s Cathedral. He next met a noted solicitor, numerous military officers, and a Bporting acquaintance, who was cutting tho lawn. “StiTl on the turf,” was Bottomley’a greeting. Hero or hypocrite, Bottomley tells a story which is a drama of contrasts. NOT THE END. After a week in court, without dreaming of disaster, he sat on his 6unny country garden on a Sunday in May, 1922, planning a Press and Par-' liamentary tour de force, which he felt would have carried the nation with him. Next afternoon he was under sentence of seven years’ penal servitude. Ho was in the Wormwood Scrubs Prison, being stripped, weighed, dressed in convict garb: his dreams of freedom falsified, nis hopes of a triumphant acquittal shattered. Sitting in a 10ft x Bft observation cell, he asked: ‘‘ls this the end of all my struggles, the final fruit of my victories against overwhelming odds? I could not think so. As I had entered the prison grounds I had noticed the motto ‘Nil desperandum’ in a flowerbed. Was not my mother a Holyoake ? Did not her splendid druid blood run in my veins? Had not I arrogated to mvseif tho character of sturdy John Bull?

•‘The next day was Derby Day. As I heard the coaches passing along the adjacent road to Epsom, I reflected how in the Derby of life I had been left at the post.” Til-- revelations which prison life afforded were fertile in reflection. One instance was when Bottomley left Wormwood for Maidstone. He was f .and observing, “Lord, now lottest 'I ; > in Tby servant depart in peace.” lie t bought that the T/Ord would tlr-ok him for what he had loarncd, air! that it would prove an asset in the general stocktaking of mankind. Projecting on the screen of publicity the prison pictures which his mind has timed, he tells how ho dried tho tears of a medical student, undergoing six months, to which he was sentenced on the eve of his marriage and final examination. AKM LSTICE CONTRASTS. Bottomley expressed sympathy for a. blind man who was deserted hv his wife and children, and feelingly recalled the words of his first gaol Communion as a message of eheer and hope. II- sympathised profoundly with a young prisoner whose adinis o !"n to the Sacrament liad been delayed. This iad h-ad been in the army serving with tlie Australians in France. Bottomlc-v’s recollections of throe Aimistieo bays cannot escape his eye for the contrast. Ho describes how in tho hysteria of the eleventh hour, day, and month of 1918, after he had concluded an interview with the president of tho Board of Trade, a patriotic

damsel threw her arms round his neck, exclaiming, “Isn’t it lovely.” ‘‘Two years later I occupied a special seat in Westminster, behind Mr Lloyd George and Mr Asquith, near the grave in which was lowered the coffin of the Unknown Warrior, ‘the man who won tho war.’ ” he said. “Another two years passed, and 1 sat in the chapel at Wormwood Scrubs. How can I describe it? A deep hush fell on 1000 men-and 100 boys, standing at attention. Nine out of ten of them possessed war medals, but could not wear them. Not a few had given a son or a brother to the cause. How those medals would have sanctified the prison dress. The poor fellows felt it. ‘Never mind,’ whispered one. ‘The uisHus is wearing thorn to-day, taking the kiddies to tho Cenotaph to pray for daddy’s return. They don’t know it here.’ “With tho ‘Last Tost,’ Reveille and National Anthem, Armistice Day comes to a close.” “Did Heaven witness anything more beautiful?” reflects Bottomley. Bottomley, who is now the gaol compositor, is recovering from neuritis, attending lectures, and concentrating his mind on the day of his release. As of his namesake, it may well 4>o {•aid of him, “ILero are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio.”