ARTIST AND MURDERER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18464, 27 January 1922, Page 3

ARTIST AND MURDERER

ROMANCE OF AUSTRALIAN GAOL, (Fxom Oije Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 17. A romance of Australian prison life has just been disclosed by the publishing of the fact that a picture, tho work of a murderer at present in gaol, has just been shipped to America- if it has nothing else to recommend it tho picture possesses the strong merits of originality and romance. It is an oil painting, and the artist is a man who is serving a life sentence in one of tho New South Wales State prisons for murder. He is still serving the sentence, and is 60 years of age. His name does not matter for the purpose of tho story, and ho may bo designated No. 13. He was found guilty of murdering his wife, and' he was sentenced to death, but having been at tho time under tho influence of drink the sentence was commuted to ’ifo imprisonment. Under the enlightened vocational system fostered by tho prison authorities, No. 15 was permitted to exercise his gift ae an artist. Chaplain Tom Beaston, who has been studying prison methods in Australia under a commission from the Texas Government, visited tho prison in which No. 13 is located, and, becoming interested, tho man No. 13 expressed a desire to paint a picture for tho chaplain to take back as an Australian souvenir. The prison authorities consented to this, and on his return to Sydney the chaplain, who was asked to suggest a subject, sent, No. 13 a miniature copy of tho traditional picture of the baptism of Jesus by John n the River Jordan. The picture was duly painted in oils, and a wooden frame, the work of other prisoners in the gaol, was made for it. Chaplain Beaston saw the picture on its arrival at the prison department in Sydney. and was delighted with it, It, is not a great picture judged from every standpoint, but there is a manifest inspiration in the conception of the painter, and he has not laboured in vain. Packed in a strong case, it has gone forward to he hung on one of tho walls of Fort BINs prison stockade, as a courtesy gift from the Prison Department of New South Wales, and u. friendly overture from a prisoner in Australia, '