A CITY WITHOUT WOMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 79

A CITY WITHOUT WOMEN.

|; Tragedy, comedy, and romance are curiously intermingled in Sir Basil Thomson's latest book, "The Story of Dartmoor Prison." Mr Thomson, was. far seven years . officially connected- with Dartmoor, latterly a^ Governor, and is therefore -well quali* fied. to write the first cosneefced history oi tbur the most famous, penai settlement? in England. The story- of Dartmoor begins in, 1809, 'when the prison was built to aocommo•d*te the ever-increasing numbers of French* and American prisoners of war. This 1 ■ War Prison, Mr Thomson tells us in his preface, was an overcrowded city without 1 women,;- with its own laws, its schools, jnanufactures and. arts, audits workshops, "where coin could be counterfeited and! Bank of England- notes- forged.'* On certain days of the week a marketi was-, held within the prison walls, and th< prisoners were allowed to barter certain! .articles of their own manufacture for food! and clothing brought' by the tradespeople of the neighbourhood. Many Jewish pedlars also attended the maTHet, and iwera made the victims of innumerable practical jokes by the prisoners. And, according ta Mr Thomson, these pranks were not con« 'fined solely to the prisoners. — Outwitting a Jew.—* On his way to the prison one of the Jews met a farmer belonging to Boborough alone on Peak Hill, and suspected! from something in his manner that he waa aij American prisoner ' who had just? escaped. His fingers itched to handle the £3 which was the reward paid by tha Government for the recapture of a prisoner. The farmer seized the humour ofe the situation, and immediately bega^ tcr.sing- "Yankee- Doodle," arid submitted.' quietly to arrest, but he declined to walk, and*- insisted that a cart should be 'hired ' .for half* a guinea from Dousland Barn^ As the <S>st would be more than covered" by the reward, Mb captor consented, and, treated him liberally in the matter of ret freshment. On arriving at the prison* 'to the- Jew's discomfiture, the prisoner was' immediately recognised by the turnkeys as a- • farmer who * frequented the market, ■ and instead of receiving tha award the .pedlar was obliged to pay £f a* compensation for wrongful imprison* ment. It was in 1850 that Bartmoor became af convict establishment. Escapes, at first, were frequent, and some of them had their humorous side:— » ' John Smith, who escaped from hitf cell on July 7 (1854h broke into th* medical officer's house, and, after demolishing the greater part of a ham, ha stole a suit of clothes, leaving his own on the floor of the bedroom. At Two Bridges, he was seized and banded over to the, Tavistock. police, who coH^ejred' him 6o> ExeteV-for trial- at' the A«aaes. On his return to Dartmoor after conviction, tie chaplain went to see. him, and 1 asked him whether -he was not sorry for what he had done, "There's one thine I am sorry for," he said jtiioufiiitfullxi "if I'd known I jbovUL

Tje took, I'd 'aye eaten a bit more of that '3-m." Oonerally, observes Mr Thomson, conicte are always kind to animals; and V adds that he himself cannot recall a Jngle instance of cruelty: —

I' remember looking down upon the chapel congregation during a sunny day in Sfarch, when a belated butterfly had settled in a patch of sunlight in the aisle Just where the priest would step. After Cautiously ecruiinfeiiig the- faces

| of warders, to assure himself that he was - unobserved, an old man furtively used his cap #6 a broom to sweep the insect gently into a place of safety. — What Convicts Bead. — * . The library at Dartmoor is well supplied with books, and these, are changed twice a. week. Mr Thomson's observations on what convicts read are both, amusing and instructive: — I remember one joaan, an illiterate, who complained that the librarian would not attend to his frequent requests for a- book called "Less Miserable." He ■ explained that ib was written by one Hugo, that he had been told it was a very good book, and that he thought from its title it might "cheer him up a bit." . „ . There is a general dislike for female authors, tfie only exceptions being George Eliot, Mrs Wood, and Edna Lyajl. .V . . Scott and Dickens, who were under a temporary cloud a few years ago, have again become popur. lar, and there is 1 an equal demand for the < novels of Lever, Wilkie Collins, Trollope, Blackmore, and Hardy. The ' only foreign authors who are much read are Dumas, and Victor- Hugo;, and the demand 'for these can never be satisfied. Naturally, bound volumes of the illustrated magazines, are in great request, probably because they contain reference to recent events. — The Reader.