ARTIST AND MURDERER

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 37

ARTIST AND MURDERER

ROMANCE OF AUSTRALIAN GAOL. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 17. A romance of Australian prison life has just been disclosed by the publishing of the fact that a picture, the work of a murderer at present in gaol, has just been shipped to America If it. has nothing else to recommend it the 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 the 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 the story, and he may be designated No. 13. lie was found guilty of murdering hia wife, and he was sentenced to death, but having been at the time under the influence of drink the sentence was commuted to 'ifo imprisonment. Under the enlightened vocational system fostered by the prison authorities, No. 13 was permitted to exercise his gift as an artist. Chaplain Tom Beaston, who has been studying prison methods >n Australia under a commission from the Texas Government, visited the prison in which No. 13 is located, and, becoming interested, the man No. 13 expressed i desire to paint a picture for the chaplain to tako liick 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 the tradition::! 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 vuin. Packed in a strong ease, it has gone forward to he hung on one of the walls of Fort Bliss prison stockade, as a courtesy gift from the Prison Department of New South Wales, and a friendly overture from a prisoner in Australia.