RELEASE OF JABEZ BALFOUR.

Poverty Bay Herald, 17 April 1906, Page 2

RELEASE OF JABEZ BALFOUR.

tPress Assn.— By 'Telegraph.— Copyright) LONDON, April 16. Jabez Balfour has been released. He is in excellent ihealth, and devotes him/self to '-literature as a means of livelihood.

Balfour lias served a sentence 6$ twelve years for fraud ill relation to the Lilienltor Building Society, which created a grent sensation at the tin\e, many poor people beting ruined. 'Balfour fled to the ArgenHne ? and was arrested by Detective Tqjibndge, from Scotland Yard, lato Police Commissioner in itfew Zealand. Ho has befen an exemplary cohvict in the settlemeidi, and when' he stepped forth from the double gates of Pentonville her was to haV© in his pockets £6, the amount of good-conduct money t he hud earned during liisf long period of servitude. For" many yeai"s -he luih assisted the wardci' librarian. | His keen knowledge of men and his -wide acquaintance with literature have eivililed him to distribute the, books upoh it better system than formerly, to tlMjj manifest enjoy iiient of the prisoners. Tho' story is told, of how Jabez Balfour rescued a fellow convict from madness. On Sundays the prisoners are allowed to converse freely in -the exercise yard, as they marched round two by two. The managing" director of tSie defunct Liberator Company saw a fellow prisoner who sakUjf he stayed there much longer lie rwou'ld'go mad.' "1 "wan like you U first," said Balfour, "but t set myself [to learn the Spanish hiuguiigc. Tliis saved me, and no;w I am fairly proficient. I know French also. Now, let me teach you French, and it will- save yuw." Tlii; other pvisoner became a willing pilpil during tliOFo' "Weekly conversational lofasons in the prison yard. •