GAOL NEWSPAPER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 3, 28 December 1912, Page 5

GAOL NEWSPAPER.

FIRST ISSUE OF THE ‘COMPENDIUM.’

I cannot tell how the truth may be,

I say the tale as ’twas said to me. The above is the motto of the gaol newspaper, the ‘Compendium,’ the first issue of which was distributed among prisoners in the gaols of New South Wales before Christmas (states the ‘Sydney Daily Telegraph’). The journal has been printed on p iper of a distinctive colour, green, in order, the, Minister for Justice explained, that it may not be confused with any other paper that might possibly be smuggled into a prisoner’s possession. It consists chiefly of news items relating to current events of importance clipped from daily .and weekly newspapers. The one subject that is not dealt with is politics, and the source of all the items quoted is given. Mr. Hall, the Minister for Justice, in an official memorandum, states that the paper is the outcome of a suggestion by the council of the Piisoners’ Aid Association, Mr. Hall himself has written the first leader, which states, inter alia:—

Efforts will be made through the agency of the ‘Compendium’ to make it easier for the man who leaves prison to so live that he need not fear a return. Information will be given, each month as to the demands for labour in various parts of the country, with particular reference to localities where harvesting operations, shearing, and railway works are going on, so that any reader whose sentence expires ami who wants to go in for honest toil, will know in which direction inducements fire offering. An attempt will also be made to convey to all readers a general idea of the world’s progress, so that a man leaving prison will not have, in addition to other difficulties, that of attempting to conceal his ignorance, concerning events well known, to everyone else, or having to account for it by admitting to a past which it is well for both him and the community should he as far as possible forgotten. The paper includes some poetical features, the authors including Henry Kendall. Algernon Charles Swinburne,., Robert Burns, and Thomas Moore.

ARNST IN NEW ROLE.

Sydney, December ‘26. Dick Arnst saved from drowning « | surf bather. Two other New Zealanders named Hentsh and G. Brown rescued another bather.