RIALTO AND REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 143, 7 September 1927, Page 14

RIALTO AND REGENT

“THE HONOUR SYSTEM ’ The First National picture, “The Honour System,” featuring Milton Sills, will be screened at the Rialto and Regent Theatres to-night This powerful drama depicts in a most striking manner the harsh cruelty and cold-blooded brutality

meted out in times gone by to the miserable unfortunates who through “taking the wrong turn” found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Society by common consent has certain governing rules and regulations and the miserable wretch who violates these* laws is called upon to pay the prescribed penalty. The story centres around a rising young business man who, through certain curious circumstances, finds himself wrongfully facing a charge of murder. Circumstantial evidence is overwhelming and he

is sentenced to imprisonment for life. T,he sheriff’s pretty daughter, convinced of his innocence, remains steadfastly loyal. A mutiny of the convicts in the prison where he is sentenced, gives our hero his liberty. Instead, however, of making the most of his freedom, he merely avails himself of the opportunity to get word to the governor appealing for an investigation of the prisoners’ treatment at the hands of the custodians. He then voluntarily surrenders himself and for his temporary desertion receives a

fiogging and is committed to solitary confinement. His message, however, proves far-reaching with the result that a full investigation is made and a wave of prison reform sweeps through the country. Shortly after, his innocence of the original crime is proved; he receives his pardon, and with a fair partner in a happier “life sentence” devotes his every effort toward allev.ating the unfortunate lot of those whose misdemeanours have placed them for the time being “outside the pale.”