AN AUSTRIAN CONVICT

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 178, 13 November 1886, Page 3

AN AUSTRIAN CONVICT

Treatment (O f the Brteonqr» r^fiil and ProlttabV»:^;ploymeiit ..fjlven ; , ,Tlktt Routine bl 'Prison Life. • ' n,• '• '>< " 177". »:t, • ». > ' ■ By tbq courtesy of the Minuter of .Justice 1 'hive Been rilloweo! to Visit <the : Austrian Convict Prison mi, Stein, '« . Jft this, penitentiary are Confined more than 1,000: -felons, sentenced. .By the' 1 Courts of Vienna anil Lower Austria to termß of not les&. than one year's hard labour. Stein is not claseed as a model prison.' The penitentiary of'Pilsen is considered the bebb in Austria, but two other prisons are being built at Prague and Marburg, which, in point .of modern improvements, will be superior to that of Pilsen. Stein, however, will compare advantageously with, almost any prison in England; and the reformatory , system , in use there, appears to be more humane, sensible, and efficacious than that which has been adopted in the convict establishments of Great Britain, Stein is on the Danube between Vienna and Linz, and forms ope town with Krems, from which it was formerly separated by the grounds of a large convent. The roster of the day exhibited a total of 1,013 prisoners, among whom were 19 murderers whose death sentence had been commuted into penal servitude, 43 men convicted of manslaughter, 81 forgers, 22 incendiaries, and 11 political convict*. More than 700 of the prisoners were Roman Catholics ; 109 were Jews (all convicted of offences against property) ; and there were about 60 Protestants, of whom one was an Englishman, sentenced to eight years' penal servitude for passing forged Bunk of England notes in Vienna. The convicts are divided into two cato gories— those undergoing solitary confine ment and those living under the associated system. All prisoners convicted for the first time are placed in the former category for so long as they can endure isolation ; but j in no case must thiß term • xceed three j years. After that the prisoner is placed in association, but always with men who, like himself, are undergoing a first sentence ; and care is taken, so far as is possible, to group these first offenders according to the knowledge of their characters that hae been obtained in the prison — the object being to prevent the contamination of those who have revealed good propensities by those who are innately depraved. The experience of Austria in the matter of solitary confinement seems to differ from that of France and Belgium, where sentences of ten and fifteen years' seclusion are flerved without— so it is affirmed — affecting the mental faculties of prisoners Austria is a country of mountains, forests and large plains, and it is found that men accustomed to live in the open air cannnot stand the cellular regime for more than a year or two, while even town-bred prisoners begin in third year to pine and lose some of their power of workii.g Thi* is the more remarkable, ac the Austrian solitary system is not pushed to the absurd and cruel lengths of the "silent pystem " in American penitentiaries. The prisoner attends divine service on alternate week days, and twice on Sundays ; he spends two hours in the school-room daily and one hour on Sundays; he has an hour's exercise with other prisoners ; ho receives one or two vieit* a day from hid trade-instructor, and occasional visits from the Governor and chaplain. His solitude is thus only relative He is cut off from intercourse with bad company, but in the school-room and during hie trade instruction he speaks and is spoken to. Our first visit was to the solitary cells, of which there are more than 6,000. The?e fill four wards of three gallerie? each, all radiating from a common centre, according to the plan of mowt prisona in these days Edch cell is of thirty cubic metres dimensions ; the walls are whitewashed, and the windows »re twice as lar^o as in English prisons, n r is there any lessening of light or obstruction of outside views by panes of fluted glass. The lower half of the windows opens wide from the top so that the sky can be seen. The carrying on of multifarious trades ;n; n the ce'.ls remove" all air of glocm from the^o places. The tread-wheel, the crank, shot-drill and other like abominations are unknown in thi* country. The rule 13 that if a man comes into prison knowing a trade he bhall exerci=e it. If he haa no~ trade he is taught one by a skilled mechanic who is not a prisoner. Tho selection ot a trade rest* to some extent with the prisoner hitmelf ; but the Governor's; experience enables him mostly to ccc of what kind of -work a man is fit ; and he has naturally every interest in choosing discreetly so as to avoid the spoiling of materials supplied on contract. If a man shows a manifost inaptitude for the task allotted to him he is set to some other work. The notorious Kn filer, who was sentenced last year to six years' penal servitude for gigantic frauds, is employed in making boxeg for cigarettes He said to ue, with a smile and a shrug : '• ETere am I earning 4kr. a day, and I have been calculating how long it would take me at this rate to win the 700,00iifl. which I once cleared in a single Bourse operation '' From the solitary cells we passed to the a c sociated work rooms, the firpt of which was a larg Band light hall containing about cix dozen habitual criminals of the very worst description. The pick of Viennese rascality was here employed in making envelopes, card-board boxe?, pipe cases, cigar-holders and leather purses. Dressed in white canvas suits without badges or ignominious marks of any kind (but with their hair cropped cloae and their faces shaved), the men were workiug in small groups or singly with a stoady, silent, rapid industry. Three of 'the rooms woro workshops for upholsterers, picture - frame makers and gilders, and some work of the , be9t artistic description was being executed in them. In a room where brass chains were being manufactured, we came upon the English bank-note forger — a red-headed man who told us he was a Londoner, and that he was not eatisfied with the justice of his trial. The Governor, however, remarked, out of the man's hearing, that he had already undergone thirteen years' penal servitude in tho United States. Every prisoner is allowed to have one book a wet-k out of the well-stocked prison library. The larger dormitories, containing from twelve to , twenty cots, look like barrack rooms, but are infinitely cleaner. The smaller rooms contain only four cots, and these are generally reserved for first offen-, dors in the third or highest class. The neatness, cleanliness and purity of the atmosphere observable in all parts of the prison become even more conspicuous in the infirmary wards, which jjare like those of the, best kept hospital. A very aged convict — a rich swindler who had been, sentenced for seven years, with his son, for starting a fraudulent popular bank, which ruined hundreds of poor people at Ottalmng -was, dying in his bed ; but he icould not ha,ve been better tended if he. had been at hom,e. The prisoners at Stein are punished by stoppages of pocket money or rations, by loss of clasp, or by confinements not exceeding one month in dark or light disciplinary cells. There is no flogging, but this, as will be teen, is not exactly a tender mercy ; in

faot, wherever false eentimantaliflm! has abolished flogging, 1 the exigencies 'of discipline have hattijo cdntrlve 1 penalties ] tf Bich; are physically 1 tafore" injurious "arid morally' quite as debasing'" We'saw 1 a"con"vjfcf , whb, ' for maliciously destroying eight florinV' worth of materials given'b'ira to work with, had been' sentenced' to one' month ih a|pun-' i3hment cell. Twelve .day's of this time had to be spentf m 1m 1 darkness- bri bread and water first ; twelve other days wore to be fasting," with no food at all'but water l , 'during the whole of the term the prisoner was to 1 be, deprived of work and" books, and', to sleep 1 on a plank bed ; during four days he was to bear chain and phot on' his ankles, and on the first and last days of his sentence he was to be " short-chained " for eighteen hours out of the twent.\ -four. This short-chain-ing consists in strapping up one foot at right angles to' the knee of the other leg, so that the prisoner cannot stand, but can only sit in a posture which, after a few minutee, becomes intolerably fatiguing and then acutely painful. Straight waistcoats are used to coerce refractory prisoners ; and we were shown an ugly mediaeval 1 looking gag, with the assurance, however, that it was only employed " about once a year," to make noisy and vituperative prisoners hold their tongues. I tried on this instrument It is an iron open hoop, to the innide of which is fixed a brass knob like a door handle. This knok being pushed into the prisoner's mouth, the hoop is locked behind his head, and there he stands able only to gurgle and wobble. There are three places of worship in the prison — one Catholic Cbapel for first offenders, a second for habitual criminals, and a Jews' synagogue. The services for Protestants are held in one of the schoolrooms. Daily attendance for two hours at school is compulsory for prisoners up to the age of thirty- six, and optional after that. Educated prisoners may either dovote them selves to some branch which they have not well studied— mathematics, for instance, or modern language?, or else assist the teaching staff. By the governor's permission and as a reward for good conduct, a prieoner may have in his cell photographs of hia wife, children or other near relatives. No tobacco in any form is allowed, and the convicts may have no money Kut that which they earn in prison Finally prisoners are addressed by their names and not by numerals, as in most other countries. Takinar the full consequences of his past. crimes, he mubt be recluiiued by his own individual exertion?, and mut*t not be deluded into thinking that his name can be blotted out. Whatever may be said for this theory, the practice seems to be that when a convict tins learned a useful trade and means to lead an altered life he betakes himself to another country and is no more heard of under his old name.