APPALLING REVELATIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 7

APPALLING REVELATIONS

NEW YORK CITY “CLEAN-UP” TAMMANY’S ADMINISTRATION “GREATEST OF SCANDALS” ' SEARCH OF A PENITENTIARY V By Telegraph—Press Assn.-Copyright. New York 9 Jan. 25. The investigation into the Welfare Island penitentiary was continued to-day, with more appalling revelations, likely to make prison management under the previous Tammany Hall administration one of the great scandals in New York’s history. . An extended search of the institution produced more lethal weapons, gseat supplies of narcotics, large quantities of "home brew” beer fermenting in milk tins, and 1400 inmates practically on starvation rations of inferior cold food,, while the remaining 200 were able to pay 50 to 75 dollars weekly “board” to a clique of gangster rulers, who ate special fare from the money appropriated to feed all the inmates. One convict went crazy through the stoppage of his narcotics and attempted to commit suicide in his cell to-day. The prison library of 2000 volumes has completely vanished, and the cooks admitted that they used the books as fuel. An investigation into the laxity in other city departments reveal at the same time what officials termed a “champion stayer-away from work.” A political appointee to the Department of Markets during six years on the payroll has been absent 1680 of 1800 working days. Others took extended leaves without the restraint of their superiors. In the first 25 days of the new administration over a thousand gangsters and gamblers were arrested, and enough evidence of graft and corruption was unearthed to require a year of investigating, according to officials.