TIMARU GAOL.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14285, 29 August 1910, Page 5

TIMARU GAOL.

TO BE CLOSED. OLD DAYS RECALLED. A DECREASE IN CRIME. ■^ r J- Craigie M.P., who has been endeavouring for some time past to pei.suade t-he Minister for Justice, to elo»e tlie Tiniaru gaol, as it is now so little used, received word on Saturday that his request would be complied with. In conversation with a -"Herald" reporter, Mr Craigie said that the located at the gaol. wi:l be p.ovided 01 the kind, who, in the past have been located at the gaol, will beprovided at the police station. Asked what would become or the gaol reserve, _\lr Craigie said he intended to use his very best endeavours to get the Government to hand it over to the people of liniaru, ior use as a public reserve. AX EARLIER GAOL. The closing 0 f t] K , pt ,i: ( . e „ ;U) ] ; s cacU!ll3ta,l ce in the history or iiniaru. The hist gaol u»ed Ja .-.uuth Canterbury stood on tlie sit-e of Uie present police station. The early days or tlie settlement the late i llun combined the offices of con- *'^* cr k of court, gaoler and other positions. When he resigned the gaolorslnp to go into business Mr Cotter ivas appointed to succeed him. With the increase of population it was soon lounu necessary to provide a larger gao and larger staff. and the present gaol building, including the gaoler's re.-sK.encG, w iiicli has since been added Tr"" 1 - " a C ° iT ° f about - V. , prisoners were removed in October 1872 to_ this building, and ,r totter found himself in charae of tnree v. arders and at one time over thirty prisoners. They crowded prisoners very close in those days. The outbreak of the gold fever brought a crowd of persons to the colony who won large cheques and made them fly, and a proportion -of these reckless newcomers made the police fly also. The prisoners were employed in improving the grounds where the hospital now stands, laying out the prison grounds, load-making, and working in the public park. The present town belt wafl largely lormed by them. Fntil about ISS6 the prisoners continued to work on the public roads. By the end of that time the prison population rather diminished, and it was found more profitable to send prisoners to Lyiteiton. where they were employed on harbour- reclamation and other works. Men who were sentenced to over six monthr* imprisonment, and a few who were serving shorter terms, were therefore sent from South Canterbury to Lyttelton gaol. In January IS9I the prisoners at Tiniaru had become so few that the Government decided to reduce the prison to the status of a police gaol. There were still, however, sufficient inmates to require the present buildings for their custody. Mr -J. J Weathered, who was previouslv inspector of factories at Christchurch. was appointed, in January ISfll. to take charge of the police gaol. and he has held ihat position ever since.

S DECLINE IN CRIME. I "In the twenty years that • have : passed since then." said Mr Weathered, on being interviewed by a " Herald " representative, the population of Soutt Canterbury has doubled, but the prison population has diminished by about 50 per cent. 1 ' The gaoler went on to say that the prisoners who coma forward , in this district are mostly charged withi minor offences, and daring the twentv years the few persons convicted of more serious crimes hare been sent lon to Lyttclt-on The only exceptions , to this rule bare been prisoners on re; | and from the lower court, prisoners ' committed for sentence within fourteen 1 days or so of the sitting of the Snore me ■ O.'mrt. and prisoners committed for trial a short time before the court's sitting. -Ml those classes have been detained at Timaru. Tliere are at pre- ; sent throe male and one female prisoners in the naol. i A STRIKING 'RECORD. It is a striking record that during; , the twenty years that Mr Weathered j has had charge of tile gaol, not one ' prisoner has escaped, though two men charged with murder, and burglars, I pick-pm-keti. confidence men, and ; oilier siTinUi offenders hare been con- ' lilted there previous to trial. The ! notorious Jonathan Roberts escaped from Timaru gaol about- six months be- | lore Mr Weathered took charge. The j gaoler's record is the more creditable iii that the gaol is not by any means a : secure place of detention. The build- ; inn is so old and rotten that one prisoner almost r-tampid through the floor 'of.his cell, and new flooring had to be put down. On another occasion Mr Weathered saw a man—it- happened to be a lunatic —spring on to a window sill from the yard, and from tljere leap on to the root. He might have got away. but. as the gaoler says, ""being a lunatic, when I told him to come down, be caiv-e down, and we had him." Dur'ng Mr Weathered's period of office clop on one hundred male and seven or eight female prisoners were confined in the tiao l under medical T-eat- : ir.ent for dedriiim tremens. The~e have always been a particularly difficult class with which t > deal. For a long time all prisoners were taken to the eaol immediately on • arrest, and the doors show the marks of violence made by inebriates and others in their . rage and struggles. I NUMBERS OF CONSTABLES. A few years ago new cells were greeted at the police station, and a watch house keeper appointed. Since then only prisoners conimiitetl from the court have Ik en taken to the gaol. ("o:.o;\:. a - to tbo 5;:..; ,'rom the court during the past t-.vt my years have n::mbo-,-d about- 35"0. T>nrin« the fir-: firteeu years of Mr \Yeather->i'3 yaolers'op ••]<vk-im v prisoners. who had let n before the '-..nrt. v.ere tr.k-'ii I--- <_-ao! to the number of fr-m .J'W T-- ."100. In the early 'leys ten acres were set apa't by the Government for a gaol reserve, and the 'and was placed under <• < -ntr.e •: t • ■ tV.roi;._r!i Council from the first. fn 1 ;he eov.lK-il . kindly al'owed the f. ~- ru-ie-nr t-.> : fence c.ff four aeres immediately surround no tie prison. Twenty years later, when the buildini; was conveited into a police 'e';'-!. the council asked tor tliis land haek auain. but the Government refused the r< on est. The gaol budding its: If Is very old and decrenit. and It is not thought that it will'He sirtahle for any other purpose.