THE SKETCHER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9790, 5 March 1910, Page 1

THE SKETCHER.

SWISS PRISONS. Prison, life in Switzerland is a luxf_Vy instead of a punishment. The '©oniio opera gaol at Thorburg, where the inmates did as they pleased, has only recently been suppressed by the Berne authorities, yet details are published now of a similar institution at Sarnen, in the canton of Oswald. - Sarnen apparently is an ideal penal resort, for the happy crimiHals who are sentenced to terms of " detention in that institution have a far better time than hundreds of "free" Swiss citizens who are forced to earn their bread. „ _ A correspondent of a Lausanne paper states that he was passing through Sarnen when he saw a number of men, dressed in dark blue clothes with white stripes, walking about the village, emoliing and joking. \ Others were seated in a cale, and pome were working in a leisurely manner, carrying bricts for the construction of a new building. To his astonishment the correspondent found that the men were convicts from the toantonal prison close by. These convicts are permitted to leave the prison early in the morning and find work around Sarnen, or walk about the country until nightfall, when +bey return of their own accord to the They are unaccompanied by warders, ■and there is nothing to prevent their escaping, but they are far too comfortable to think of relinquishing their quarters, for they have as much liberty as other men, and are, moreover, fed and lodged for nothing. , Two or three convicts "escaped tsc-me time ago, but they eventually re- * turned to the prison in a half-famished condition, and after being severely reprimanded they were allowed to toturn to their apartments. One convict was discharged recently, biter the completion of his sentence, and he remained in Sarnen for the purpose of continuing to earn money as a bricklayer, but his "colleagues" in prison uniform made things so unpleasant for him that he begged the governor of the prison to allow him to resume his " uniform" and status as a convict.

READING FOR EVERYBODY.