WITHIN THE PRISON WALLS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12738, 6 September 1919, Page 8

WITHIN THE PRISON WALLS.

The “ Star ” man discovered Mr Alatthew .Michael Cleary sitting in a cosy corner of a verandah at his resid’ence in Bristol Street, quietly contemplating the effects of Alonday’s snowstorm on liis well-laid out garden. Greetings were exchanged, and after a few remarks natural on such unwonted and unspring-like weather the reporter stated his business. “ Well,” _ said Air Cleary, “I would like to oblige those friends who have told you that I could give a good narrative of happenings in the old Lyttelton gaol, but there is another gentleman, Mr Seager, whose knowledge of that institution goes back to an earlier day than mine, as I did not take up the position of chief gaoler at the port until about 1888.” QUICK PROMOTION. The “Star” man then asked the veteran gaoler if he would mind giving a tew reminiscences of his early career, and this Air Cleary agreed to do, although he stated by way of commencement that his memory was not now so good or so sure on many points as he would like it to be in. order to give an historic record. “1 was born in Countv Clare in 1834, and joined the Irish police when I wanted two months of being seventeen years of age- By the time I was twenty I was made sergeant, which you must regard as very rapid promotion in a force of 14,000 or 15,000 men- Under ordinary circumstances a man has to wait about fifteen years before he reaches that rank. I gained special promotion for saving a woman in Cork from drowning, and for this deed I also received the medal of the Royal Humane Society.” AfELBOURNE TO DUNEDIN. A question here put to Air Cleary was as to the reasons which tempted him to leave Ireland and come out to the colonies. “When I left Ireland!,” he replied, “ things were in a very distressful state. The landlords were very hard upon the tenants, and if a cottager was a day behind in his rent, they would send along to his place and seizi his cow or his pig and impound it until such time as the rent was paid. 1 have seen whole mobs of cattle seized under such conditions, and on the road on the way to the pound. With such daily sights many did not regard the Child Sod as a very happy place, and emigration to the colonies and America became the vogue. I arrived in Melbourne in 1857, and joined the Victorian police, and was connected with that force till I left for New Zealand in 1861. Inspector Brannigan, who had previously come over to Otago to organise the force there, selected myself and Hugh Bracken to follow subsequently. Alelbourne at the time of my departure was still in a boom state and the contrast which Dunedin presented_ to me when 1 got there made me think that it was a miserable and muddy place. THE NOTORIOUS GARRETT. “When I took up the position as warder m Dunedin gaol Air John Stoddart was gaoler. Those were the days of the early goldfields, and there were over 100 prisoners in the gaol at the time. Among them was Garrett—the celebrated Henry Garrett—the bushranger. I have very good reasons to know that fellow, too- One day I had! to take him to get bathed, and as I was a sergeant I had a warder with me. When Garrett was put into the bath he made a rush for me and drove at me with a knife, which he had. held concealed in his hand. He was in the act of striking me when the warder struck him down. We did not notice any indications beforehand that he had! such a thing as a knife in his possession, and we were lucky to prevent him doing any damage with ft. “BANK CLOSED.” “Garrett was always a troublesome prisoner and required a lot of watching. He was a big, tall, bony man, and his doings as a bushranger and a holder-np of banks, both here and in Australia, had made him very notorious. In connection with one hank which he stuck up people who went along there to do business found a notice on the door to the effect that the hank was closed for a certain time and would not re-open until such and such an hour. It was ultimately discovered that this notice had been put on the door by Garrett himself, who had ordained the period of closing so that he could go quietly on with his work of rifling the institution. THE KELLY GANG. “ I could tell you we had a nice collection of prisoners in Dunedin gaol. Among them were Burgess and Kelly, of the notorious Kelly gang. I am not quite sure now whether or no Levy of the same band was not also under our custody at the same time. They wanted some watching. Burgess was a medium-sized man of stout build, and very talkative. He would talk to you on any subject which you liked to discuss with him. Kelly was a thin, spare man. I well remember the morning they were discharged from the gaol. We had been engaged in cutting down a place called Bell Hill by prison labour, and casting the debris into the sea- Burgess was a great stonecutter, and on the morning he was to be discharged he was working shaping a block of stone, on which he inscribed the word 1 Done.’ I did not see either of them alive afterwards. They were executed in Nelson gaol, but I saw their skulls, and I could recognise which was which by the shape of the heads. Burgess’s head was round and big, while Kelly had a small head- “ Aleeting these men casually you would not think instinctively that they were bad men, but real had ones they proved themselves to he for all that. If I do not mistake many of the prisoners in the Dunedin gaol gave such trouble by disobedience and other ways that they had to be flogged. HOKITIKA’S BOOAI DAYS. “ I stopped at Dunedin for three years, and then I was promoted to take charge of ti]e gaol in Hokitika. Hokitika was a very lively place then, with a big population, and every other building in Revell Street was an hotelThose were the boom days of miningon the coast, and the great rush to Kumara and other fields was in full swing. There were one hundred prisoners in the Hokitika gaol when I went there, the gaol being a corrugated iron building with wooden posts. When I say that it was corrugated iron you must not think that it was an easy place to get out of, as the cells were very strong, and were lined with dark-black iron. There was an Inspector of Police there, and a fair-sized police force, while at the gaol there were about a dozen gaolers. “GERMAN CHARLIE.” “ Among our prisoners was ‘ German Charlie’—-you must have heard of the famous German Charlie,” Mr Cleary continued. “He was not a German, but a Dane by nationality, and was in for robbery. He escaped from the gaol one day, and 1 will tell you how he got out. I had an old warder (who -was about to retire soon) on sentray go outside the walls, and I told him to keep a sharp look-out. German Charlie

BECOLLECTIOHS (IF CHIEF GAOLER M. K. CLEARY. NARRATIVES OF THE BUSHRANGERS. PRISONERS’ WAYS AND WILES. (Specially written for the “ Star.”)

managed by some moans to take a table out of the dining-room < and placing this against the inner wall was soon over and at liberty. What the warder was doing I don't know, but he never bred a shot to give the alarm, until Charle had gained the cover of the hush, which was nearby. It was a fortnight before we caught German Charlie, who had in the meantime been prowling about in the ' bush, and he came back to stay with ns again. A CONVINCING CLUE. “ After his discharge Charlie went to live in a tent which he had erected on the Hokitika beach. I was then a single man and was bachelorising. One evening Charlie watched me leaving my house to go to town, and on my return home I. found that my humble dwelling had been broken into and £3O in money stolen. Not long previously I had planted a tree in front of the honse, and the ground around this was still soft. While making investigations to try and discover who the intruder was I came across this dug-up part, ami found there two or three well defined footprints. The robber in making his way out had been careless enough to tread on the soft place. I got a bootmaker in the town to come along and inspqqt the impression, and then hj wont to German Charlie’s tent and secured his boots, and found that they corresponded exactly. The result was that Charlie got another six years, and I got my money. Just by a little misstep his* attempt to have his revenge and get square with mo did not come off. The money was found planted at the foot -of his tent. Afterwards I heard that Charlie got killed through falling from a building in Auckland. THE GOLD ESCORT. “During my work in Otago I was stationed for a while at Waitahuna, and saw a great deal of the golddiggings of the Dunstan in their flourishing days. I have seen diggers carrying their chamois bags of gold about eight or nine inches long and pushing their way into the gold receiver’s office, who gave them a receipt for the weight of gold received. The metal was then sent to the treasury at Dunedin under escort. I was sergeant of the escort for a time, and with it was also an inspector. There was a squad also of twelve constables. The gold was taken from Dnnstan by escort relays, and all the men were heavily armed. Part of the journey we had to go through the bush, and as there were bushrangers about, at these points every man had his revolver at halfcock in anticipation of an attack. I always rode behind the horses on which the gold was packed. We needed a strong escort, I can tell you, as bad anything like a weak force been in attendance it would have only been a temptation for an attack. Ido not remember the escort ever being held up in Otago. During our journey we halted at a stopping place for one night, and the gold was placed in charge of the inspector and myself. We used the boxes of gold as pillows, placing them under our heads- Many a night have I slept with thousands and thousands of pounds’ worth of gold as a head-rest, hut as the boxes of gold were very hard my dreams were not golden ones. AT LYTTELTON. “ The miners spent their money very freely, and some of those whom I saw carrying in bags of gold to the receiving office could not produce a shilling afterwards. They spent their cash as soon as they got it, thinking that the supply would always last. I left Hokitika in 1882, being removed to Auckland gaol. I did not remain very long in Auckland, only two or three months, as I did not care for the place at all. the heat being oppressive. I returned to Hokitika, where I remained until 1888, then I was transferred to take charge at Lyttelton at the time when there was such a great commotion about Jonathan Roberts’s escape. In Lyttelton I remained till my retirement from the prison service in 1900. Altogether my period of service in that department covered fortysix years, and one thing I can say that never has a prisoner got away altogether while under my control. SOME REFLECTIONS. “ looking back now, I might sav that given my time overt again I would not re-enter that service. Many people may think that a gaoler’s life is an easy one, but it is far from being so. There is not a moment, neither night nor day, at which your mind is completely at rest. Yon are living among an atmosphere of crime and among people many of whose one aim in life has been to get into trouble and circumvent authority. The activities of these people do not cease when the normal individual wants to he at rest; in fact it is rather during the period when the honest man is soundly bering that their forces for mischief are put into play. PRISON PARE. “It is a funny life is a gad life, I mean from the point of view of those whose work it is to control such institutions. There are many men of a class who don’t want to be out of gaol, and would rather live in prison. Here they get well looked after, getting their bath once a week, good food, and good clean clothes. As regards meals, I can tell you that men in gaol are better fed and better looked after than many people outside them. The morning breakfast consists of porridge, and bread, with tea*_ _No milk is supplied for the tea, but it is sugared. For the midday meal there is a good allowance of meat and soup, while at five o’clock there is bread and tea. At Lvttelton we baked our own bread, and I can tell yon it was very good bread too. When Colonel Hume took control of the prisons in 1880, he improved the system considerably, both in regard to meals and clothing, and the sanitary arrangements. Colonel Hume was a man who had a knowledge of prison working from \te Z. Whenever I hear grumbles about prison meals I know that those people are growling about what must be regarded as very good, plain, wholesome fare. (A further instalment of Mr Cleary’s reminiscences will appear in Tuesday’s Star.”)