SMALLER GAOLS SUGGESTED FOR DESPERATE CRIMINALS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 379, 22 March 1932, Page 6

SMALLER GAOLS SUGGESTED FOR DESPERATE CRIMINALS.

A London Letter

New System of Railway Signalling ; Buildings Express Mechanistic Age. (Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, February 9. The report or) the Dartmoor mutiny confirms what most people surmised. The trouble was due to a daring conspiracy to liberate a number of London car bandits. It was a plot by convicts in touch with outside confederates, and it was assisted, so far as smuggling messages and arms went, by some members of the prison staff. The report states that similar plans were in operation at other gaols. The policy of herding together four hundred men, many of whom are desperate criminals, is condemned, and probably a change will be mqde to smaller prisons, which, however, would be far more costly.

OTHER PRISONS in this country

the men are well catered for on the social side by regular visits from social workers, who give reading lectures and concerts. The daily routine of the men’s work is varied, so that life is not dull or uninteresting. There is a well-stocked library; those interested in travel, science, trade or novels for light reading are well catered for. Help is given both in gaol and after to the man who wished to go straight after a term of imprisonment. At one prison there is an attendance of 80 per cent at thirty-six educational classes held weekly “ for all tastes.” The men may attend every evening if they choose apart from one evening which must be reserved for a bath. There are several who attend five classes per week. Lectures and concerts are maintained on Friday evenings throughout the year, with the exception of August and September,, and are of a .very high order. . The libraries of this prison contain about ten thousand volumes. Each “ house ” library has about seven hundred to eight hundred volumes to supply approximately 150 men who make their selection as in a public library. No book appears in the same “ house ” more than once a year. On Saturday evenings and Sunday evenings after chapel gramophone recitals from a central hall are given to prisoners seated in rooms with open doors. Safety on the Railways. A new system of railway signalling which, it is claimed, will make head-on collisions impossible has been introduced by the Great Western Railway at one of their Paddington signal boxes. Signals and controls are worked by electricity. The signalman, instead of tugging at a large lever when he wishes to change the points, just pulls at a small lever which resembles the handle of a pistol. Electricity does the rest. If this new system is universally adopted, the signalman’s work physically will be considerably reduced. A small white light indicates to the signalman that a lever or a point can be changed. Immediately this is done the light goes out, together with any other lights over levers controlling conflicting functions.

When a train or an engine is on a certain track all points which would allow another to enter are automatically locked. Head-on collisions are, therefore, claimed to be impossible. Over the lever board is an electric diagram which enables the signalman to follow tha course of all traffic in his particular area. Another important advantage of the new system is that points can. be worked up to a distance of about five miles, as compared with the manual maximum of 300 yards. With electric signal apparatus on a larger scale than that now used at Paddington it would be possible to control signals and' points up to a distance of forty miles. A change is also made in the method of signals. The old system of the semaphore signal is displaced by electric lights, similar to those now used in street traffic. The electric system has been dubbed “ shooting the signals,” because the levers resemble pistol handles. Changing London. More changes in the ever-changing face of London are to be noted this week. One of the city’s most “modernistic” buildings has been completed and will come into use shortly—the great new motor-coach station at Victoria. Architecturally, its lines are reminiscent of the new Soviet and German buildings. They are certainly effective as expressing a mechanistic age, and they never fail to arouse comment among passers-by. The building has accommodation for eighty motor-coaches, and is the terminus for many services, including some from centres in the north of England. Strongly modern, too, is the new “ Daily Express ” building, which has set all Fleet Street talking. The entire building is faced with a substance resembling black glass. It is built in tiers rising high above its neighbours. In general appearance it rather resembles a battleship. Londoners have been surprised to hear that Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment is crumbling away. Though 3000 years of Egyptian sun and rain left it untouched, fifty years of the London atmosphere have been too much for it. The edges are becoming blurred and the stone is rotting. Sulphuric acid is said to be the destructive agent. It comes from the sulphur in chimney smoke which mixes with the damp air, settles on the stone, and gradually eats it away. One architect has declared that the only way to save the monument will be to wash it down with clean water from hose pipes at least once a month.