OSCAR WILDE'S PRISON LIFE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4259, 20 July 1895, Page 4

OSCAR WILDE'S PRISON LIFE.

Some particulars oi Oscar Wilde's prison life are given by a London paper : — During the first month on the wheel, if put there, "Wilde will Bleep on a plank bed, a bare board raised a few inches above the floor, and supplied with sheets. Clean sheets are given to each prisoner, two rugs, and coverlet, but no mattress. His diet will be : — Breakfast at half past seven a m., cocoa and bread ; dinner at noon, bacon and beans one day soup another cold Australian meat another, the last three being repeated twice a week, potatoes with, every dinner. After he has finished his spell on the wheel he will be put to some industrial employment — not play-writing, although it might be the most profitable to the prison department — but probably postbag making, tailoring, or merely picking oakum. He will exercise in the open air daily for an hour, walking with the rest of his ward in Indian file; no talking permitted. He will be allowed no communication with the outside, except by special permission, until he has completed three months of his sentence. Then he may write and receive one letter and be visited for 20 minutes by three friends, but in a visiting cell, separated from them by wire blinds and in the presence of a warder. The letter and visit may be repeated at intervals of three months, but all these concessions depend first, upon this industry, and next upon his conduct. There is no escape from the plank bed until a certain number of marks are awarded for work done, and in the same way letters and visits are accorded. On his releases Wilde, if he has worked well, will have earned the magnificent sum of ten shillings, which will be paid to him by an agent of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid" Society.

Mr Morrison says that a rec9nt Commission showed that £60,000 worth of prison-made goods were imported into the United Kingdom, and £45,000 waa manufactured in the United States, a goodly proportion of this finding its way to these colonies. The Premier was in sympathy with the desire to exclude such goods, but the difficulty was how. They must ei*her proscribe them altogether or put an axtra duty on them. The Imperial Government was, however, moving in the matter, and he would ascertain what is proposed to do,