PRISON MAGAZINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19847, 23 May 1927, Page 11

PRISON MAGAZINE

ENGLISH EXPERIMENT SURPEISING EFFORTS , Foremost among the various experiments iu recent years in Great Britain to make prison experience remedial ; rather than penal, is the institution . sow known as his Majesty’s Training • Centre at Wakefield, Yorkshire, but ! which, was formerly known as Wakei field Prison. Here those offenders, who, in the ! -/pinion of the authorities, will be most : likely to benefit from the advanced ' methods of the establishment and ■ helped and encouraged to prepare for : a fresh start, rather than punished for i their delinquencies. The inmates of the ; institution have just issued the first number of their {prison magazine—which is also the first prison magazine produced in England. “The. Venturer” is the title of the publication, and it is entirely written by the inmates themselves, with the exception of four pages of encouraging messages from social workers. The magazine contains ballad poetry of quite fair quality, several well executed sketches, and light humorous items. One inmate • writes an open letter “from one ‘mug’ to another,’’ in which grateful acknowledgement is made to “our teachers” and “our visitors.” Another has a valedictory poem, from which the following verses are quoted: — When I pack up my kit and go, I want to feci I leave behind Friendships I’ve formed despite the blow. Of circumstances scarcely kind. I want to leave within the gate A fellowship for all who wait. So may I face the sleet or snow, When I pack up my kit and go. I bear no malice in my heart, Reprisals do not trouble me; I’ve been a “sticker” since the start, I’ll be a “sticker” till I’m free; So, as I pass outside the “pen” That need not hppe for me again: Welcome, thous winter wind and snow When I pack up my kit and go. One of the official visitors puts his message of encouragement into the Yorkshire dialect: “We hev other fowk ta think abaht besides ahrsens. Nah then! Sajute t’ hapy morn! Tha can, tha knaws, if that tries hard. By gum, that’s dun it!”