ECAN’S ‘AWFUL STORY.'

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XXII, 30 May 1896, Page 639

ECAN’S ‘AWFUL STORY.'

James F. Egan, who was convicted of treason-felony in 1884 and was recently released from Portland Prison, has taken himself off to America, where he represents himself to be on a mission to organise a movement for the relief of the Irish dynamitarde. We take from the Chicago Sunday Times-Herald, the following extracts to illustrate Mr Egan’s notions of veracity, and the sort of stuff on which Irish American patriotism is nourished. They appear under a quarter column of such headings as these:—‘Bereft of Reason.’ ‘ Horrible Plight of Irish American Prisoners in England.’ * Brutal Deeds Charged.’ ‘Three Reported Stark Mad and Five as Nearly Crazed.’ ‘Kept in Punishment Cells.’ ‘James F. Egan, Lately Released from Portland, Tells an Awful Story of Their Sufferings.' • There is a big letter M over the cell door of Dr. Thomas Gallagher,’ said Mr Egan to a reporter. • Dr. Gallagher was a citizen of Greenpoint. He was as fine a specimen of manly development as I ever saw when I met him in 1884. He was a mental and physical wreck when I left Portland Prison. He has been a hopeless lunatic since 1887. The letter M over the cell door tells the visitor that the inmate is mad. The poor doctor sits in his cell all day long, gibbering and langbing the terrible laugh of the maniac. Most of the time he is in a straight jacket, though he is never violent. The prison officials take no more notice of him than if he were a dog. They don’t want to transfer him to a lunatic asylum, because he would be more easily treated there, and the Government is chary of giving any sort of publicity to the condition of the political prisoners. He is denied to all visitors now.

* The brutality practised in the case of Peter Callaghan, who is confined in Chatham convict prison, is beyond precedent, even in Siberia. While this unfortunate man was suffering from acute ophthalmia he was obliged to work in the open air. The pain in his eyes was so intense at times that he would throw aside his pick or shovel and lay upon the ground writhing in agony, but with brutal oaths his guards would kick him upon the head or body until he went to work again. The result was the loss of the sight of one of the prisoner’s eyes and the impairment of the sight of the other. Now he sits in his cell all day and night and mopes, and stares through hie feeble eye at the iron bars of the door. ‘ All the political prisoners in Portland prison are kept continally in the punishment cells. This is to make communication between them and the other prisoners difficult. The food furnished in these cells is inferior to that given in the rest of the prison. It is putrid on meat days and filthy and insufficient at all times. It makes me shudder to think of it even now. Everything that can possibly add to the indignity or humiliation of the condition of the political prisoners is resorted to. ‘ It was a point in the prison to select as our jailor, or boss, the most bloodthirsty criminal or degraded scoundrel in the prison. These ruffians took the most inhuman delight in making the lives of the • bloody Paddies,’ as they called us, as miserable as possible. Jeers, oaths, nicknames, and insulting remarks were constantly aimed at ns by these scoundrels, and the watders and other officials looked on and enjoyed it all as we bit our lips in silent rage. It is the desire of the jail governor to avoid any record of flogging appearing on the books. It is only this desire of the governor that saved the political prisoners from having been flogged to death long ago. But the officials overcome the obstacles in the way of corporal punishment very easily. They simply enter the cells of the prisoners whenever they have a mind and kick and choke the inmates at their leisure. Dr. Whitehead was a notable victim of this style of British vengeance. One day he committed a slight infraction of the rules. He was ordered to his cell. As soon as he got there two warders entered and one of them held him by the arms while the other seized him by the windpipe and tightened his grip upon the helpless prisoner’s throat. “ Give it to him,” shouted the other warder, “choke his blooming Irish loife out.” This scene was witnessed by several of the

prisoners. They were afraid to tell half the brutality they witnessed when the matter was being probed at a Parliamentary inquiry. The excuse given by the gaol officials this time was that the warders thought Dr. Whitehead had a bit of paper, on which was writing, concealed in his mouth, and they wanted to force it from him. Therefore they choked him.’