"HORRIBLY WICKED"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 248, 14 July 1919, Page 5

"HORRIBLY WICKED"

BERNARD SHAW ON BRITISH ■ PRISON SYSTEM. "Our prison system," said Mr. George Bernard Shaw recently at a meeting, "is horribly' 'wicked. It leaves every man who touches it.worse than it found him. It is hideous and stupidly cruel. But now it is becoming comparatively easy to convince people, because it seems to mo that in, a very short, time every'lions est, man in the country will have dono six months and got to know something about it." Turning to the case of the conscientious objectors, Mr. Shaw proceeded, "Mrs. Stephen ' Hobhouso' told mo that : howassuenkine o Iho lord ChM Ju>'tico on the subject of her son, who was ii conscientious obiector. He was exceeding sorry when ho. heard it, and expressed a hope that she was able to write to him and to send him food.' Then she refilled, 'Do you mean to say yon have been practising and sentencing men to prison nil'. your life and yet aro not aware that I cannot send him anything, that, ho can' only write to mo' once a month, and that I may only oeo him with bars between us?'.'

"The .Lord Chief Justico."- said Mr. Slinw. "knew, nothing of this. Every magistrate, every judge, every Lord Chief .Tnptj 1 , and every man in this country concerned in sending men-to prison ought to do throe months' imnrisonment in order to learn what'it does mean.

"Most of our judges are far foo sentimental. When n man gets to forty ho is . guided by his passions, which get worse as ho gets older. (Laughter.) But there is a purity of intellect and a passion for justice about youth, No man over the ago.of .15 should bo allowed on the Bench'/ After that ago he should come down to the Bar, where ho can give fre.<> vent to his temper. (Laughter.) "Tho idea that age and experience aro n "uaranteo of justice is not true. Judges are mosffy too old. But. a juryman chosen from a list of ratepayers is more impartial and representative. Ho is not elected by nn flnborntn system of lies, like members-of Parliament. No man Mil ,r ot into Parliament—at least into Hip Cnt»mons— unless he is an entirely morbid specimen of humanity. (Laughter.! I think the House nf I/irds is 'more representative than the Commons liecntiifl tlicp a member is Hie son of his father. (Laughter.) "There U a continual conflict goi'i'i on ,i,!l through tlic cuml.ry between Judge and iurv. The .Tud-io. is continually trying to fake away (lie jury's power, and is always trying In persuade the jury to find on fact" and not unou the point of the morality of the fact—a very much different thing.

Mr. J. W. Billintt, said to be tho Inst survivor of the Stuart expedition, which crossed Australia in ISGI-1862, ;ind opened up tho continent for telegraph and railway, diod nt Exotor, used 76,