THE DUNEDIN GAOL INQUIRY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3727, 26 June 1883, Page 3

THE DUNEDIN GAOL INQUIRY.

Dunedin, This day. Tho gaol inquiry was continued yesterday. Mr Stout appeared for Mr Caldwoll, tho exgovernor of tho gaol, and read the correspondence which had passed between Mr Caldwell and the Prisons Department relative to this enquiry. After doing , so, ho submitted that tho members of the Commission were placed in the unfortunate position that they had to consider the action of the Inspector of Prisons and also of the Minister of Justice in the case. The Minister of Justice was plainly the prosecutor, as ho directed the charges to be made, and it was unfair that aKesidentMagistrateshould hold tho enquiry, seeing that they were officers of the Minister o£ Justice's Department. The whole thing, he said, had been got up for political motives to deprive Mr Caldwell of his well-earned pension. Furthermore, ho (Mr Stout) would point out from tho reports in the newspapers that a quantity of hearsay evidence had been admitted. He did not know at whose request these sittings were open to the Press, he presumed by order of the Minister of Justice, but it was unfair that libellous statements made by the prisoners should go forth to the public. Mr Curtis, one of the Commissioners, in reply to Mr Stout pointed out that the inquiry was as to the general management of tho prison, and the Commissioner*! repudiated altogether tho idea that it was merely for the purpose of examining the charges made against Mr Caldwell individually. Captain Hume also replied to the suggestion that the inquiry was got up to deprive Mr Caldwell of his salary. Mr Stout then cross-examined the witnesses who had previously given evidence. The prisoner Morrison said l}e did not know that aprisoner had had his sentence shortened in consequence of losing an eye while in gaol. Morrison also said, "I did not say that men and women were in the baths together. What I complained of was that there were no female baths. I cannot say that debtor prisoners were improperly troated. The treatment was different to the other prisoners." Mr Torronce, the gaol chaplain, was also cross-examined. He made the following statement: —" I invited Capt. Hume to ten one evening, and he asked me to make a statement with reference to the gaol. lam not quite sure whether he asked me or I volunteered to make the statement. This took place after Mr Caldwell had left the gaol, I think." As to other questions he answered that he had never written a sub-leader in a newspaper about the gaol. He declined to answer whether he had written letter.-! to tho Press on the subject, and addec], "Probably if you askod Mr Caldwell the same question he would decline to answer it. Perhaps the loss said on the subject of letters to tho Press the better. He would say this much —that when he found, as it appeared to him, most unjust things said in in the papers he considered it his duty as a man to put them right in certain quarters." After concluding in Dunedin, evidence will bo taken in Christchurch and "Wellington; and the Government will pay Mr Caldwell' s expenses if ho desiro.s to attend at these places,