THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1882. PENSIONS AND GRATUITIES.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2705, 8 December 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1882. PENSIONS AND GRATUITIES.

From a return to an order of the House of Representatives made during last session, we gain much valuable information respecting the state of the pension list, and tha amount and number of gratuities granted during the financial year of 1881-82. The total snm disbursed was £30,352 3s lid. Of this amount £19,626 11s 4d went in pensions, £2928 6s 8d went in gratuities, and £7,797 5s lid went in compensation granted for loss of office. Taking the pension list first it appears there are twenty-three persons drawing each £3OO per annum and npwards. Mr. C. Knight tops the list with £6OO, Mr. J. T. Thompson follows with £514 5s Bd, next comes Mr. A. W. Smith with £484 lls 6d, on the heels of whom treads Mr. J. Bogan with £466 13s 4d. The Hon. A. Dommett obtained last year £419 12s 9d, the Hon. Sir W. Filzherbert £406 ss, and the Hon. D. Pollen £4lB 15s. There are fourteen new pensioners on the list, all of whom are for comparatively small amounts, and six pensioners died during the period. With regard to gratuities, they were all granted to widows of public servants, £950 going to the widows of two Resident Magistrates, £533 6sßd to the widow of the late Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, and £lO6 13s to the widows of two attendants in Lunatic Asylums. In the list of sums granted as compensation for loss of office, the list is headed £1075 17s lid, given to Mr Fountain, Under Secretary in the department ’ of Justice—the fountain of justice, as the irreverent were wont to call him—and the tail is brought up by a cadet in the Property Tax Department of this city, who received £7 14s 34 rs compensation, and by a telegraphist in Timaru, who, as a salvo for loss of office, obtained the magnificent, sum of £2 ss.

COST AND EARNINGS OF PRISONERS.

Mk. Hcttchin Oir during last session busied himself very considerably in matters of prison reform, not that he struck out any new ideas, but he was anxious for a platform, and that suited him as well as any other. Moreover it gave him a cry, which is saying a good deal for a man of his stamp, and that cry was the injustice of allowing trades requiring skill to be entered into in tho gaols of the colony. We have before remarked on tho difficulties to be contended with by individuals holding similar views to those of Mr. Hutchinson, inasmuch as there exists no form of occupation that can be need by prisoners that does not in some way clash with outside work. If prisoners are kept at stonebreaking, the stone breakers outside the prison walls may just as well complain as the printers, according to Mr. Hutchinson’s showing, have a right to do, because printing is one of the occupations that are allowed by prison discipline. Onr own impression is that the higher the work prisoners are allowed to do the better for them, because their intellects will bo improved thereby, and crime is as oftenthe resultof a neglected intellect as of anything else. Besides a prisoner, when released, has always difficulties to contend with, and with a mind strengthened by the better class of work, he will be the hotter able to withstand temptation. Sound sense and humanity both point in this direction. However this may be, Mr. Hutchinson last session called for a return of the average cost of each of the prisoners in the several gaols of tho colony for the year 1881, and fora return of the average earnings ef each prisoner for the said period, specifying the amount of those earnings month by month, and distinguishing the amount earned by skilled and unskilled labor respectively, and setting forth the amount earned by each particular trade comprised in the farmer category. Taking the Addington and Lyttelton gaols first of all. At the Addington gaol the gross annual cost per prisoner is given at £33 Is 2d, and his net annual cost as £27 14s Id. No skilled workmen were employed there. The men earned during the year £286 14s 9d and the women £39 14s. The average monthly earnings of the former are given as 12s 7d and of the latter as 3s 9d. With regard to Lyttelton gaol the return dees not give satisfactory statistics. In the first place it says nothing about the coat of prisoners, in the second place it only takes note of the work which is paid for, not in any way computing the value of the work absolutely done. For instance, in the matter of unskilled work it states that tho daily .average of workmen was 100, but the net receipts for the year are given as £ll, aud the average monthly earnings at 2d per man I Then again the net earnings of the men engaged in printing in the establishment are given as £544 Os Bd, aud a note is added that the discrepancy between this amount and tho

value of the work done, as computed by the Government Printer in his report, is owing to the fact that the Prisons’ Department claim credit only for work paid for, while the Government Printer values all the work done. It is a pity that some stringent guiding rules were not issued whoa the return was asked for, as its value greatly impaired by these irregularities. Indeed, when we learn that tailors in the gaol were making an average of £L 15s a month per man, we learn, nothing, because the woik done for fellow-prisoners is not reckoned in. So also with regard to the 16s 9d said to he earned by shoemakers per month. And, .indeed, the various gaols sending in reports on a similar principle, it is quite impossible to srrivo at the real value of work, either skilled or unskilled, done by prisoners. For instance, we should have liked to bava known something about the Dunedia gaol statistics, and if the prisoners were busily employed or otherwise, with a view of seeing whether it was want of work or too much work that has driven so many of them into the acts of insubordination that have been so heavily punished. But all the information we can gain is that there is no skilled labor employed there, and that the men earn on an average 5s 5d per month and the women “6d (nearly)” per month! The only piece e£ real news we gain about this gaol is that the gross annual cost per prisoner is £4l 19s 6d, and the net annnal cost is £39 10s 6d. If Mr, Hutchinson makes much out of the return he will be a very clever man indeed.