A Convict's Release.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 June 1910, Page 4

A Convict's Release.

RELEASED IN INTERESTS . OF LITERATURE. "John Carter," an English poet, imprisoned at St. Paul, Mmtnesota, U.S.A., was released tho Other day on his 24th birthday, five years before the expiration of his ten-year sentence for tho theft of £5 at a railway station. "Tho iprison officials," lie said' to an interviewer, "do not know my real name. .1 am 'John Carter' on the records, and I slmll go out as 'John Carter.' "

The sentence on the prison.er~"tvas commuted as the result of the efforts of b'lio editors of ft.he Comtury Magazine ankl other influential pubiicaitilons to which lie contributed' a series of remarkable poems. His "Ballad© of 'Misery and 1 Iron," "Lux e Tendbris," amd "Coir Sordini" showed an exceptiona.l talent. They voiced the feelings of a man suffering puitii.sh'inoivt without bitterness ami inspired by an exceptional knowledge and understandiing o<f music.

-Mr Roibert Underwood Jioliinson, the editor of the Century Magazine, stated that Carter in no way asked for assistance. "I Itook steps to obtain his pardon,' he said, "in the interests of literature, and because I feel that hero is a man well worth saving. I should be proud if I could write as well as he."

Carter declares thalt he will return to England on a visit, but thiat lie will make bis career in America. "Yes," lie. observed, "my mother in England knows all about me, I wrote to lier .and told her that they had put me here. It was her letters to the Chief Justice, Mr Start, of the Supremo Court, that interested, him in my case.

"I was starving and desperate, and had been turned out of a train, when I robbed the station, but though I did not know what I was doing, that did not give me tho right to ibe 'a burglar. You see, we do. a little, th;nking wfhen we get in here. 'Duties (to society'— don't call it that! It's tho law, and I broko it! '

Carter declares that poetry is the easiest thing in the world to write. "I took a pad and wrote on iB across my knee. I chose verse because it is. less bulky thaw pilose and easier to send away. J have taken mv_ imptfsonment philosophically. You must judge my character from what I vrrote in prison. You soon get the atmosphere of a place like this, but you don't need to cry with desolation while writing in it." Carter evidently does not think that poetrv affords a sufficient financial reward to ensure a career. He says he has a roal interest, in music, and that he will mak'o his living as a musician. The prison warders are enthusiasover Carter's piano playing. "You ought to hear him," one of them observed. "He makes it sound like a church wrgan." (