A LUCKY PRISONER

Kumara Times, Issue 515, 22 May 1878, Page 2

A LUCKY PRISONER

The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Times telegraphed recently to that journal as follows : —“ The Herald has a strong article on the case of H. S. Meyers, the merchant who was sentenced at the session of the

Supreme Court to six mouths imprisonfor fraudulent bankruptcy, but who has been removed from the gaol to the District Hospital, where he is comfortably provided for. It says, “Law knows no distinction, and it must be fairly argued that what a poor forlorn prisoner cannot obtain, a well to do man who may have saved money through his own frauds, should not be entitled to secure, either by outward pressure or by means of any influence whatever. Imagine a vretched pickpocket or burglar (and there is at least one in the gaol now undergoing a senetuce of fourteen years for burglary, and who is slowly dying of consumption, and who is an inmate of tlm gaM hospital) renting a couple of furnished rooms and drinking his hundred, shilling port as Meyers does. This' case of Meyers seems to have been \frrongfrom the first. Neither the Governor of the gaol nor the visiting justices were consulted or appealed to on the subject, and probably the latter may feel it their duty to call the attention of the Minister of Justice to the subject. There should be ; no such extreme distinction as this case so palpably shows. Equal justice and judgment should be meted out to ‘ nil alike, and if this is now bein<* | done in this particular instance, whore | a pleasant- parlor and bedroom with : good living, with visits from friends i bringing tbe delicacies of the season, | are provided tor a prisoner who has ! tiansgressed the law, then we require ! a new momenclature and various changes in the. dictionary.”