Flotsam and detsam.

Manawatu Herald, 18 October 1892, Page 2

Flotsam and detsam.

(By , Motuiti.) V " In some of the.States the -gaols are self-supporting." The States in this extract, from a late , Ame^ficfin newspaper are the United State? yof America. The Great Rejrabftc. has long been regarded as the ideal country of the working man. ; a sortaof Paradise or " happy hpnting.giyoqnd-," especially for the artisan and labouring classes . The --'eofittt i ;.iabopi' troubles in that country, amounting almost to internecine war, throw rather a ghastly light' on'this notion of it. The details bf some ofhWmcidenta connected with, the great Carnegie ' Ironworkers' strike at Homestead, Pennsylvania, are so I horrible as to be almost incredible. The employment of such a gang of armed ruffians as " Pinkerton's detectives," a private band of desperadoes let out for hire to all and sundry employers of labour: wishing to coerce their workers— the hanging up by the thumb* for hours of a volunteer for . daring* to [ express sympathy with the men, and such like things withont number— well, thank God, they would be impossible in this colony. We have greater freedom and nobler privileges than " the most dem<MEftsic people under tho sun !" Again, there is the curious statement, which I have no doubt is quite true, that "In some of the Stated the gaols are self-supporting." What does it mean ? How oan it be true ? The strike of the miner* of Tennessee against the, hiring out of the State convicts to the' mine-own irs, thereby lowering the current rate, of wages, throws, light on the W%?t. . Thjwe who have read /Marcus 'Clarke's, I " His Natural Life" may have

some notion of the horrors of the convict system in Tasmania ; but the Worst days of Norfolk TSlatici sink into insignificance, it is asserted when compared with the convict system existing at this present day in Tennessee. The wretched convicts are hired out by the State, like so many cattle, to road contractors and mine owners. In the bad old days of the ticket-of-leave system Sotfttty Bajf and Van Dieman 's Land experienced th 9 evils ol the hiring out of convicts ; bufc the ticket-of-leave system was a bagatelle compared with the cruelties of- the " hiring out " system of which I have some account in a Tennessee paper now before me. In one mine alone upwards of two hundred and forty convicts were working, having been '* rented " from the State by the mine-owners. What must be the life of these poor wretches. The old slave-owners had at least an interest in their, "hands;" they were worth money, and so had to be cared for. But the mine-owners have not even that interest in their hired convicts ; for,, if a convict dies, lie can be replaced. And that they do die off fast enough is shown by the published reports on the gaol system of the United States. Just so. "In some of the United States the [ gaols are self-supporting." Poor human nature 1