A PRISON STORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1886, 5 October 1918, Page 1

A PRISON STORY.

MAN WHO “HAD NO CHANCE.”

ITOW HE DIED FOB UTS COUNTRY.

How a man was sent to prison for a crime of which he was not guilty, how he became violent, and almost insane, as the result of brooding over the wrong, and how, after he was released, he served his country gallantly at (he front until he was killed in action, was told recently by the Attorney-General of New .South Wales (Mr Hall). Behind the bare announcement recently giveiL.in a cable message that No. 034 Private George Harris had been killed in action on Bth August, lies a story' which proves once more that fact is stranger than fiction. Publicity was first given to this story by Mr Hall in the Sydney Sunday Times.

“When I first suav George' Harris,” said Mr Hall, “his number avus 57, not 034. He avus serving a life sentence in the Parramatta Gaol for attempted murder. The gaol records said of him, ‘He* nurses imaginary Avrongs, is very cunning, irritable, and easily upset. He has made violent, treacherous, and unprovoked assaults on prison officials, and on felhnv prisoners.' He avus not alloAved the use of a knife and fork, and ale his food from a Avooden dish Avith a Avooden spoon. ‘The Avorsl man in the gaol,’ an official Avhispercd to me Avhen Harris came to explain that he had never had a ‘fair trial.’

“Harris told me,” continued Mr Hall, “that he could not remember his parents. The first thing he could recall avus being handed over, at the age of three, to someone in Sydney, to be looked after. At the age of 12 he Avas on the training ship Sobraon. When he left that, at 10, ho at once got into (rouble, and ho avus in and out of gaol for the next (la'C years. On his 21st birthday he made up his mind to reform. He had to Ha'c Avith doubtful characters, because he knoAv no respectable persons, but he bought a basket, and earned an honest living by haAvking. TheifVi Avoman, avlio had been hit and robbed of her handbag, Avrongly identified him as her assailant. At the time of the offence ho Avas playing cards Avith a man and two Avomen in a house in Avhich ho lived. He called those three persons as Avit nesses, but their admissions in cross-examination as to their character Avere such that the jury Avould not believe that they Avere speaking (he (ruth. Harris, avlio said, ‘Before God, I am innocent of this charge;’ Avas found guilty, and sentenced to |() years’

imprisonment. ’ “Harris told me,” Mr Hall went on, “that during his previous terms in prison he had just made (he best of it, and avus ahvays regarded as a ‘good’ prisoner. But to be Avrotigly convicted after he had tried so hard to live honestly drove him nearly mad. He Avas ahvays in (rouble, and, after two years, he stabbed the governor of the gaol With a knife. He avus sentenced to death, but the governor recovered, and the sentence Avas turned into penal servitude for life. Then he went quite mad, and Avas put into the hospital for the criminal insane. After a year or more he escaped, but avus re-captured. He told the constable avlio arrested him that he was not guilty of the robbery for which lie avus gh’en 10 years, and the constable said that he had heard of a number of persons who said the same.

“Having told me his story, Harris begged me to test it in every way possible,” said Mr Hall. “He asked me, if I found that he was not guilty of the robbery, to put a limit to his sentence, and not to leave him in prison for life. A careful and exhaustive study of the ease lent colour to his contentions. The statements of the constable who had arrested him after his escape greatly strengthened my doubts as to his guilt in the robbery case. In the ordinary way Harris’ case would have been reconsidered in H 127, but I wrote a minute expressing doubts as to the original crime charged against him. I stated that if at the end of six years the medical men were convinced that his mental condition was satisfactory, and if his

conduct in gaol had boon good, I would, if in office as Minister of Justice, release him. As a matter of fact, such was the change that this hope made in him that my last act before handing over the direct control of the prisons to Mr Garland. in 1010, was to give the order for his release. When I told him that be would be released in a few days, and asked, what he would do, he said, ‘I am now 30, and have spent 10 years in gaol. I have not a relative in the world. There is only one thing that a decent man in my position ought to do, and that is to fight for his country. If you will let me, I will enlist.’

“He went to Brisbane the day after he was released,” added Air Hall, “volunteered, and trained in the infantry. Then he volunteered for the machine-gun section, remarking that he Avoided to join the ‘Suicide Club’ because he had no relatives to mourn if he were knocked out. This avus literally true. Apart from the interest taken in him in my own household, there avus only one other house in (he Avorld Avherc anyone thought of him. A young man avlio had knoAvn Harris in gaol had sent his sister in with a Christmas dinner for him. After this she never forgot Harris on the day's when special dinners Avert 1 allowed, and she is the heir, under his will, to the money saved by him during twenty months on service. While at the front, Harris alAvays Avrote cheerfully. His last letter told of; the grand Avork done by the mach-ine-gunners in stemming the great, German offensive and predicted that Marshal Pooh Avould very soon give the Huns the surprise of their lives. Then came the end. He fell fighting bravely, I have no doubt. He did more for his country and for civilisation than Avas ever done for him.”