Peace and Prison

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 91, 13 December 1912, Page 4

Peace and Prison

The jail at Lyttelton has been honored by a visit from an Unpaid inspector of our punitive methods. The mischances of a voyage produced a prison reformer in r-he great Howard, and those- of a peace campaign have made a zealous one of Mr. H. W. Reynolds, of Christchurch. It will be remembered thiit as the police were busy with prosecutions under the Defence Act, the military authorities considerately undertook their duties for them. Captain Wheeler stalked game in the person of All - . Reynolds, who had exhibited in his shop window, without imprint, a list of imprisoned boys, The Maokixand YVnnKF.ri ".Roll of Honor." The gallant ofivvr considered tho roll a direct incitonipnt to youth to break the law. The proserution resulted in the imposition of a £o fine, reduced by Parliament subsequently to .£l. "Wo do not pay fines wliui'o our principles arc involved," said Holland straightly the other day, and neither would this later victim of militarism. On November 23 Mr. Reynolds was arrested and taken to the police station. The removal of braces, collar, and tic was the first indignity to bo endured; a tussle with a meal without a knifo and fork the second. A system must distrust itself when it thinks that self-destruction looms ahead for those within its clutches. Later at Lyttolton came the complete transformation into prison garb, broad-arrowed. ]\lr. Reynolds writes: "I was escorted into the office and searched. I was asked if I had been in jail before. I told them I was a gentleman. They said thoy did not get many gentlemen, then , . They made a list of the articles I had in my possession, which they took from mc. I was then taken to the visitors' porcli and changed all my attire for the. renowned broad-arrow brand clothing, guaranteed to fit everywhere it touched. All the buttons were of the trousers kind. I was jriven a pair of white moleskin trousors, pair of underpants, a vest mid coat without linings, a pair of woollen socks, a singlot, a shirt and a cap, all well branded. a handkerchief, bread bag and towel. T was then escorted to the boot store and fitted up with a pair of strong nailed boots that had been a pair once, but which looked now like brother and sister instead of brothers. They were roomy, so if I could not lift them I could push them when walking. There was plenty of room f-n- air to circulate round ray fert. I did not need looking in, for 1 cniild not havn run in them hud I tried. >7o\v J was fixed up; bend to feet bolonged to Government, but the man inside Ix'loucrc'd to himself.

Thus "caplifiin" of his soul, Mr. l?oynolcls ,was romniPkKl into the asphalt yard at Lvttolton. I If to woro throe spparato rings, and in tliia absurd vcvsidii fif t!>.<• olrl trfaflniill nion ■n-ith minds and hands tramp round and round. On this unproductive, stultify-

ing form of punishment he comments: "This marching round nnd round is very tiring and makes you giddy. It produces a slipshod manner of walking, as you are oil the turn all the time. I should say it was injurious to eyesight hikl to nenx's. JMy brain whirled whilst lying in my hammock at nights through the effects of this circuhr inarching."

in dietary Mr. Reynolds found the broad good—ns it. needs be when it is the- stair' of life—the meat "rough and scraggy," and the tea simply undrinkable. The beverage is described a* slewed logwood, slightly sweetened, without milk. Ho says : "1 had too much respect for my inside to drink it more than twice." The temperance party should look to this. The nation would not be poorer, even with a milk bill, if it could persuade all its prisoners that the "cups that direr but not inebriate" can be worth drinking.

Sir. Reynolds protests ngninst the suppression of newspapers, and considers i'hat it makes the prisoner feel "a stranger in his own country." He pleads for n reading room and for ft more ready admission of examined correspondence. General Booth said that the first step in the uplifting of fallen men and women was to persuade them thut someone cared greatly that they should rise. We, in our vindictive and antiquated methods, insist on isolation and cold routine. Mr. Reynolds speaks strongly of this lack oF Warmth, hope, and sympathy. The prison atmosphere of crime and suspicion and i'ho indescribable language and talk made him foci that this was no place for reformation. And ho. has come back to wife and children from a jail experience endured for peace principles with a true zest for reform. He would cry like Whittier:

"Open the prison's living tomb And usher from its brooding gloom The victims of your savage code To the free sun and air of God."