REJECTED FROM PRISON.

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17748, 10 March 1927, Page 6

REJECTED FROM PRISON.

i TAKEN' AWAY BY POLICE

SOME STRANGE COMPLAINT3. '

The Home Secretary makes regular visits to the larger British prisons, and interviews prisoners in their cells. One man he called upon had spent forty years in prison. "Have you any complaints to make " asked the Home Secretary. "Yesi," replied the man. "The prison library is rotten. There isn't a single hook on German philosophy in it." Most complaints are made to the prison governor, and sometimes they are very odd. In the Prisoner's Hotel, as they call Camp IPill, the men are able by good conduct to earn a small sum monthly, which they may spend in the prison canteen. The canteen is stocked with many kinds of tobacco, cigarettes, bottled fruit, fresh fruit, biscuits, jam, and even with pickles and chutney, but there are some men who are never satisfied, and one went to the governor to complain tbat he could not buy brilliantine. An old lag who had spent most of his life in Dartmoor was given the job of whitewashing the outbuildings, a taslc he performed excellently. At last he was discharged, but being old and feeble had no refuge but the workhouse. He did not like it at and wrote to the governor of Dartmoor, saying that he thought it was beneath the dignity of a man who had for so long held the post of His Majesty's painter to live in a worlchouse, and could he either come back or have a pension. It is not unusual for a prisoner to rcfuse to leave at the end of his term. Two or three years ago a prisoner in Camp Ilill fell into such a fury when told that his sentence was up that he was given twcntyfour liours' grace. On the following day he still refused to go, and at last a policeman had to be called to take him away and see him safely off the island. All prisoners are set to work of some sort at the beginning of their sentence. A man sent to Pentonville applied to see the governor, and asked to be taken off mail-bag sewing. When asked why. he , said he was a professional violinist and feared the work would spoil his hands. His request wa:; granted.