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Southland Times, Issue 1544, 1 March 1872, Page 3

New York women are said to surpass in folly and extravagance the women of every other city in the world. They are now supplying themselves with handkerchiefs which cost their fathers and husbands from 200 to 600 dols. a piece. Social economists who are interesting themselves in the question of the repression of crime, could not better serve their object than by widely publishing a narrative of a visit to Portland, which appeared some time ago in the South London Press. Tersely, but emphatically, the convict establishment there is described as a hell upon earth. Life without hope is the main element of the torture which the prisoner has to undergo ; the effects of this hopelessness upon the healthy is great — upon the sick it is fatal. The island itself is dreary and desolate, interesting to no one but the geologist, because of the fact of its being three times submerged ; the convicts work in woollen uniforms, which makes them swelter over their hard toi] even in the season of ice and snow ; no prisoner is allowed to move unattended by an armed sentinel ; the dietary tables have been founded upon a calculation as to the smallest quantity of food upon which a convict could be kept alive in working order ; perpetual silence is enforced, so that men are glad of any excuse to speak ; and there is, above all, a black-hole which appears to have been successfully realised from the dungeons of the inquisition. The writer of the narrative from which we take these facts states that the effects of ten minutes' incarceration in this place was so tremendous that he felt constrained to scream out for help. As an instance of severity of this silent, starving, secluded imprisonment, it is mentioned, that a young convict who had served his time within a few weeks, was so overwhelmed at the prospect of release that he fell into a high fever, from which it is expected he will not recover. Eoupell, the forger, and ex-M.P. for Lambeth, is confined in this cheerful establishment where he is employed at > bookbinding.