PRISON LIFE HARDSHIPS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 44, 16 February 1912, Page 2

PRISON LIFE HARDSHIPS.

Governor Benjamin Hooper, of Tennessee, who heroically sentenced himself to two days’ imprisonment in the State penitentiary at Nashville in order to find out for himself what prison life was like, on December 22nd, meekly sent for tiie Governor of the prison, and, asking for pen and paper, wrote out his own pardon. One day’s imprisonment had proved enough to damp his ardour. ' The Governor, who yesterday (wrote a press correspondent at the time) was being lauded for his zeal in the public service, is now being chaffed unmercifully for his ignominious retreat, but he declares that, honestly as he had tried, he could not stand prison-life for another twenty-four hours. “When 1 ordered myself to be treated like the ordinary prisoner I had no notion what the daily life in the penitentiary was,” he declared plaintively. “I’ll do tlie boys justice. They obeyed my orders enthusiastically, but it broke me.” Mr Hooper declares that life in the peritentiary is unbearable, and he intends.to make use of the experience he has gained to try to soften the labours of the convicts. He found that the work was too hard for any but the toughest manual labourers, and he declares that the whole system of penal servitude is degrading and unnecessarily harsh. He advocates,the abolition of the disgraceful “stripes,” which correspond to the British broad arrow mark, and says he thinks that' as the convicts ■are doing work for the State a fixed scale of wages should be paid to their families. Twenty-four hours’ observation lias convinced him' that there are a number of convicts in the penitentiary who might be pardoned or let out on parole, and a long list of Christmas pardons was to be issued.