HALF HIS LIFE IN GAOL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 11

HALF HIS LIFE IN GAOL

Dazed by City’s Many Changes Yielded at Last to Authority TRY to imagine tlie reactions of a man suddenly let loose in Queen Street after 14 years behind grey stone walls. Think of the many changes that have taken place since the early days of the Great War.

Slowly, he walked down Lome Street. His eyes roved from side to side and be seemed a little bewildered and even frightened . . - his ftrst day out after 14 years. “Yes,” he was quite willing to talk. In fact, he was embarrassingly grateful for a kindly word. It was no use asking him for his impressions of a new world. The transformation was too recent for him yet to have mastered his thoughts of those changes which seemed so marvellous to him; changes that had come about so gradually as to be almost unnoticed by the man whose observation has not been hampered by the intervention of several feet of stone wall. His eyes took in everything, making impressions on his mind that would be more accurately sorted out when he found time for thought. Every now and then he drew a

large watch from his pocket. He was astounded that it should be going after 14 years’ inactivity. He gave The Sun man his full name. Let him be known as Taffy Jones. He was sorry to say that for many years he had been one of the most refractory prisoners in H.M. Prisons. “I’ll be 66 next August, and I’ve been more than 35 years put away,” he said. “My terms include the 14 years I have just completed, two terms of five years, two of three years, one of six months, one of three months and 25 lashes and 4J years in the Burnham Industrial School when X was a lad—burglary and so on. There were many charges against me and when I was sentenced to ten years at Christchurch, I was also declared an habitual criminal and sent to serve an Indeterminate sentence.” VIOLENT TEMPER A violent temper had made him a troublesome prisoner, Jones said. He had assaulted warders and smashed countless windows as protests against gaol discipline. “That was in the old Lyttelton Gaol,” he went on. “There they had leg irons, cross irons, ball and shot, handcuffs —I’ve had ’em all on. I wore leg irons for four years and three months, and many a month I’ve done in the cells on bread and water. But then of course I was really brought up in the atmosphere of the

police. When I was only a baby my mother left me on the steps of the Christchurch Police Station. I was the second child to be sent to Burnham and I was there several years before being transferred to the orphanage at Lyttelton.” Jones attributed his release from gaol to the efforts of Salvation Army officers, notably Staff-Captain Davies, Army prison chaplain, and his successor, Staff-Captain Holmes. “It was four years ago,” he said. “I had just done a month in handcuffs fox breaking windows when I realised that I was likely to remain in gaol all the rest of my life if my conduct-did not improve. I had been before the Prison Board already, but lost my temper and cursed Sir Robert Stout, who was then presiding. I asked to see a Salvation Army officer and promised to follow his advice. The result was that the authorities remarked on the change in my conduct.

“I was twice summoned before the board, and each time the news reached me that I had been recommended for instant release. I worked on in the hope that I would soon hear good news, hut it was four years before the Army’s efforts on my behalf resulted in my release. On Wednesday morning, as I was getting ready to go to work, I was told that it would be liardly worth while, as I would be going out that day. “Out where?’ I asked. I could not realise that I was going to be free again.” Since coming out of goal two days ago, Jones has spent his time walking the streets and gazing about him at such novelties as traffic pointsmen, women in light short dresses, eightstoreyed buildings, automatic telephones and countless other marvels. He has been twice stopped by vagrants begging for food, and, were he to remain in the City, his £39 gratuity money would soon be disposed of, as beggars would find him the easiest of marks. He is to spend the rest of his life at the Prisongate Salvation Army Home, Miramar, Wellington. PRAISE FOR OFFICERS Jones has nothing but praise for the way he has been latterly treated by officers at the gaol. “When I behaved myself, they did everything they could for me,” he said. “I would like to see the Prison Board given more power, though. What is the good of the board at all if the Justice Department can ignore its recommendations, as X am sure it did in my case. There are also reforms X would suggest within the board itself. I think official visitors and officers of organisations that have charge of the spiritual welfare of the prisoners should be able to appear in support of the men, some of whom when called before tbe boaru, are ni most dumb with nervousness, an 4 make but a sorry impression if IheV have nobody to speak for them. Not only that—who can be as familiar with the merits of a case as the men who make a life-long study of them?” In his neat grey suit and aggressively new hat and boots, Jones left to indulge in a bottle of ginger beer. He is now on his way to Wellington, where the Salvation Army officers will meet him and take him to his new home.