GAOL-FROM WITHIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 956, 26 April 1930, Page 8

GAOL-FROM WITHIN

EX-CONVICT DESCRIBES • EXPERIENCES “Blackmailers are usually the most unpopular men in prison, but good thieves are admired. Even murderers are tolerated if there are redeeming features about their cases.” Possibly prisoners in Wormwood’ Scrubs and other % gaols equipped with wireless heard tfie ex-burglar who broadcast from 2LO give this opinion of men who may have been fellowprisoners while he served a recentlyended four years’ sentence of penal servitude, states the “Sunday News.” His revelation of life behind prison bars was full of interesting points. “Authorities will not allow convicts to keep birds in their cells,” he said, “but they allow mice,” and supply cages from bully beef cans to intending mouse-keepers. “Pets save the reason of some lonely devils doing long sentences. . . . Nothing to look at but bare walls is enough to make anyone ‘barmy.’ “There was an average of three attempts to escape each year I was at Parkhurst, but no one succeeded.” Happy Hours The ex-burglar described how he himself worked for two days with a pair of scissors in Oxford Prison making a hole through the outside wall of his ceil, when someone ‘squeaked’ to the warders. He put the mortar back round the bricks and covered the edges with soap to- deceive them. It was discovered and he was sentenced to No. 1 punishment—solitary confinement and bread and water. “Some of the happiest hours of my life have been spent at Parkhurst,” he continued. “There I became acquainted with the work of Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells. “Short sentence men read books on philosophy, classics, science and languages. One ‘lifer’ passes whole evenings sketching or doing embroidery work. Another plays the violin. He mentioned that prison “grub” is much better than it used to be, and the menu more varied; “but,” he ended, “I don’t want any more ‘chokey.’ ‘Old lags’ agree that the crime isn't worth the candle.”