IT'S A LIE!"

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 15 August 1917, Page 5

IT'S A LIE!"

A CHALLENGE AND A BET "It's a lie!" These words will usually cause some little unpleasantness, and they caused rather, more than a little at the Labour meeting of welcome to Mr P. C. Webb at the King's Theatre, Wellington, on Monday night. Mr Webb was speaking of his experiences in prison, and he condemned roundly the prison regulations. He made a particular point of the lack of classification of prisoners—the fact, as he alleged, that the man going to gaol for the first time to serve a short sentence had to go to work with men in gaol for long terms —men who had been convicted of the most hideous crimes. "As a matter of fact," he said, "there was not a trace of classification in the prisons now." It was in reply to this statement that the reply came back, shouted offensively, "It's a lie!" Immediately there was an uproar in the crowded building. All sorts of threatening cries Avere raised; angry protests, mostly inarticulate, came from all portions of the building. The man was in the gallery, and he suffered no violence. Mr Webb challenged him to stand up, and then he made this wager —that if the man could find any trace of classification in the prisons at Wellington or Christchurch he (Mr. Webb would give him £lO to do as he liked with, if the other man would wager a like amount. Mr Webb promised that if he won the wager the money would all go to the fund for the benefit of the dependents of the men in gaol. The man in the gallery accepted the wager, as laconically as he had contradicted Mr Webb. He replied Simply, "It's on." "Very well," said Mr Webb, "wait in the hall after the meeting." —Dominion.