A HOTBED OF CORRUPTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 291, 3 December 1908, Page 4

A HOTBED OF CORRUPTION.

Sing Wing prison, America's largest convict establishment, has aow become . such a hotbed of corruption that the United States press is beginning to sav some very unpleasant things about 'l. -Kich prisoners, by payment of money, ranging from £lO irpwards, are said to have been able to secure immunity from stone-breaking, wood-chopping, and other forms of rough labour. The New York World formulated charges oi bribery against a former prison physician who lias now resigned. Corruption, savs this journal, of a petty kind is known in almost every penal institution, but that it should 'exist on ,i" scale of such magnitude in Sing Sing was a great surprise to the" State . officials. It is alleged that the priso-i doctor placed favorite prisoners in the hospital to secure their exemption from work, and this plan, it is charged, w;i j systematise! to an extraordinary degree. Superintendent Collins, of' Sim* Sing, says the New I'ork World, eiu° ployed i'inkerton detectives to trap the prison doctor. In their presence, it is alleged, the sister of a prisoner named Wooten, who had been sentenced to a long term for looting an estate of which lie was trustee, handed over a sum of money (u llie prison doctor. One detective played the part of Miss Wooten's brother, and it is asserted that the doctor, in return for mone,»,

said he would place the prisoner Woo'ten in the hospital, and also see tliat he was released on ticket-of-leave before his sentence expired. The doctor, on being interviewed denied corruption. He said lie had made plenty of enemies at Sing Sing during his 17 years' residence there, and lie believed that the Wootens had hatched up a conspiracy against hini. Prisoners, he says, have often been pardoned for giving infor- [ mation of wrong-doing, real or imaginary, on the part of the officials, and the Wooten's scheme, lie believed, was originated with that end in view. That the doctor retired only when He was given Hie alternative (if resignation or prosecution, following the discover*' that he was a receiver of bribes, a:i'l that Wooten received his liberty as a reward for tile prison do'.-to*' i was admitted by .Mr Cornelius Cu' 1 ' 'I superintendent of State prisons. ' C;';"*' Sing was one of tin: e.sta l '",;'] ' visited by Mrs. ilaybricl, V'ft! » ."1 l'»f »*. »»'i was described by her as a model ms'atution.