LEAVING THE PRISONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 220, 17 March 1914, Page 5

LEAVING THE PRISONS.

DISCONTENT AMONG WARDERS. EYES "BUNGED UP" BY BUG" • BITES. : By Telegraph—Press Association. ' Auckland; Last Night. A good deal Ims been said lately concerning' the discontent amongst the warders iij New Zealand prisons regarding their condition of work. The Wellington Evening Post, of recent 'date, published an official statement denying that there was any reason for discontent, and' maintaining that the men were not called upon to work more than, eight "hours per d;iy. This .assertion is not endorsed by several men jvho recently threw up their in the Mount Eden Gaol; and who state that discontent is rife throughout the Dominion. One of those who recently resigned from the Mount Eden Gaol stated his grievance to - a Star representative this morning. There are, he states, only 28 warders in the institution to look after nearly 300 prisonera, and they work from nine to ten hours per day. According to the ex-warders rn question, them is particular discontent in regard to the

hours which men on night duty work. Two warders watch over the prisoners

during the night for something like eleven hours, but,it is so arranged that between 8 p.tn. and 6 a.in_ each man takes five hours' sleep in a room from which he can readily be summoned. This room, it is alleged, is infested with ver'min, and has been the cause of endless trouble. The bugs, in fact, are the terror cif those who have the misfortune to find their, way into the wooden wing of the gaol, and it' is alleged that pris oners have even had' their eyes "bunged up" with bug-bites. It is stated that, in the last three weeks there have been four resignations at Mount Eden.