UNKNOWN

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2817, 23 February 1878, Page 3

UNKNOWN

The following account of the interview of the Post reporter with Mr G. E. Barton in prison, reference -to which was made in. yesterday's telegrams, we take from the Herald:—-

This morning a reporter from the Post interviewed Mr Barton in gaol, and a long report of tho interview is published. He gives Mr Barton's account of his treatment thus :—Tho room, ho said, was just ton feet each way. At night a sack of Straw was brought in and thrown into a corner. A. blanket, with the initials " W. G." in hard black letters at top uad bottom, was thrown on that aa flip top of the bed, and then another and thicker .blanket, but branded in the same way, and a counterpane formed the covering. When he first became an inmate of the cell he had neither fire nor candle, and his food was Very poor. For breakfast he had a pannikin of tea, without milk, with half a small loaf, which formed his rations of bread for the day. For dinuer there was " fly soup," as the prisoners facetiously called it. It was commonly supposed that the allowance of flies was one to a gallon of water, but Mr Barton thinks he was better treated, and had fully two flics. After thai there was a little meat, with all; the goodness boiled out of it, and a potato. For tea there was another pannikin of tea, and if tbe prisoner bad been Tery frugal he might have saved two or three crumbs of bread to eat with it. Now, however, this was altered, and he. bad just what he liked to eat and drink, with the single exception of wine and spirits, and he could smoke as much as he liked, but always -in the yard, This yard was 16 paces long, 4 paces wide: at tho top, and 7 paces wide at tho bottom. It was surrounded by wooden walls, 7 feet high on two sides, and 11 feet high at the back. The yard was not pared, and in wet weather he had, of course, to stick to his cell. At present he was well off, as he had bis 10 foot cell and queer-shaped yard all to himself, no debtors being now in gaol.' He bad had some companions not of the pleasanteat sort; but ho would speak of that after.. At 6 o'clock in the morning' a big bell rung, and he then turned out, and washed in his private yard. After that there wai his bed to roll up, and then breakfast. He had not to wash out his own celi-p-enr the whole be wai as comfortable as could be expected under the circumstances. The reporter said: Now I am going to ask a rather impertinent question, but it is on a point about which there is great cunosityoutside. Do you intend to bring your imprisonment forward in Parliament P Mr Barton : Certainly not. I was not born yesterday. I'm not a fool. The public business of Parliament must go on, and must not be retarded by the private grievance of a private man. lam only a unit in the colony, and in Parliament I am not going to occupy the time of the House with my own affairs when work of importance to the whole of tbe colony has to be done. But mark this, please—it does not follow from wha^ I hare said that I shall not bring the broader question forward in the proper way at the proper time and the proper place. Public wrongs must not be permitted to lie. The question whether the judges hare behaved properly or improperly to my clients must be fought out somewhere, and it will be fought out, you may depend upon that.