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Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3834, 12 April 1881, Page 2

It is, a fact that would scarcely be credited in any other country in the world, that a town the size and importance of the Thames should be without sufficient gaol accommedation; such is tlie case, nevertheless. The Government in their economical mania, closed the Shortland lock-up to save a few paltry pounds per annum, and at present the only place available for prisoners of all classes, from murderers to drunkards, is a little, insecure, two-roomed shed, dignified by the name of the Grahamstown lock-up. Prisoners are kept cooped up like chickens, in a manner that reminds us of the old pictures in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, of Christian incarcerated at Vanity Fair. We make bold to assert," that the cose of sending prisoners to Auckland will amount to more in a year than the maintenance of

an efficient gaol here. la the case that came before the R.M. this morning, in which the prisoners were remanded for eight days, had the Magistrate complied strictly with cast iron rule, the unfortunate devils would have been locked up without exercise for eight long days in a badly lighted room, perhaps 12 feet square. In Mr Kenrick, however, we are glacj. to say, humanity rises above red tapeism, and he remanded the men to Shortland gaol, iucurring we do not know what risk by so doing. The want of a proper place for incarceration here will intensify instead of diminish, as time goes on, as the opening of the upper country .and the increase of settlement will no doubt cause an increase of crime. We trust that Mr Kenrick, or the Justices of the Peace resident here, will bring the matter under the notice of the Minister of Justice, pointing out that the colony is being actually put to a Joss by the ill-advised step of closing the Sfcortland gaol.