CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1088, 1 June 1882, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

GAOL BIRDS. TO THE EDITOR. ' - Sir,—l 800 that you notify that a petition against tho toachiug of trades to prisoners lies at your office for signatures. You aio frank enough if you sympathise with this movemont to givo : publicity to ono who urges an opposite opinion. I read the' Other day in one of the Wellington papers an. account of a meeting convened" to proteat- against this'Bame teaching of trades to prisoners. It gavo me two strong feelings—a feeling ol shame and a feeling of indignation. , I have linown some selfish and contemptible things done in the name of tho working man in England, but I always believed that tho agitators who Bought to do them maligned tho working man, but a more selfish, short-sighted, and mean agitation than this I never know. I don't believe any real honest, sober working man endowed with .ilie usual intelligence of his class will liavo anything to do with this ij .< ,

In England—l, will add througliout Europe' and - tlio United Stales—>bo object of statesmen is to humanise tlio man, the woman, nwl t!<o child wiioso folly,, vice, or misfortune has brought him oi' hor to the gaol,—to divert Ilia Or lior enorgiea -from crime, and lead them to channols which will rcstoro them to the ranka ofhonest folk, and add to tlio wago earning wealth of the community. The old madness oi making the gaol a nursery of crime—of throwing the criminal hack upon himself, and branding him with the Cam mark, has long been abandoned aa an ignorant barbaric folly. Novelists, philanthropists, im' l P n °ts combined to rouao the public mind, and tlio public mind gave its verdict, and statesmen gave that verdiit expression in law and prnclico. Industrial schools and reformatories ovorywhere exist to take crimo in its infancy, and convert the budding eriiiuual into a rcspucted meinbor of society. Who nod what aro theso who say to tlioir brother and sister, "You have offendod against tlio law of your country—yon have been sent to a prison ! Henceforth wo will not know you. We care nothing as to how you catno within tlio meshes of the law. Wo will take good cave tlmt idle as you went in, idle you shall come out-with this difference, "that you shall bo branded with tlio name of felon ; so that utterly helpless, utterly without any means of gaining your livelihood, there shall bo no escape from the road that will lead you back to crimo and misory ?" Do any of these selfish agitators think what this means to the colony. On the one haud a sysiom that converts many n criminal into an honest hard-working wage earning meinbor of the community contributing by his labor to tlio general wealth of tho colony. On' the other a

system that condemns a criminal to lifelong crime, to proy upon his fellow men, to add to the public taxes, and disgrace and impoverish the colony.' Oil, fools, fools'! fools 1 Does one honest bard-work-ing man take from you wealth or profits, does ho not add lo them I How is it that at this hour and in this year of grace men have to bo told that the presence nf an intelligent, skilled, industrious workman is a strength and a blessing to the community; that it is only the idle, the loafer, the drunkard, the criminal, who arc a disgrace, a curso, and a heavy charge on its industry. And what and who aro these who are so hard on the prisoner'] I am a poor, philanthropist, I havo little of maudlin sentiment for crime, but I have seen many men in gaol who, if society had dune its duty with a divine wisdom, would not have been there. Many men are out of gaol who, if justice had been divine, would have been tight within the gaol walls. Who and what are these men who are for refusing new life, for shuttin» the door of hope agaiust the prisoner. What religion do (hey profess ? Aro they human or are they too godlike, too pure, too sinleßß to have a thought of common humanity for these" prisoner captives." I appeal sir, to the true nobility of men Bgainst the low selfish instincts of the lower animals. I beg the honest industrious working men to refuse to this petition, and to tell Messrs Beetham and Buchanan that tho working men and the tradesmen of the Wairarapa have no part in this mean business, but grudgo nothing that tends to redpem a brother or a sister irom the cruel doom of crime. 1 am .I'c., Hobert S. Hawkins. Bowlands, May 28 1882. [Our correspondent goes too far in assuming that no honest workman who takes a prido in his particular craft is justified in excluding from it iten who would lower its prestige and destroy its esprit de corps.-Etl. W. D.]