INSIDE A GAOL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1497, 1 October 1883, Page 2

INSIDE A GAOL.

(From the N.Z. Times),

The first case in Wellington under the new prison regulations came before the Resident Magistrate's Court on Saturday. ■ Cornelius Toll, a Mount Cook prisoner of violent temper, undergoing ten years',penal servitude, was charged with various breaches of prison discipline, including indecent language to officers, refusal of duty, assaulting a warder, and breaking furniture. He candidly'admitted all these, except the alleged assault. The evidence of two .warders showed- the prisoner to be .intractable and liable to outbreaks of violent temper, as if he sought relief from the dismal routine of silent labor by creating a row for the sake of excitement, taking his extra punishment like a lamb. The prisoner has leen a housebreaker in the South Island, and after repeated convictions was sentenced to penal servitude in 1877. His offences against prison discipline at Lyttelton and the Mount Cook Gaol had been very.frequent. The new regulations required that any serious charge of this nature should be heard in open Court. Tho prisoner seemed very intelligent, and made the following remarkable statement :

Prisoner: lam of very violent temper. Some prison-officers, as a rule, and one wild hits jtist given evidence in particular, are very tyrannising and overbearing, to prisoners, knowing they are helpless. That officer is also a coward—a most evil-designing man, and cowardly to a prisoner who is not capable of taking care of himself. He has kicked men in the cells. He and'othersi have driven two men to the Asylum, for prison lite is not a free' life," and-very little puts a man out there. As a prisoner, I have always ; stood • on my own dignity. I don't wish to excuse myself; I am quite willing to put up with the consequences of what J have done. But a man in charge of a gan" of prisoners like me should be made to speak to them like men, aad not like dogs. The other night he put two men on to me,, and when they had taken my slippers off ho -was kind enough to kick me in the ribs. I never go against punishment, provided it is fair. F don't like to be diiven to punishment, but 1 don't like to be tyranised over. One prisoner was driven to hang himself, and two men are put in the Asylum through his tyranny.

Chief Warder Garbey: I wish to explain some remarks of the prisoner. Mr E, Baker: We cannot go into matter oxcept the charge before us, The decision of the Bench is that the prisoner be kept in close confinement, in a light cell for fourteen days. We recommend to the authorities that civility should be shown to the prisoner and no provocation or ill-will be exhibited. It will be observed from the above remarks that the Magistrates (Messrs Baker, Toxward, Halse, and Hon. J. Johnston) refused to hear any denial of the alleged brutality to prisoners, while assuming that there was necessity for recommending kinder treatment.