IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2128, 24 October 1885, Page 2

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

" How Debtors are treated in Addington Gaol" is the heading of a series ef letters which have been appearing the last month or two iti the (< Ellesmere Guardian," a paper printed at Southbridge, about thirty miles from Christchurch, They have created quite a sensation, and have had a marked effect upon the orders for imprisonment for debt issued by the Ohristchurch magistrates, People read of how for no other crime than poverty, men—and women, too—have been sentenced to weeks' and months' imprisonniftnt, which means semi-starvation the whole time; solitary confinement twenty hours out of every twenty-four, and treatment in all ways as severe and degrading as that to which criminals are subjected, If these letters are faithful records of what obtains in Addington Gaol, then the Prisons Act, under which Captain Hume has introduced his abominably severe treatment of debtors, is repeatedly and systematically disregarded and ignored, and this not from ignorance on the part of the gaoler or warders, but in obedience to Captain Hume's direct instructions. The writer of the letters pledges himself to substantiate every statement made in them, and I may say that, from inquiries I have personally made of unfortunate debtors, I find that in every matter which I have looked into lie is correct, Can you believe that a debtor is searched on entering the gaol, as a criminal—every paper, letter, n}'enp,randum l pencil, pipe, Watch, eyerytlp'ng, jn fact, but his actual clothing that' lj'e stands up in is taken from him 'I His height, weight, appearance, religion, etc., are entered in a book. If he thinks the gaoler can make the man strip nuked in order that " Any marks on hjs person" may be duly recorded. f[e gannot receive any letter from eyen his wife until the gaoler has first opened, and endorsed it. If lie wants to write to her, letter has to pass through the same horrid scrutiny before it is pp§tpd, branded with a huge stamp cpvei'tng a| least one.third of the envelope, bearing the words "Addington Gaol." calls to see him, slie does so in a kind of gage divided into three compartments by two rows of rails-she standing in one compartment, and he in another, with a warder listening for anything to be reported between fchein in tho centre division. And remember this: with the semi-starvation, and with the solitary confinement twenty hours per day, is the treatment the law deals out to poverty, not crime; and all the while we take credit to ourselveg tfcat that remnant of b^barjßflf} for qebt-rhas beeij abolished' in' enlightened Ifew Zealand.