The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-18
PRISONS OF INDIA
ESCAPES OF PRISONERS AROUsEs
 THE PRESS.
Administration of Jails is So Lax That Prisoners are Allowed to Secure
 Weapons and Commit
 Murder.
nY A HnWARn.

th c JailerS. once n the tower ana at tackled Jailer Minchall with knife. inficting serious wounds. Mincsaifs two children ran out and gave the alarm.
 Meanwhile. the escaped convicts seized crowbars. broke the door locks. and set others free.
 When Superintendent Gadsden ap- peared on the scene 200 convicts were running about Mir. Gadsden ordered them to their cells. and shot one of the ringleaders who refused to obey By this time other prisoners were trying to climb the walls. Two men had barricaded themselves in a room i with furniture One, who stood with knife fh his hand ready to kill the | through the hand. and both were then secured. Altogether, five prison CTS were shot, one being killed. Chidambaram Pillai, the Tinnivelly seditionist, recently sentenced to | transportation for life, is an inmate of this jail
 Most of the papers comment on the state of jail discipline by the tragedy at Alipore, where the informer Gos- sain was murdered by two prisoners charged with complicity in the bomb conspiracy. The Times of India says: Tt Is al- most with a sense of stupefaction that we learn of a system of administra- tion so lax that nine revoIvers. with a large supply of ammunition. were smuggied in to prisonars under arrest for participation in a crime so violent that the most rigid precautions were an obvious necessity: of system so lax that an individual in whose silence large number of desperate persons were vitally interested, was placed in position where he was open to per. sonal violence.
 There may be some explanation of this; we cannot imagine any that can 1 possibly be at all satisfactory. How. ever, this particular episode may be left to the authorities in Bengal and ] they have a very unpieasant duty to | perform. But. at the same time. 1t is a lesson to all the provincial govern ments, not excluding that Of Bonn bay. The control of all our Indian jails is on happy -so-iucky lines. They are managed, to a considerable ex- tent, as if the prisoners were volun- tary boarders, not criminals. The stories which are common property. some told in blue books and others well authenticated. of irregularities in the jails. are amazing"
 The Englishman observeS There has lately been manifest ( disposition to talk of political prisoners and to gird at the authorities who take req sonable precautions as monsters of inhuman cruelty; Distressing pictures have been drawn of delieately-
 tured youths 'rotting In hajutJi The lauthorities. therefore. have manifeetad tthe utmost 1eniency towards {fitg class
 of prisoner and. if we are correctly
 informed. that those in actual charge
 of the Alipore jail have protested against the lack of restraint permit
 ted. then we must seek higher for t4Ie
 ultimate responsibility for the latest
 murder. %
 This crime will have demonstrated
 the folly of treating under-charge
 prisoners of lis class Ith any in-
 dulgence. Some of them. at any rate.
 are hardened criminals, who will stick
 at nothing to achieve their ends and
 defeat the ministers of justice There
 should, therefore, be an end to the cant
 about the harshness of immuring such
 men strictly while they are under trial.
 At the present moment 1t Is necessary
 to say that the present protracted ju- LdiciaI proceedings are a source of
 danger.
 we have refrained hitherto from
 commenting upon this. but it will now
 probably be very generally agreed
 that a necessity exists for the estab-
 lishment of tribunal capable of deal-
 ing with these cases more promptly
 than is possible under the ordinary l
 lesson of short. sharp retribution Is a
 very valuable oi.e, md that lesson is
 lost when proceedings are dragged out
 over months. The men concerned in
 these matters have evidently been en-
 couraged to this foul murder by the in-
 ordinate length of the procedure al
 present necessary before a just hnd-
 ing can be arril ed at"
 Judgment in the Tinnevelly riot case was delivered in crowded court
 house. Many police were present. un-
 der assistant Superintendent Cayers [ and most elaborate precautions were taken. Gurunath Iyer was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and fine ! of 1000 rupees. two others to five years imprisonment and a fine of 500 rupees and ..So to five year. Imprisonment , Four of the accused were acquitted. Tn the second batch Soondra Atyer. a well known Brahmin Swadeshi preach
 CT. was sentenced to tVe years rig.
 orous Imprisonment with fine of 50S
 rupees. Seventeen other persons were
 sentenced to i've years. and four acQutt' , ted on account of their youth.
 The police at Quetta have made an i'm l portant capture If man with many ! aliases who was discovered working a'
 a common laborer In connection wltf
 the works of the Mar Nala irrigation project He was last at Poona. whence : he went to Quetta, visiting acquaint'
 ances at Hyderabad and elsewhere 1T , Scinde He admits being mixed UT , with the bomb manufacturing fratern , ity in Bengal having taken an active
 part in the Chandernabora bomb affair , and having immediately thereafter lef , that place.
 The man. who Is very dark ant . speaks several languages, claims to h' . of partly Boer parentage, IS the issu' a of a marriage between an Indian en1i f grant to South Africa and Boe' | mother.
 The appeal of five Burmans to the l Rangoon High Court from the death I sentences passed on tn hem. for dacoitS
 and murder. by the Sessions Judge
 of the Delta Division, has drawn at tention to a terrible cr!me Mauns
 Pc Che. a Chin cultivator. living or
 the river bank in the MalamyainRyur
 townhip. gave a feast to his neigh bor:
 and acuusintances At the conclusion - of 1t only the relatives were left 1T
 the house and the families went tc s sleen. There were over 400 rupees ir the house as MaUng Pc was about tc [ purchase a large piece of land. Or 2 the upper floor was a closed bedroom in which slept Mauag Pc himself. Ills wife and three little children. On the same floor. but outside, slept a cousin of Maung Pes and the brother of his q wife.
 2 Towards midnight a gang of eight f dacolts came to the house, with lighted [ torches in their hands, and armed witt [ knives and spears. Maung Pc was . bound on the lower floor; Maung Sc Q Pc. however. grappled desperately witt