Nelson Chronicle, Colne Observer, and Clitheroe Division News. — 1897-09-03 (Nelson, Lancashire, England)

WARDER ON PRISONS.  TEI CONDEMNED CELL.-SAD SCENES "A WRONG SYSTEM."  An ex-prison warder, a member of the Salvatios Army, who has had sixteen years' experience of prison life at Holloway,Pentonville, Newgate,Portland, and Dartmoor respectively, stated in the course of an interview with a reporter, that it IMO astonishing to what great rogueries a small theft often led. A case typical of hundreds was this: A young City clerk, respectably connected, pilfered a postage stamp one day from his employer. He now in gaol for a long term—a long series of embezzlements brought him there just six years after he took the postage stamp. One of the most notorious criminals of the present day began operations by stealing a smell article from a stall in Mile-end-road without being found out. As to the "cat," the ex-warder says the effect " must be intensely horrible to the sufferer, if the effect it has upon the onlookers is anything to judge by." The interview continued : " Watching in the condemned cell must have been a rather gruesome vigil, was it not ?" "It was indeed. It is a task no lean need envy, and it would take it lot to make me undertake such work again. 'pa, effect on my nerves was most trying; the awt ul silence was almost tatigible. There was the poor wretch oil Ids bed Irving to sleep, but he only slept tu tho &vines, itslo he was afraid to go te sleep in the dark. When he was not asleep he would walk about the tall, with his Lands to his bosh and, moaning piteously, Would look up into our faces as if seeking pity and help. Ile had been a careless living Itmell it Isis life. He was a dock labourer ; and spent all his spare time and cash at 1s public-house. fiss,i had an unlawful affection for a dissolute and wicked woman, awl the finish of his double life was the premeditated inurder of the WOUlall by cutting her throat. "The most painful scene I ever witnessed, however, was the parting of a wife and her child from the husband, who had been condemned to be hang for a murder he conitaitted in connection with a robbery. It forced me to tears. The sight of that respectable woman's grief was so terrible—l heard that she afterwards attempted to commit suicide— that I could hardly stand it, and then the child—. only a slim little school-girl—kissed him again and again, and sobbed and waded, in the most pathetie tones, Father, tell use, shall I never see you again?' When the time was up, and the wife and child must look into the man's face for the last time on earth, the child had to be forcibly toru away by the mother and carried away in her arms, both crying bitterly." " What do you consider to be the great weakness of the present system of prison punishment ? " "The absence of Christianity—the heart religion of Christ." "But has not every prison a chaplain and religious services?" "Yes, as a matter of form, certainly. That in part Of the prison machinery. .I.he ears of the law-breaker are reached, but not his heart." "But whose fault is that the law-breaker's or the chaplain's?" " Neither one nor the other. It is the system of punishment that is wrong and wholly un-Cliristlike. It is punitive only. It is uou-reformative. It hardens and brutalises and debases the character. For instance, there is no human love in a prison. There are no softening influences. Men are reduced to human automata. The warders and officials come under the same stereotyped, inflexible system of discipline. Many prison chaplains, I. know, are sincere Christian men, but they are not allowed to deal with prisoners according to the dictates of the heart, but according to the laws and rules of the prison. If Christ were the governor of a prison, I think the salvation of the law-breakers would be His first aim. prisoner would still have to perform his task to satisfy human justice,but Christ would seek to reach the human heart and change it by His conquering love. "Mark my words f—Christ will reign over the prison discipline of the future. The first offender and the young man will be separated from the win. firmed criminal, and will be specially dealt with."  VERDICT OF :11 N>l. tri II