WIRELESS IN PRISONS
(To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sta,—The Spectator can, I think, say with regard to Mr. H. B. Hermon-Hodge's trenchant letter, " Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung," for the provision of " wireless " in large convict prisons would be of much service to warders and governors, rather than a luxury for prisoners, if " listening in " were regarded as a privilege.
Moreover, it would probably give encouragement to the convicts, by reminding them of what goes on in the great world outside the prison gates, to which they all hope some day to return. Nevertheless, a strong protest against the excessive leniency with which serious crime is often treated appears to be fully justified. On the same day that Mr. Hermon-Hodge's letter was published in The Spectator, another letter appeared in The Times in which the writer speaks of " the alarming fact " that " the number of young persons brought before Children's Courts has more than doubled in the last five years," and this in spite of better education.
More than fifty years ago John Ruskin protested even more vigorously than Mr. Hermon-Hodge against the prevalent tendency to forget the victims in pity for the criminal. " I believe it," he said, " to be quite one of the crowning wicked- nesses of this age that we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation, and neither desire nor dare to punish crime justly."—Your obedient servant, WALTER CRICK. Eastbourne.
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