A convict named Jarvis was on Tuesday tried at Croydon
on
the charge of stabbing a Scripture-raabr. The man, wh seemed quiet and intelligent, and who is vary ill, but who has %33 3 I a life of- convictions, made a remarkable statement. I said he had attacked " the only man in the world whom he, loved," in order to obtain a hearing and expose the horrors of penal discipline. • The prison at Woking he declared was full of crime, but prisoners were punished when they complained. He himself had been sentences to six months' penal diet for complaining, and had been awoke out of his sleep every two hours by warders, who would, moreover, keep the windows open when he wanted them shut The jury, struck a-pparently by the man's appear- ance, brought him in guilty only of unlawful wounding, but the judge, after reserving sentence to make inquiries, 9.1131 three years -to his term of sentence. It is impossible to attach much importance to the statement of a man so repeatedly convicted, and it must be remembered that had he been really ill-treated he had the means of commuuicating with the outer world through the " only man he loved," the Scripture-reader into whom he thrust his penknife. It is more probable that he wearied of the deadly monotony of prison life, and took his only course to obtain a momentary change.
Previous page
