Evening Star Newspaper, August 23, 1931, Page 80

Here Is a Wild, Weird - Story‘of Experience With “Voodooin al_andWhere the Savages Do Not Hesi- tate Where Vengeance Is Concerned — Queer Strain in a Wild Race. BY MERLIN MOORE TAYLOR. EW GUINEA, tucked away in the South Seas a few hundred miles north of Australia and off the beaten track of ships; is a land of mystery. Only a few miles back from the sea precipitous mountains rear their heads into the clouds and present a barrier beyond which few have been able to penetrate. Its people are savage and Nature is ever wail beside the trail to maim, to dtive mad, to kill. There were three of us who were willing to pay the price in suffering and danger for a Ppeep at what lay beyond those ranges. Besides myself there was Richard Humphries, for 10 years a magistrate and patrol officer of the British administration, and Harry Downing of Sydney, a photographer in whom the World War had instilled a love of adventure that would not down. HE sorcerer did not submit temely. of picking up the fiy he dropped to the ground screaming and kicked and clawed at $he police. A couple of them expertly smothered him wnder their combined weights, snapped s upon his wrists, flopped him over on h and bound the canvas roll to his shoulders. Then they yanked him to his feet, prodded him gently with a bayonet and shep- down to the canoes that would bear mainland, on the other side of Hall Bound. ; Surprisingly. Mira-Oa gquickly simulated resig- . The handcuffs were removed after we crossed Hall Sound to the mainland that , that might eat, and were not needed Nor was it necessary to bear him to the ground and tic his Joad to him the next - smorning. He picked up the canvas roll of his accord, tucked it under his srm and along in the wake of his fellows without as the command to move was upon him and what we saw man, for all his age and in- not content to rest whem we & halt at frequent intervals during the ’ vitality was remarkable. He appeared to need those five minutes of relaxation we Instead of dropping upon the and indulging in betelnut, the chewing revives the biack man’s waning energy, he was forever poking around off the trail with » stick, peering uwnder bushes, investigating logs and stumps-—evidently looking for something. “A poison plant of some kind” hazarded Humphries. “It's the logical answer if he has the idea of killing us in the back of his mind.” That Humphries was right in believing Mira- Oa would make an attempt against our lives was proved by the event. The old sorcerer kept aloof from us, sullen of face, silent of tongue, never complaining—as did his fellows—at the haidships of traveling knee-deep in mud and water through sago swamps or pushing gingerly through saw-edged grass higher than our heads, which pricked and gouged and slashed our tortured bedies. We came to the village of Oriro Petuna, not far from the Aikafoa River, which the mext day we must cross into a country not exactly friendly to the Mekeo district. Presently camp set up. We had stripped off our sweat- n garments and spread them on the sloping sides of the tent to dry and were lolling around iIn ‘pajamas when a figure Joomed up in the entrance. It was Mira-On. “Teubsda'™ Tt was the first time he had OME 12 hours later, we were on the trail, with Waimura, one of the police, in the van, Humph:ies behind him, myself next, and Dengo, my orderly, behind me, : it §§f§;§§§§§§ {UE 1t 2fF ¥ g;i;g? i i Lorton, Model Reformatory Continued from Eleventh Page ment should bring out the best that is in him rather than the werst. If he is abused, left to sit idle in a cell, he grows lazy and morose and revengeful. If his days are made com- fortable and happy and he is taught regular habits and industry, he thinks more cheerfully and goes out a happier man, ready te con- tribute something to society. His health is bullt up oy regular work eut of doors, 30 that he sleeps well and eats well Al of which means more of the civilizing influences of a normal community life for the prisomers, many of whom are enjoying it at Lortom for the first time in their lives. How different this noble eXperiment at Lorton is from the sentiment expressed im the repor: of the New York State Cormittee in 1882: “To make any impression on the minds of either convict or, the public there must be sufferings (on the part of the inmate) and ‘o make any adequate impression, such sufferings as will excite feelings of terror.” A few years ago when a powerful New York lobby was working at the Capitof to put aeross for the District of Columbia a law based on “the New York plan,” for mothers’ pensions, Justice Walter I. McCoy, presiding justice of the Supreme Court of the District, was inci- dentally asked about the Lorton Reformatory and he testified that it was doing wonderful work and setting an iospiring example to the rest of the world for a distinct change in prison methods, such as are now advocated by the Wickersham Commission. Only* a few days later Associate Justice Frederick L. Siddois similarly testified. He knew intimately- and from personal knowledge whereof he spoke, for the work at Lorton was instituted during his term as District Commissioner. Bach grand jury visits this institution and invariably the members are greatly impressed by the progress and spirit they observe there. ‘There are five different kinds of prisons, and the workhouse at Occoquan and the reforma- tory at Lorton are two of these, the first of their kind in the world. The workhouse is for petty offenders—assault and battery, drunk, thieving, drug addicts (both men and women). The reformatory is for the penitentiary class— embezzlers, manslaughter, felonies of all kinds. Here are mostly the younger men and first offenders, with hopes that they may be re- formed. They are kept there to prevent their close association with those who have offended repeatedly, so that they may not be hardened to crime through such association. ‘There are now undergoing the reformation process at Lorton several of those found guilty arid sentenced in recent sensational eases in- volving high finance and the wholesale de- fravding of the public, whose namies have oc- cupied hcadlinfs in the newspapers during re- cent months. After occupying palatial efiices these men are now deing an eight-hour tour of duty and earning their way. Co-operate Both Ways ATIVE associations working among the fiwit growers of 12 Eastern States did a fairly large business last year and the buying activities bid fair to hold as mueh appeal to the growers as the selling. The total iness was $3,425.000, of which more than ,000 represented transactions in which supplies were bought for the growers at less than the usual price they pay. Apples led in the sales at $1.600,000, while strawberiics, sold for $3,336, were the least impertant of the products sold. Slate Production Low LATE is one product so widely used that the figures on production Snnually are startlingly low. With all the slate roofs, black- boards, flag stones, eleetrical switchboards and other equipment made from slate, 130 quarries supply all the demand, which is valued at slightly more than $10;000,000 per year. The industry gives employment to 4,103 wage earn- ers, who are employed largely in Vermont, Pennsylvania and New York. satisly my curiousity, and insisted on going on, after Dengo had teénderly borme the smake's earcass off the trail and laid it in the grass. [ i 4 i H way now, even though I have seen similat énses narrated in official government reports. - But that marked the end of Mira-Oa so far as we were concerned. We made inquiries for him’ when we got back to the coast weeks later, but he hadn't been seem for. several days. Probably word of our return reached him when we were still a long way off. Such messpges travel very rapidly 8 " and