Foreign News: The Happy Jail

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Last week, no longer a warden, Fernand Billa went on trial for "criminal negligence." One of the beneficiaries of his kindness, himself on trial for forging his own passes out of the prison, did his best to help. "Sometimes I gave him a swig of red Bordeaux or a chicken wing," testified the prisoner. "He was my guest, that's all." Billa's lawyer entered an eloquent appeal: "Billa is a pioneer of the new penitentiary doctrine which, so far as possible, would keep the prisoner from any contact with the prison." But all this was of no avail. Ex-Warden Billa was sentenced to serve three years at hard labor in a tougher prison, where liberté, égalité and fraternité are only words on official documents.

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