LORD MOUNTBATTEN'S six-man Prison Security Commission has worked with unexpected

speed to produce its enquiry into the wave of escapes among England's 34,000 prisoners. An interim report is now in the hands of Mr. Roy Jenkins. the Home Secretary. These are some of the recommendations the report makes: the illumination of prison walls and exercise yards, closed circuit television for round-the-clock surveillance, barbed-wire entanglements on top of the walls, invisible-ray devices, hidden microphones and even island jails off the Welsh coast. It all sounds rather like something out of James Bond or Batman; the world of make-believe rather than the deep and personal world of psychology and • human misery. And there is nothing very exciting in it either. Anyone with an ounce of wit could have produced such suggestions given the money to do it and the technical assistance. Rut it is not Earl Mountbatten's fault that he has been forced to restrict his recommendations. Instead of asking him to stop prisoners getting out of jail. the Government should have asked him how to stop them getting in. This would need a complete upheaval of our whole economic and social thinking. Look at the economic facts: in the year 1965-6 we spent about 4 per cent of our Gross National Product on housing, 4.4 per cent on health, and 6.8 per cent on buying guns and bombs, defence. And we fare no better on social grounds. Offenders are shut up in grey. forbidding buildings with none of the creature comforts and little to occupy their minds. More often than not. when they return to ordinary life they are shunned by an ever-suspecting public. That we should be spending more money on our own potential destruction than on housing or national health, that we still treat offenders in the same way as a century ago just doesn't make sense. The Earl Mountbattens of this world can go on making as many reports as they like, but until the Government squares the country's expenditure, and we come to terms with the problem of the prisoner. the jails will remain full. and the escapes will continue.
Still on prisons, but in a lighter vein. A friend who plays the organ for Mass in a London prison found that he had left the organ key at home one Sunday. He told a warder of his difficulty. The warder stood up and addressed the prisoners: "Is there a locksmith in the house?" he asked. A man came forward. picked the lock and the service proceeded.
The world in focus
ELIZABETH REID ha:, an interesting article in the American Franciscans' magazine, the St. Anthony Aley.enger, called "If all the world were a thousand people".
She shrinks the human family of three billion to imaginable proportions and finds that in this compressed world of one thousand there would he MX) Christians and 700 of other or no faith, 300 whites and 700 people of other colours. "The sixty Americans in our reduced world village," she says, "own half the total income of the world. The 940 other members of the village own the other half." Average income per head would be as follows: United States $3,000. Common Market countries $1.500 and the under-developed bottom half of the world $ 150.
I hate
-I HATE the uneducated and the ignorant.
hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and the mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren't ashamed of being dull and little. I hate the new people, the new class people with their cars and their money and their tellies and their stupid vulgarities and their stupid, crawling imitation of the bourgeoisie." his is what Miranda has to say of her philosophy of life in John Fowles' novel The Collector. Rather forceful, perhaps, but she is really criticising what some people have made themselves and the things that have made them what they are, not the people themselves. Tony Kirwin quotes the passage in his new pamphlet, Good Time! which the Catholic Truth Society has just published. This booklet for "teenagers at a end"' nd"' is an_ attempt to channel the interests of young people barite the stagnation of the affluent life gets a hold on them. Tony is a 34-year-old bachelor journalist, writer and broadcaster who runs the youth club at St. Aidan's, East Acton, and sits on the Westminster Diocesan Youth Commission. He says he "can't see anything wrong with youth today. The pressures now are greater than when we were young. We didn't have the drug problem to grapple with, for instance." Good Time! is his third pamphlet for the C.T.S. The others, Going Steady and Going to Work have sold around 50,000 copies each; a formidable achievement. All good. down-to-earth stuff, and those young people who read them might well take up Miranda's cry at a later stage: "I love honesty and freedom and giving. I love making, I love doing, I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart."
ILIKE this item from SheeNew.s, the magazine of Our Lady Queen of Peace parish at Richmond, Surrey : "A missionary told us the other day that it will take a long time to produce a standard English version of the Mass. In his mission the translation of 'mca culpa' (through in fault) is been too had; I been too had: I been too had too much' ". The priests at Richmond assure me it's not a legpull!
Polish and patriotic
IS Cardinal Wyszynski too autocratic and un yielding in his relations with Mr. Gomulka's Communist Government'? Having only press reports to go on, we in the West would probably say Yes. But Andrea Karman, a 37-year-old roving reporter in East Europe who has first hand knowledge, says No. When Karman visited London this week she dropped in on the CATIIOLIC HERALD to tell us about an interview she has recently had with the Cardinal. She claims it is "an absolute libel" to table Wyszynski a reactionary. He is, she says, open-minded, aggiornamentoed and ready to up-date Polish Catholicism. The leadership he gives is restricted and somewhat political because he is at heart a Polish patriot. He wants to throw off the yoke of Russian and German imperialism, and. says Karman, his 30 million countrymen are behind him 100 per cent in this. The Cardinal is encouraging priests and nuns to modernise their dress, he has worker-priests in training and the Vatican Council's reforms are being introduced as quickly as possible. His problem is that he faces considerable old-fashioned peasant piety which in some areas borders on superstition. But the spirituality of the Poles is as strong as ever. Karman says it is wrong to believe the Cardinal won't have any truck with the Communists. He refuses to sacrifice any principles, but he's definitely willing to talk. He says: "We don't need martyrs as much as we need fighters."
Alone at Christmas
FR. ALFRED FLORIO is the National Chaplain to Catholic Overseas Students. He is in contact with something like 2,500 students and each year he asks Catholic families to offer hospitality to these boys and girls who cannot go home for Christmas. The majority are Africans who Fr. Florio describes as "friendly, open and they have no chip ott their shoulder. They love children," he says, "and surprisingly. it's usually families with lots of children who are most willing to invite them." But he admits that "it's pretty difficult to get people to take these students for Christmas," and puts this down to a general lack of knowledge and interest. "This is not a criticism, just a fact," he says. And to prove it, Fr. Florio has the figures for last year: just 60 families came forward with offers of help. NonCatholic societies doing similar work can depend on a more generous response pro rata than Fr. Florio can. Host and student are matched as nearly as possible. A doctor's family, for instance. would probably get a medical student, a farmer's family, an agricultural student, and so on. Many girls and boys who have been invited into the homes of Catholics have formed lasting and rewarding friendships. If you think you could help Fr. Florio, perhaps you will let me know, and I will pass the information on to him. You will find the address elsewhere in this column. One last word from F. Florio: I asked him what those students who are not invited for Christmas would do. "They will stay in their rooms and study," he said.
A Bus in Bow IN A GAY and swinging mood last Tuesday I swung down the Bow Road to find East London's newest and most unusual folk club. Passing 'Warning, Guard Dog Patrol" notices, over the Cook Street Canal and around deserted buildings, I found "The Bus" in the middle of nowhere. And it's just that: a bus on a bomb site. A group from Our Lady and St. Catherine parish in Bow bought the vehicle, formerly used by patrons of the Hackney dog tracks, for £25. They tore out the inside, repainted it and fitted it out with corn fortable chairs, as a meeting place for young people. The "working committee", as they call themselves, is headed by Fr. Richard Champion, a well-known priest in that part of the world, and includes a headmistress, an engine titter and a nurse. Now on Tuesday nights, if you are between 18 and 25, you can go along to talk, sip coffee or hot soup. or ligten to folk singing by Andy, "the Greatest" Vine, a 22-year-old ad man, sitting beneath the dimmed lights. and staring at your neighbour or the Oxfam posters on the walls.
A little more each day
ANOTHER good week for the £2,000 Christ mas Appeal. The total has now reached £830, and every post brings a little more. In the next day or two I will be going shopping for the television set for the old priests at Kiln Green in Berkshire. They have chosen a 22 inch Philips model, a nice big screen so that they can all see it easily. Of course, there are the other three charities which will benefit from the Appeal. There's the 1,000 children at the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society in Manchester. the 45 old people at Holy Cross Priory in Sussex. and another 12 old people in Oxford. All these will get a share of the £2.000. Please help to make their Christmas a happier one. Send what you can afford lo me, Kevin Mayhew, Catholic Herald. 67 Fleet Si.. London, FC.4.