Show DARTMOOR PRISON RULED BY TYRANT 5 Americans h have a reason ason for being Interested in the recent riots at Dartmoor Dartmoor Dart Dart- moor prison in England quite aside from the fact that the English are arc trying to blame the theriot riot on subversive American influences A little more than a century ago Dartmoor prison was very much on the American mind and many thousand Americans got a much closer view of it than they might have wished Dartmoor prison was built in 1809 as a war prison and was designed originally for the accommodation of captured French soldiers But as the intensity of the pressure generated b by y the Napoleonic war increased Dartmoor got an American angle This oddly enough came about because because be be- cause ause England was having a terribly hard time finding seamen enough to toman toman toman man her fleet From stopping neural neu ral merchantmen to take off and press into the naval service such En En- born sailors as might be aboard it t was only a step to seizing American Ameri Amen can an seamen as well veU and presently the situation having become intolerable intolerable able the United States went vent to war So in addition to Napoleons Napoleon's sol solO diers Dartmoor began to house American sailors as well well well-at at first only a few but later on as English frigates began sweeping up the innumerable I and impudent American privateers privateers- I men several thousand of them A prisoner of war never has a very I soft ot life wartime war prisons being with with- out ut exception comfortless places but I Dartmoor seems to have been some thing special The accommodations were Acre poor and the food was vile and I the governor of the prison was a hard hard- boiled officer who ruled with a maxi max I mum num of severity and a minimum of discretion The climax came when he hc ordered the guards to fire repeated volleys into the ranks of prisoners massed in open courtyard after a mild bit of ot insubordination had taken place All of ot this of course is very ancient an cleat history now and the anger that Dartmoor aroused on this side of ot the ocean has long since vanished But Bue It does give the recent disturbances at Dartmoor a peculiar interest for Americans |