At Leavenworth

From New York the contagion of prison revolt last week spread to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan. It infected U. S. convicts with a fit of riotous fury which took six hours to cure. The prison temperature was 100DEG. Spanish rice was repeated at the noon mess. Nine hundred of the penitentiary's 3,758 inmates rebelled, threw their food and plates about, broke windows, seized knives and forks. Ordered back to their cells, they bolted for the prison yard where they screamed curses, milled about frantically, became altogether unruly. When a fire hose failed to break them, guards opened fire with riot guns. One convict was killed, three fell wounded, the rest retreated to the cell blocks.

Their hooting and vandalism were only halted at dusk by intense thirst. Back in their cells, they yammered through the night. None escaped, no guard was hurt.

In Washington, Sanford Bates, U. S. Superintendent of Prisons, gave these reasons for the Leavenworth uprising: 1) Overcrowding (the penitentiary's capacity is 2,000); 2) Lack of sufficient work; 3) Effect of the heat on drug addicts; 4) News of the New York prison riots.

Chief among the causes advanced for the prison revolts at Dannemora and Auburn in New York (TIME, Aug. 5) were:

1) Lack of food (no eggs, milk, buttered bread, fresh meat); 2) Heat; 3) Despair growing out of the Baumes Laws, with long terms, reduced paroles, no time off for good behavior; 4) Bedbugs, lice, insanitary plumbing; 5) Overcrowding in cell blocks; 6) Petty graft by low-paid guards; 7) Tyranny of prison self-government (Mutual Welfare League).