The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-09-25 00:00:00

AMERICAN PRISON DISCIPLINE.

I had not been long on board, ere I observed, sitting in.
the fore-part of the boat, a half-starved, half-clad human
being. He bad terror and misery strongly marked on
his countenance ; all the social feelings seemed dead in
him for ever. I found on inquiry he had lately been,an
inmate of,Sing Sing prison. His had been sentenced, for
foOrteen 1 ears, but I could not learn his crime. I was
anxious to know some particulars of this famous prison,
where 1000 convictsare kept at hard labour, and •doomed
to perpetual silence, during the term of their confinement.
I got into conversation with the poor wretch, and he cer-
tainly described the horrors and the cruelties of that
prison to be such as must shock the feelings of humanity.
The prisoners. are worked hard, and allowed but a scanty
share of provisions. They never get a meal full, so
there is a constant craving for food; and yet, if any, of
the prisoners, through illness, have any of their provi-
sions left over, they are flogged severely if detected in
giving it to another, and the receiver is also flogged.
This prohibition is so strictly enforced, that my inform-
ant declares he was once flogged for picking up an old
chew of tobacco which one of the keepers spat out of his
mouth. No wonder that such cruel treatment breaks
dOwn the health and. the spirits of those unfortunate
wretches. Some of them commit suicide; others are
taken sick, and when death comes to their relief, one
would think some sympathy might be shown to the dying
man ; but no----with a refinement in cruelty peculiar to
the Yankees, no friend, not even a father, a brother; or a
wife, is allowed to sooth his, dying conch; lie sees before
him the dark valley of the shadow of death, and in that
awful hour he looks. around 'fo'r some one he loves to
soothe the agonies of his soul, but he looks in vain.
These prisoners, who have transgressed the laws of their
country, are still human beings; -they are all more or less.
suseeptible to kind treatment ; they have a sense of na-
tural justice about them; they feel that the punishment
i,ntlicterf is far beyond even what is due to the crimes
they have committed ; a spirit of revenge is first cherish-
ed in their bosoms against their keepers; they next be-
come dejected and almost heart-broken under the merci-
less eastiizations which they see inflicted every day around
them; their constitutions fail, and if they survive the
t6rrit of their imprisonment, they come out objects only
for the charity workhouse. I sincerely trust that our free
and happy country may never be disgraced by the adop-
tion of such a system 'of brutal tyranny and oppression.
While I listened to the narrative told me by this man, I
bad' occasion to put some questions to him, and I noticed
when I spoke that he gave an involuntary shudder; I
asked him, the cause, and he said, that for 14 long years
he had hardly ever heard a human voice, except that of
his keeper, .aril eyqn that he had scarcely ever-heard,-but
it was to order him to strip to be flogged. I felt deeply
for this miserable outcast, and gave him a trifle, of tnoney,
and left him sitting where .I first saw hith.---Excursion
ix Americo, by a citizen of Edinburgh.