Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-09-11
Horrors of the Prison House.

DR.. JOSEPH r. PITNEY, of Auburn, who
was for some time medical officer of the State
Prison, gives the following description of the
barbarities there, under the present system Of
prison discipline:
What more revolving and heart-rending
exhibitions could be made, than those (Which
have so often rung through the ears of the cit
liens of this village,) of a mans having been
stripped entirely naked, and made to clasp
his arms around a post, or to have them
stretched upwards, and his wrists tied fast TO
the sides of a ladder or rack, which, with a
disgusting levity, was emphatically called by
the executioners, 1.-The Adiutant's Daugh-
ter" standing with a slight slope, and his
breast and stomach bearing on the naked
rounds-or to have his wrists tied fast togeth-
er with one end of a rope, and the other end
thrown over a beam and dra wn by an assist
ant executioner till the bands of the victim
are stretched high above his head, and there
held firmly, while he was most exultingly
whipped with the cats or rawbides, until the
skin covering the body, and lower extremi-
ties, was extensively vibicised and lacerated,
and the blood consequently streaked down
his back and quivering limbs, and stained the
floor, which the feet or toes of the poor help
less victim may possibly have touched. And
then, not satisfied with seeing their victim
writhe and groan under the torture of such
bloody decorations, the executioners have APP
piled the strongest brine to them, which must
have produced sufferings inexpressible.
"The above is a description of the horrid
penalties and sifferings which c~onvicts have
been obliged to endure for offences far from
being OF an aggravated character, or for a rep
etition Of them such as turning their eyes
from their work when spectators or other per-
sons were passing by, or when they heard
the blows of the cats, rawhides or clubs We
hemently applied upon the head or body of
their fellow c%onvicts, or for some act of neg
ligence or carelessness in their work, or for
an impairment remark, or for picking up an
old chew of tobacco, or for whispering, and
occasionally for offences of a higher grade.
These punishments have been inflicted
by, or in the presence of some vindictive,
blood-thirsty tyrants, intoxicated with their
official robes, but. shall | say 7 whose more
appropriate place would have been that of the
victim. But | do say, that " every man con-
cerned in this cruel and barbarous furnishing
of convicts," should not only have been
" handed over TO The next Grand Jury" but
should have been confined in a straight jack
ct, and sent to a mad house or a dungeon, or
to work among galley-slaves, and there have
remained, living only on bread and water, I'M
til, IF possibie, some slight glimmering of re-
turning reason and humanity could have been
discovered breaking through the mists which
obscured his vision, and bewildered his ina
g~ination. But he never should have resumed
his station as keeper or turnkey in a State
Prison.
"Such an animal, though stlmped with
the image of his Maker, could never have
been designed for a keeper and exampler for
C Jnvicts in a State Prison"