Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-03-07
THE MODERN HowARDs.

Ill duCluon 10 the Idcts OF extreme cruetleS In the
New York State prison, at Auburn, lately referred
to by our Correspondent in New York city, we
meet the following shocking details of prison
discipline in another of the establishments of that
State. They are given in letter to the Philadel-
phia North american:
The Grand Jury and the Mayor have again been calling
attention TO the horrible and disgusting condition Of of the
prisons Blackwe's Islanda disgrace the city and
humanity 1t is called The Luna House. The lower floor
occupied blacksmith shop and The second and third
stories (75 by $50 occupied by prisoners. Iii the
rooms there nearly 200 confined The keeper and
the physician advised the Jury not go into the
count of the vermn The inmates brought out there
fo and the Jury state that it is impossible describe their
miserable condition Many idiots others lame and dis
eased and covered with verhi In the interior Ito which
the bode Of the Jury penetraed there neither beds
stra,onor there even room on the floor ot all these
wreched people to lie down at the time The keeper
stated there often $50 persons confined in these rooms
Is NOT this truly horrible :"
Now, the scene Of this beastly treatment Of pri-
soners, not all Of them (s would appear) criminals,
is, we believe Of those very places Of penitence
which have SO repeatedly heretofore, OH election
days, disgorged their convcts, their paupers, and
their very idiots probably to vote the ticket Of the
ruling party. The friends of the people," the
raisersup of" te down-trodden Millions" take care
of the mserably unfortunate in this sort! They
can visit them on the eve Of an annual party strug
gle, and drill and inspect and clean up for holiday
Of political fraud and perjury. That over, these
unhsppy creatures are left to walow in filth and
swelter in sleepess suffering for another twelve
month! In Auburn and the /" Luna House. Satan
might (as Colerdge says gather hints " for improv-
ing the prisons in hell. !" The one looks like that
place where the damned are exercised
ssWhen the scourge
MEMORABLE and the torturing hour
Calls them TO penance :"
the other answers to that other place of wo shown
in vision to Adam, when all the collected forms Of
wasting disease and foul confinement are set before
his view: e
g Immediately place
Before his eyes appeared, sad, nosomc, dark;
azar-house it seemed, wherein were laid
Numbers Of all diseased all maladies-- tf45
A CHASTITY spam on racking torture qualms
OF heart-sick agony all feverous kinds,
Commissions, epiepses, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine, stone, and ulcer, collie psngs,
Demoniac phrensy, moping melancholy.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; despair
Tended thc sick, busiest from couch to couch;
And over them his dart triumphant Death
Shook-but delayed to strike, though Oft invoked"
A word, however, less bitter, and addressed to
all parties. Do not facts like these-on one side
in great Stale establishment founded expressly to
mitigate confinement to the condemned on the other
within view of great citys agtated and painting
with sects and schemes for alternating all human
wo at a distance-preach, trumpettongued, a dou-
bic warning, political and social ! Shall they not
teach the private lesson that household wo injus-
tice, and affection enough, at ones very door, exist
xnriehsed, unsoothed, untended, while men run TO
the end Of the earth 10 hunt, in pompous benevo-
lence, sufferings which they can seldom cure and
often aggravate But the public admonition is still
stronger: such must be the results of the spoils
system" and of making all public trusts the reward
of party service, frequently ra just in proportion
as it is abandoned and unscrupulous. OF those in
struments of party success, who, most active and.
ingenious at deludng and infaming the ignorant
and the bad make themselves thus the strongest
and surest claims for Office, Ciat is to be expected
bit such a discharge Of duty as this? Where is
such an order Of things to end except in the total
deprivation Of all public trusts
"