The daily press. (Cincinnati [Ohio) 1859-1859, 1859-06-28
CINCINNATI, TUESDAY, JUNE 2s.
Local N News.

NG&leCJ Vi rtuldlt ETlSOn-
ers--Wake Up, People of Cincinnati!
The pressure upon the City Council to i'm
prove tho condition of those daily incarceratcd
in the city prison, we hope will soon cause the
needed reform. The matter is under conside-
ration by the prison committee. The ply
sician, DR.. Webb, Mrs. Peter, and some other
citizen visitors are urging specially somo
changes in tho regulations and accommoda-
tions OF females. We engage that something
would be done forthwith if our citizens could
bave seen the sight last night, when, with tho
Thermometer near 100 in the shade, over forty
women of all grades of erimc-from the first
false step to confirmed shamelessncss and cal
lousness--of slattern dress of emi-nakedness,
of faded gentility and unmitigated contempt of
even deeency of apparel, white and black, old
ndyoung, mother and grandmother, sick and
well-steaming with rarifed heat of personal
unclearliness, perspirng together, in heated
? apartment-the two walls of which are unbro-
ken by window to give air or light, which is
admitted by skylight from the roof above
with no current of air, except stirred from u
caravanscra of seventy male prisoners ten feet
below, in a Gagged room of similar dimensions,
whore the sweating, wet-clothed chain gang
men, after days hard labor, dissipate among
the crowd of foul -mouthed, whisky-bloated,
sore-limbed mendicants, and diseased fellow
inmates-that sitting stencil which is akin to
the under-deck of slave-ship, or the black
hole Of Calcutta. Now, whatever originality
Of odOr may be peculiar to the room above, its
sublimated offensiveness is equalled and sur
passed by the strata of floor No. l, which, with
soms faint mark of gentility, is 10th to
ascend Snd mix with the air above, and oozes
gently up hatchway, and finally Incorporates
stencA with stencil, until the well white washed
walls Nen become stained with the poison of
the .masma. In this atmosphere, daily and
nightly, a fearful experiment Of endurance is
protracted;-the forms of once gentle women
crouch in corners or strut in shameless effron-
terry up aud down one beaten track; eyes glar-
ing sadly or madly on each other; bosoms
heaving with besotted passion, or demoniac
rage at society; cheeks are pale and shorn of
former loyeliness, or flushed with shame; lips are
parched with whisky, or discolored with tobacco
or stronger narcotic; hair once the pride of the
wearer is matted and neglected. Here with no
matron, no supervising female, no regular en-
ployment, no literary or religious culture, are
forty women fed with soup and corn bread,
allowed to saunter and gossip and frolic, and
subject to obscene comment and rejoinder from
the loathed objects called men in the room
below, and at night lay on the floor with few
bed-clothes, and pallets that have served the
hundreds sleeping there since the stable was
made prison. ~~ .. .............-
The lamentable truth must be told, that wo-
men once confined here, ON being released sin
again, and are returned, SO that but a few days
intervene before they unite with a parti- -colored
mass of cOngenial spirits, ever similar, yet
unlike-corruptiug the innocent, making more
callous the ndiferent-cursing and rejoicing
at intervals, and by those coarse railleries that
seem so unnatural in women, cut up and oblit-
crate the rising romOnstrance of some one
whose conscience is not shorn of its active
power. Into and out of this prison the wave-
tide of the low order of prostitution and crime
flows, and here is presented the sad spectacle
Of abandoned women, deformod, diseased, de-
nuded Of dress and decency, victims of the
scoundrePs passion, and after a career and
death of drunken orgies, of remOrse. What
over impulse of goodness may yet mOulder as
sparks in the ashes of their expended follies,
few encouragements offer to fan the good wish
into blaze. Distrusted and contemned, self
convicted and hopeless, the process of offond-
ing, of arrest, of imprisonment goes en-, and
the graduation is always In the descending
scale, until death ends the story. We wish the
thOughtless parents, the indifferent guardians,
the giddy girl of imprudence among the poorer
classes Of labOrers, and even of high positions,
could see the degrading sight we have seen
with the accompanimsnts. More care would
be taken with young girls, and young girls
would avoid the very appearances of evil.
Good men and women of Cincinnati, how
long is this moral Lazar-house to remain in
this cOndition2 We trust that ventilators will
at once b placed in the City Prison, with cold