The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1866-09-12

spend their time IN lQleneSS. Inc expense
to the State is very great, and, in our i'm
poverished condition, the people cannot
we'll bear the heavy taxation necessary to
support these convcts in idleness. There
are many convicts who find themselves
comfortably housed and well-fed, and who,
exempt from all labor, do not regard i'm
prisonment as punishment. They are
vicious, depraved noll-producers; and the
effort to punish them is really a punishment
to the honest taxpayers, whose labor, in
part at least, is given to support them in in
dolence. The number of convicts will here
after be greatly increased, and, if the pres
ent system of punishment be continued, the
appropriations to .ailors, for dieting prison.
erS, will be greater than the expenditure
for either Of the departments Of the State
Government To remedy all these evils, I
respectfully recommend that you provide
for the establishment of a penitentiary, at
Columbia, and appropriate not less than
$50, 1000 to erect wall around the peniten-
tiary buildings, and to make cells for COZ
victs. Much of the labor, in erecting the
necessary buildings, can be performed by
the convicts themselves. If favorable site
should be selected, convenient to- sufficient
water power to drive all the machinery that
may be requisite to carry on manufactures
in wood, leather, iron, yarns and cloth, the
pcnitentiary may be made nearly if not
quite self-supporting. Punishments may
then be imposed according to the enormity
of the offence juries will have no aversion
to convictng the guilty, and convicts, while
undergoing purgation for their crimes, will
be compelled to earn their subsistence.
The completion Of the prison and the in
PRODUCTION Of the requisite machinery will,
of course, be work Of time ; but, if proper
economy is practised in building and stock
ing it, the expense will hardly be felt; and,
in the meantime, the convicts can be sub
sisted as cheaply as in the District jails,
whilst the labor Of such as are not required
on the buildings can be devoted to the va
rious manufactures of leather. wood and
iron, yielding fund to the State to meet
the expense Of their subsistence.
Ifyou should determine to establish
penitentiarv, it will be necessary that the
punishments now imposed by law be so
changed as to conform to the new prison
system. Before passing from the subject Of
the criminal law, desire to invite your ct
tention to the necessity for more stringent
legislation for the suppressian Of vagrancy.
The law should not only provide for the
punishment of idle and dissolute persons,
who are permanently domiciled, but should
extend to transient persons wandering over
b> r.1,o bovn no v,ic;hlo rooanc nf
and the duty Of enforcing the law
should be deyolved, under stringent pen
alties, upon the Clerks, SheriffS, Magistrates
and ConStabeS of the several Districts.
Since your adjournment in December last,
the Court of Errors in this State have, with
a single dissenting opinion, declared the
Stay Law and all amendments thereto un-
The decision has produced
restiveness and dissatisfaction in many parts
of the State. Public meetings have been
held in several Districts, and the Legislature
has been appealed to, to furnish some pro-
lection to the debtor class, who anticipate
general sucing in the fall term Of the Courts.
After careful examination ofthe opinion
of the able and learned Chief Justice, as
10 say that I concur fully in the opinion Of
the Court, and believe that their exposition
of the constitutional question is unanswer-
able
The people of South Carolina have been
proverbially law abiding and when anarchy
reigned supreme, after the fall Of the Con-
fcdcracy, lawlessness was universally dis
couraged by the better classes in every
community. Now when civil law is re-
stored and We are RENTED to our own laws
and Courts to protect rights and redress
wrongs; surely no citizen Of good repute
will advise tumult and violence against the
solemn judgment Of the highest judicial tri-
hunals in the State.
In view of the circumstances surrounding
it is remembered that the State
has Just emerged from long and disastrous
war, in which not only her sons but her re-
were prodigally bestowed that our
banks have all been destroyed; that more
than three hundred millions Of property
have been annihilated that all the fountains
of credit and property have been broken up;
that oursvstem oflabor has been thoroughly
disorganized; that the refreshing and re-
vivifYing showers have been withheld from
a parched ard exhausted soil, and that want,
if not famine, will keep ghastly vigls in man.
sion and in hovel; when it is remembered
that nearly all of the merchants of the State
have been able to compromise their indebt-
edness to Northern merchants on most lib
eral terms-surely, the creditor class will
practice forbearance and give their debtors
still further indulgence. If compelled to
enforce collections, they should, in the same
fair and liberal spirit, make compromises
with debtors, so as not to drive them and
their families from home, kindred and
friends.
The existing embarrassments growing out