Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-06-16
Puritanlsm.

The article below, copied from the
Round Table of june I'd, speaks volumes
for the "philanthropic spirit" of our
negro-loving, South-down-crying, New
Englander. 1t has probably escaped
your notice:
Mrs. Ann Stephens has published a
letter in a Philadelphia paper, claiming
that what seemed improbable and exag-
gerated in her romance called The
Gold Brick, really was founded on facts.
The three points which criticism has
challenged as improbable are, first, that
at the close of the last century woman
was tried in Connecticut for child-mur-
der, convicted as guilty in the second
degree, and sentenced to sit upon gal
lows erected upon the public common
of New Haven for one hour with halter
around her neck, and after that TO be
confined in the State prison of Simsbury
mines for eight years; second, that the
State prison of Connecticut was erected
over Simsbury copper mines, and that
the prisoners had to work out their terms
of confinement in these mines; third,
that in the mines was sweating oven,
which was close to the ovens when the
bread was baked, and into which, when
heated while the baking was going on,
refractory prisoners were thrust in ex-
treme cases.
The reply to the first of these three
points is historical and strictly true hat
some time between 1915 and 1920 very
young woman, convicted at New Haven
of murder in the second degree, was SEN
fenced to imprisonment, preceded by sit
ting upon public gallows on the public
green or square of that city with halter
around her neck for one hour that this
punishment was in every respect carried
out III the presence of multitude OF
Witnesses, many of whom must now be
living; that Mrs. Stephens saw the wo-
man, who certainly was alive seven years
ago; and, with great propriety and wo-
manly feeling, declines giving her name,
not having either the wish or the right To
bring the shame and, perhaps, injustice
of her youth upon her harmless OLD age.
On the second point Mrs, Stephens al
leges that Simsbury copper mines were
used as State prison until about the
year 1880, when the present structure OF
Weathers6eld was completed; that this
prison is now ruin, but was visited in
1923 by Mrs. Stephens father, who spent
day in examiningit, and that her de-
scription of the prisoners descending,
one by one, through atnarrow trap to
their sleeping places in the black depths
of the mine, is word for word as he de-
scribed the scene to her many time in
after years.
As to the third point, Mrs Stephens
SAYS five years ago, when the idea of
writing her book came into her mind she
sent relative to examine this abandoned
prison, who described it to her as it then
stood, and doubtless now stands, the
mines in which the prisoners slept, the
we'll of pure, cool water gushing mp in the
depths, the oven where bread was baked,
and close TO it the sweating closet which
was used for punishment in extreme
cases
Allowing that these statements are true
Mrs. Stephens has evidently adopted
aud made them with good faith in their
truth, the question arises, what sort Of
religion and civilization was then in Con-
necticut, as late as 1890, when such
things were done under the sanction of
the law2 We hear of convicts working
in the mines of Austria, Siberia and
Brazil, but doubt whether in any of these
can be found such horrible thing as
'the sweating oven" in which refractory
prisoners we're liable TO he half baked.
1t is for Connecticut to disprove, if pos
sible, the accusation squarely brought
against her BY Mrs Stephens. r