Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-03-01
ASTONISHING REVELATIONS.
Shocking Developments in the
Southern Indiana Prison.

From the New Albany Qnd) Commereial.l
We understand that the Legislature
will be asked to lease out the Southern
prison, instead of continuing to manage
Il through a warden. This movement
has led to an inquiry into the former
treatment of the prisoners under the last
lessee, Mr.. Samuel IL. Patterson, OF JEFF
fersonville The facts elicited under
oath are such as to excite the profound :
est sensation in this community, and in
fact, in the whole country. Patterson
leased the prison in 1916, for ten years,
and the manner in which he treated the
convicts is shown by the sffdavits Of
Fielding II. Carr, Franklin Potter, John
r. Shadburne, Charles j. Keller, Frank
Buford and VIM. Works.
Fielding II. Carr swears that he was q
prison guard for seven years, during the
time that Patterson had charge OF the
prison that the prisoners were improp-
erly fed and clothed that at one time
Patterson fed them on lot Of damaged
pork bought from the remains of lot
partially destroyed by the burning of a
pork house in Louisville. This pork was
kept until it was soured, and given after
ward to the men to eat AS a conse--
quence of eating this impure food, there
occurred over seventy cases OF scurvy.
The teeth of many of the men dropped
out, and their legs became much swollen
and black up to and above their knees.
Several died from the effects of the dis
ease, and many left the prison in con,
sequence of it, unable to make their liv-
ing
Mr.. Carr states that after the State in
1856 assumed possession of the prison,
he was appointed first assistant or depu-
ty warden. Vegetable food was then fed
to the convicts, the effects of which was
70 relieve them of the disease. The
above facts arc also sworn to by Frank
lin Potter, who was guard under Pat
terson's regime.
John r. Shadburn, who was a guard,
and assisted Warden Miller in receiving
the prison from Patterson, swears that
when Miller came in there we're over
sixty cases of scurvy among the prison
ers. Their teeth were falling out, and
their legs black. In the hospital the men
would actually pick their teeth out and
throw them away. The hospital OF the
prison smelled as though filled with de-
caying corpses, and the prison generally
was in bad condition.
Charles j. Keller, another guard, cor
roborated the above, and says that on
one occasion, just after Patterson lease
expired, and while the convicts were yet
suffering from the effects of the scurvy,
he gave one of them tomato which he
attempted to eat, and his attempting to
do so all his upper and lower teeth fell
out Both Shadburn and Keller state
that they so sympathized with these suf-
ferers that they contributed out of their
own funds to their relief 1t is the con-
current testimony of several witnesses
that such was the diseased condition of
these poor creatures limbs that impress
sions made npon them would last for
hours afterwards. One prisoner, whose
time had expired, went out of the prison
upon his hands and knees.
Affidavits of these facts are before the
members of the legislature, and will un-
doubtedly induce them to insinuate the
most rigid censorship over the future
of the States prisons.