Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1868-10-05
CONVICT LABOR.

The Labor Congress which was recently In
session In New York passed resolution con-
demning the employment Of convicts at me.
chanical business. and urging that they should
not be taught trades. Thereupon a newspaper
discussion ensued; the New York SUN taxing
the ground that if honest workingmen must b
exposed to competition with convict labor, bet
the competition be shared equally by all class
es. Let rs have prison made doctors and law
yers. as well as prison-made mechanics. That
paper adds
.Ifa thief rs good enough to become q stone
mason or q shoemaker, ne Is good emo Oh TO be
a doctor or lawyer. Indeed his qualifications
people. rather improved than injured by his
previous experience in the paths Of crime"
This excites the ire of the New York Post,
which don't like the sneer at lawyers, and
wants to know how IL would do to employ
eonvicts in keeping roads in repair and build
ing new ones Country roads are often in bad
repair because those who use them are not
able TO afford the expense of keeping them up.
Good roads, and plenty Of them, add, as every
body knows, very greatly 20 the taxable value
OF real estate and there is probably no way in
which conv icts could be made SO useful to the
State and the society they have injured, as by
employing them in breaking stone for the high
ways, and keeping these in thorough repair
enough, but it adds:
- 1t is right TO point out TO the members of
the Labor Congress that, even when employed
III this way, convicts would arouse the am.
mostly OF part Of the community, namely the
&c d makers. A little consideration will per.
haps show the Labor Congress that their com
paint is TOO general. and that when they pro-
ST against convict being taught and en-
Eloyed al trade, they cover too much ground
For If they ere right, Of course all others have
the same right to complain; and the end would
be that con victs would be summarily Improved
on the lace of the earth. ~
This is bad logic. The cases are not at all
similar. Mechanical trades, like the profes.
sions, require that an apprenticeship shall be
served to learn them. This takes time and
money. Capital is invested to give q man a
trade or profession. On the other hand. any
man can break stones for a read who has the
requisite strength. What the mechanics object
TO is, that convicts should learn their trades at
the expense of the public, and then come into
competition with honest men, who have had to
get trade at their own cost, requiring an
expenditure of more or less time and money
They object to the State giving a convict CAPT.
tal-it amounts to that-which it does not give
TO man who has never been in prison. The
road-maker or the hod-carrier has not the same
right to complain as the mechanic because his
Is unskiiled labor, and necessarily open to the
competition OF every man who has bone aud
muscle to swing a sledge or shoulder hod.
The POISONING CASE IN NEW YoRK-rhe
inquest in the Csc of James Hamilton, who is
suppose TO nave died of poison administered
accidentally In do Of Ep~om salts by drug.
gist's boy, was commenced in New York Sat.
urday. DIR. Hogan Titled to the results OF an
autop~y on the body of de- ceased, which dis
closed the pre- ence Of poison sufficient to kill
him. Mrs. Hamilton, The wife of the dece ,sed
resumed tnat there never was any poison in her
house; that the girl prepared the dose IN the
usus' way, and that Mr.. Hamilton him celf
POM d out the medicine to her. The servant
testified that she got the medicine7 from a small
BOY IN Rogers drug store in Spring street.