The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-17

without dreaming OIL restraint. Iney can htdI
the leather-lunged potboy from the public
house over the way bawling "Beer o ~ they
can hear the carriages rafting along the road
way, and the heavy market cart rumbling
over the stones, and can picture the happy
carter smoking his short pipe as he slouches
along, with one hand in his pocket and his
whip over his shoulder. Ah, dear reader, You
know few clever people, and so do |; but for
"seeing through a brick WALL" as the saying
is one of these unfortunate laborers in the
prison garden might be matched against any
one of them, and backed at long odds to win.
The labor least relished by the prisoners
and don't wonder at it's the treadwheel.
Its use is to raise sufficient water for the use
Of the establishment to an immense tank
fixed on the roof. Hand-pumping was at first
tried, and with such questionable success,
that the laborers were suspected OF "shirk-
ing" and to prove the charge against them
gang of free workers were called in and set to
the task; but having that blessed privilege,
after trial they dropped the pump handles
and fatty declined "to have any more of it."
The treadwheel answers better, but it is
tearfully hard work for the treaders. With
all respect for the excellent contrivers and
managers of the inst. .ution under inspection,
/ would suggest an alteration in this treadmill
shed. There should be more light aud more
air in the place; on hot summers day the
fatigue must be unbearable The "wheel'
itself extends the whole length of the shed by
the wall, and revolves on an axle. Attached
to this wheel, or rather drum, are projecting
pieces of board six inches in width and about
nine inches apart. Overhead is short bar
for the operator to grasp with his hands, and
when the wheel is started he has no foothold
and no rest for his feet until his spell of
''treadipg" is at an end. For full twenty
minutes he must constantly raise first his right
foot, then his left as though he was walking
mp stairs and this at the rate of about sixty
times in minute. Fancy having to ascend
twelve hundred stairs in twenty minutes, to
ascend to the summit of the Monument three
times over in that short time, and then to be
released that you may sit in box like church
pew in the same shed and pick oakum for a
further term of twenty minutes by way of
rest, and then three times to the top of the
Monument again, and so on through the
working hours of every day And it is not
as though the operator trod ON the open
wheel. He must not speak to his neighbor,
he must not see him; and to this end he works
in sort of box open at the top. 1t must be
terrible work for a fat man, and such as we'll
as lean commit them elves. 1t is possible for
such a one, as we were informed, to lose in
weight three stone in as many months.
But it is not six hours at the treadmill, or
at any other manner of work performed at
the City Prison, that contents the inexor-
able authorities of that model establish
ment. One way or another a prisoner must
work ten hours. He is reused at half-past
five in the morning, aud somehow or another
he is kindly preserved against the perils of
idleness until o'clock at night. This shows
fifteen hours and half, but he is not ,oorking
absolutely all that time. He has to 90 to
chapel and to take his meals and his exercise.
He is tasked through ten hours only. Many
OF the trades-such, for instance, as the shoe
makers and tailors and the out-o'-door hands
excepting the brick makers )-"knook OFF, at
six to get their supper, after which they retire
to their cells; but they must do some kind of
work until the bell sounds o'clock, when
they may cease, and are privileged to spend
the ensuing hour in reading or meditation, or
in washing themselves, when the bell tolls
again, and a clatter of hammock hooks as
long and precise almost as the grounding of
arms at military review, resounds through
the corridors, and the prisoners may 60 to bed.
All the glorious privilege of breaking that
horrible silence, though only for so short a
time as may be occupied in adjusting four
iron hooks in as many catches The blessed
relief of lifting for few seconds the sombre
veil that clings about poor wretch so suffo-
catingly. "The strictest silence must be OBJ
served" say the notice boards, and it is OBJ
served. Entering in at door guarded by
gigantic though melancholy janitOr in India
rubber shoes, the governor signs us to step
softly on to a mat that is there. We do so,
and in listening attitude he raises his hand.
There is not sound. Before us is long
corridor containing long double row of cells,
each containing a man alive and in health,
and engaged at some kind of work; but no
charnel-house could be quieter.
Judging from the awful ''hush," the cells
might each have been a church vault, with
coffined creature lying within it. But
presently a noise is heard, a "Tap tap
tap ~ and then pause, and then succession
of taps, vigorous and hearty, conveying to
our oppressed senses a relief for which we sigh
gratefully, as one does on sultry evening
when the sudden and heavy rain-drops come
| pit-a-pat on the dusty road. "That's shoe
MAKER" the governor whispers; She's got
task to finish, and he is hammering out his
sole leather" Fortunate shoemaker If it is
relief from the dread benumbing to clatter
aloud for the space of half a minute with
couple of iron hooks, what must it be to be
armed with handy broad-faced hammer and
| lapstone, with liberty to assault grim silence
with all the strength of your right arm 7 How
the other poor still stitchers of cloth and
pickers of oakum must have envied him
What would they not have given for broad
| faced hammer and a lapstone and free
permission to bang away as hard as they
| pleased for half an hour! They would
have been heard as far as the summit
of Hghgate Hill. "Do the prisoners dread
this silence SO very much 2" the reader may
ask. Ay, do they-a hundred times more
than free man can possibly realize. A gang
of them-poor, soft-handed wretches were
at work on the evening of our visit at the
rough, and to them heavy task of bricklay-
ing, and had been so employed all day. Come
six o'clock, they were to turn into their cells,
and spend the next two hours at some light
| work at which thew could sit down: but thew