Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1875-03-25
THE TEXAS PENITENTIARY.
The Reported Craelties IEi Infamies
Practised Upon the Unfortunate
Cdnvlets Verified by an
Eyewitness.
Eject ef the Employment o. Convict
Labor in the Reduction OF Wages
and the Standard of
LabOr's Dignity.

this morning the statement, copied from
the New Orleans Times, of former
guard OF the Texas penltentiary with
reference TO the treatment of prisoners.
! Such an expose has long been needed,
! for the abuses to which that institution
| have been subjected are notorious among
the intelligent people OF Texas. Scarce
a week passes that the newspapers do
! not contain accounts of the fatal shoot
/ ing of pTisoners-invariably reported as
attempting to escape-snd a feeling of
utter condemnation of the employment
| Of coDvicts upon the public works of the
/ State and in the finer grades Of skilled
1 labor has been aroused by developments
made within the past year. No ques-
| tiOn exists that among the masses OF
thinking and working citizens of the
| State the penitentiary management is
regarded with suspicion and antagonism.
Nor Is it any wonder. Messr5. Ward,
Dewey q Co. are eminently thrifty men,
and make all they can out of their lease
Of convict labor. No sentiment OF pity
or Of compassion is likely to actuate the
souls Of men who could bring themselves
to speculate in the misfortunes or the
crimes of their fellow-men, and to sup
pose them capable OF entertaining senti-
ments of humanity uncOnnected with
their own pecuniary interests, is to i'm
Rgine vain thing and hope for an i'm
possibility. That such men would re-
spect the law of God could not be ex-
pected. Your correspondent arrived at
TeXarkana on Saturday afternoon, and
was compelled to lay over until Sunday
night. All that miserable Sunday the
wretched convicts were cheerlessly, aim
lessly, hOpelessly toiling for the emi-
nently respectable Tom Scott's Texas
Pacific railroad, loading and unloading
lumber, under the surveillance of nu-
meToUs, heavily armed and vIgilant
guard. or course men so shame
lessly exposed to the public eye, under
such circumstances, can never be re-
formed; reformation is not the object,
but speculation. The lessees of the PEN
itentisry have large contracts at this
time for grading various roads in that |
State by convict labor, and are straining
every nerve to fulfill these contracts in |
time; necessarily the prisoners must be |
forced to work, and, as a natural conse- |
quence, every description of cruelty will |
be resorted to. But the barbarity exer-
cised toward prisoners in Texas is not |
confined to convicts. In the city of Dali |
las, last June, l myself saw the chain |
about the new courthouse OF the |
rubbish left by the builders. The |
poor devils were chained tWo-and-twO, |
with heavy ball attached midway the |
coupling chain, while not less than four |
guards, armed with double-barreled |
guns, were employed to watch and keep |
them at wOrk-the sure reward of an at
tempted escape from the degradation |
being a load of buckshot. All these
things, however, are but characteristic |
Of TeXRs-the most charming land on |
earth to read about, the loveliest to |
look at, and the Wretchedest to live in. |
My object in this communication, how
ever, is not to write a diatribe against |
Texas, but to point moral to the re-
cent legislation in regard to our own |
State prison. No irresponsible corpora
ton should be permitted to control the |
convict labor of any State, for the Tea-
son that the most hagrsnt abuses must
result. Especially is this the case in
States where portion of the prisoners
are employed in mines, on railroads, or
in other public works. The temptation
is always before them to attempt es-
cape, and the armed guard are but too
ready to shoot down the miserable,
friendless felon on the slightest provo
CdtlOIl, Sll1plJ DcCduso SuCu luluSS are
seldom inquired into-the simple asser-
ton of the guard being sufficient to clear
him of all blame. Again, such employ
ment of convicts tends to degrade the
class Of labor in which they are engaged,
and to drive honest men from the field,
simply because they cannot compete
with leased prison labor. The keeping
OF convict SO employed seldom costs
more than seventy-tive cents per day,
and as there is no tax to pay upon his
earnings, and no family to support out
of them, it is evident that the advantage
is all with the lessee Of the prison, and,
as money makes respectability as the
world goes, he is respected and hODored
by society-when he gets rich. Since
the Introduction of convict labor on the
Texas railroads the rate of wages paid
free laborers has fallen from three dol
lors per day and board to one dollar and
forty cents per day without board. The
former rate was not too high, all things
considered, while the latter is ridiculous
ly low. Not only has it affected the
wages of track hands and other common
labOrers, but even conductors and en-
gineers have had to submit to a Teduc-
ton from one hundred and twenty-five
dollars per month TO sixty dollars and
seventy-five dollars, while the wages
paid in other trades are also reduced to
q figure so low that it is difficult to earn
an honest living in the State-Skilled
job printers being forced to work as low
as twelve dollars per week in many
places, while, except in Austin, Houston
and Galveston, their wages do not any
where exceed fifteen dollars H