The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-01-07

When the fighting Maories of New Zealand
cut the tops off lucifer matches and used
them as percussion caps to fire their muskets
the English journals speculated largely upon
what was possible in the way of peace
to o people that SO ingeniously made
the most of their slim resources in war. A
similar course of reasoning may be applied
to the ingenious criminals in the Columbus
Penitentiary, who were recently found to
have mint for counterfeit nickels in full
blast. 1t is difficult to compute how much
sly, clever, skilful work was involved in the
manufacture and utterance of each five cent
piece. 1t is safe to say that each coin re-
presented dollars worth of honest labor,
and it is painful to think what wasted posi-
bilities lie in the lives of the men who stole
the harness plating amalgam, laboriously
fashioned the dies, furtively stamped or cast
the metal, carefully filed the coins and
diligently sought an agent TO circulate them,
finding one at last in the warden's son-and
all for a little tobacco. It is not long since
crooked" whiskey distillery, probably
the ''crookedest" in the world, was dis
covered snugly dropping its stimulant
among the quarries of the Sing Sing
Prison What a chemist the thief might
have made who compounded his illegal
mash" out of the prison offal and i'm
provised still out of an old kettle till he
was able to run off his five gallons at time
and make his fellow convicts and a deputy
warden or two merry under otherwise de-
pressing circumstances while making little
money for himself The state of discipline
these instances suggest is far from gratifying,
but they show how painful and laborious are
the pursuits Of crime. No tools are SO well
made as those Of the burglar; no engravers
more expert than those of the counterfeiter.
They are patient and painstaling, and
nearly always have more thought visible in
their work than is seen in that of the average
honest craftsman. but they spend the best of
their lives in Jail, and for the week or two Of
wild debauchery that follows successful
coup they have years and years on prison
diet Victor Hugo in Lies Miserables"
paints vivid pictures Of the year-long minute
toll of the convicts in the galleys who, stroke
by stroke, day after day, make a fine saw
from piece of watch spring, who cut large
sou in two and make box out of it to hold
the saw, leaving no trace of the work upon
the coin, and who with this tiny instrument
begin painfully and slowly to cut their way
out Of their chains, and when all this is done
to know that their chances Of being shot
or drowned in the attempt to escape are two
to one, and the chances Of being recaptured
if they are not killed ninety-nine in hun
dred- The mind recoils from the romancers
picture of exquisitely painful toll and ago
nized hope in the gloom Of the prison ship,
but by the light Of the nickel makers Of the
Ohio Penitentiary, those who know nothing
of the esoteric mysteries Of prison life,
may see how feasible is the process Jean
Vatican describes. 1t would be easy
to construct comic commentary on
prison discipline out Of the two cases W.
have mentioned, as, for instance, why shoulc
not Sing Sing have counterfeit nickel min
! in addition TO its whiskev still whv shnnl'