The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1878-06-26
PENIFENTIARY POINTS.
Romancing by a Rambling Reporter
Correspondence OF the Register.
MoUEDsyILLR, June %.

MoUEDsvILLE, June %.
A Sunday Leader reporter came down
one day last week, and reported" the
Pententiary with q recklessness that as
tOnished the attaches of that institution.
The Young man must have the credit OF
getting tsD facts in his somewhat sensa-
tlonal tve-column "Plsin Portrayal" ar
ticle, but when he strings out the north
cell building, now used as a dining room
and kitchen, which the architect, in his
plans and specifications, puts down At
one hundred and eighty feet. to three
hundred and seventy-Hve feet, it looks
to me like pillng it on little too
thick. The two tables which he
would have his readers believe are
about $50 feet long each, are
in fact less than $50 feet each. But as
the above slight discrepancies are so
trihirg, | don't know that it was hardly
worth while TO refer to them. As TO the
striped sinners" getting all the "hssh, 4"
as they term it, they desire, that's a good
deal "owen to owen" Each mans rs-
tions are dished out on his plate prior to
his taking his place at the table, if this
happens to be as much as he wants he
gets it; il not, not. This rule applies
to all articles of food except bread; of
that he gets sll he wants. AS regards
that little romance about punch" Longs
brother and counterfeit fifty dollar bill,
l don't know anything about it, and the
"gentlemanly well posted guard from
nla 70
have received his information also
dlsclaims any knowledge Of any thing of
the kind. If Bob Guynn "subsisted on
bresd and water for over year" the
remarkable fact has been carefully con-
ceaed from everyone connected with the
prison, rs far as | can ascertain. If more
than one shot was fired st Allen Jones,
the colored hero of the hatchet, your cor
respondents efforts to find the man or
men who fired them have been unsvsil.
ing, and if we take into consideration
the fact that fourteen inch wall of solid
masonry interviewed between the officer
who fired the pistol shot, and Jones,
il becomes rather difficult TO
sec how he came so "very
near losing his life," unless 1t
was from butting his brains out against
the wall of his cell, and any one who is
st sll posted as to the peculiar adspta-
bility of negros skull as bsttering
ram, will at once understand the remote
ness of any danger arising from this
cause. How the discovery was made
that Msyhew, the blind convict, could
"walk TO any cell in the building if the
number were given him." don't know,
40 the cells are in four tiers, or ranges,
one above the other, and Mayhem has
never been above the first, or floor
range. Who the zone Doctor" is
confined here for larceny, L don't know,
doctor u Tom Young, convicted of
obtaining money under false pretenses
is here, but no other doctor that ever l
heard Of.
The reporter, after examining the des-
criptlve record, says, There is not man
here without a scar from knife or pistol
on him." The record doesn't read that
way to me, not by long shot.
How this imaginative young man got
the IN formation that mo. one of them
will admit that they are confined Justly,
is another mystery, as l have heard q
number Of them admit that they were
guilty ss charged, and that their sentence
was a Just one.
The assertion that prisoners forfeit all
good time whenever found guilty oil any
"violation OF good order" is an error, as
good time is not taken once in forty vio-
lations of the rules. Neither are they
"tied up by the thumbs" this mode of
punishment has not been once resorted TO
during the last five years, the last in-
stance Of the kind Wss during Col. Shall
cross administration.
The little story about the number of
knives in the box, which were taken
from the convicts, is about in keeping
with the balance OF the plain Portray
a."
The only hypothesis upon which l can
explain the Systematic perverson Of facts,
IS printed in the article referred TO, is
that this enterprising journalist was
merely guarding sgsinsts possible scsrci-
ty of matter At some future time, which
might be supplied by contrsdicting the
rnisststarnants contained in the articIa