The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-10-06

plating generally; locks, shOvels, sadd-
lers' cOmpasses, and such other articles
as have an immediate connection with
the above branch, at thirty-three cents
per day for each convict. Mr. Hayden
had one hundred and ninety-six con-
Yicts in his employ at the time the con-
tract was made; William Burdell, of Co
lumbus, fifty cOnvicts, with the privi-
lege of one hundred and sevente-five, to
be employed at tailoring, at forty cents
per day. Burdell at the time had the
largest tailoring establishment in Cen
trail Ohio.
THE TAILoRS BECAME OUTRAGED,
Because it ruined their business, and
the Directors got Burdell to assign to
John W. Baker fifteen of his cOnvicts, to
make saddlers' tools, dental instr
uments, and such other business as the
Directors may authorize. On the same
day Burden assigned fifteen of his
convicts to Baker the Directors
got him to sell out all the
remainder of his eOnYicts to
John s. Hall, S.P. Stone and William
Burdell, new firm, all the remainder
of his cOnvicts, to be employed in the
manufacture of windOw-frames, pull
leys, sash and screw rollers, table-cast-
ers of all kinds, surplice-pins, shutters
and blind-fasteners, dOOr-latches and
bolts, hoes, pitch-fOrks, rakes, curry
combs, bedstead-screws, carpenters,
jOiners', eabinet-makers' and cOOpers'
tools of all kinds, trunk and door locks,
cOtfee-mills, scales, dOor-scrapers, &c.
The hands were paid at
THIRTY-FIvE CENTS PER DAY.
the State, in every case, watching,
boarding, lodging and clothing the con-
victs.
POlheimer g. Morrison, of Columbus,
were down for forty hands at thirty
two cents per day, to manufacture car
pets, cOverlets and rugs, and preparing
the wool for the same.
A. H. Phinny, of Columbus, had
seventy cOnvicts hired as cOOpers and to
manufacture agricultural implements
at forty cents per day.
|
| tracts, and from that time on the
mechanical work in the Penitentiary
increased, the State building shops for
the contractors. The last report of the
Warden of the Penitentiary places the
number of cOnvicts hired out to do labor
in manufacturing articles that it is
claimed ought to be done by the me-
chanics of the State, at 905.. The hire
| is from
| FORTY TO SEVENTY CENTS
Per day for able-bOdied men. The re-
port does not give the different Occupa-
tiOns of the cOnvicts.
During the session of the Ohio Legis-
lature of 1850-51, in the Senate, Mr..
VIM. Lawrence, Senator from the Lo-
| gan, Hardin, Marion and Union Dis
trict, and now first Comptroller of the
Treasury at Washington, having given
the usual notice, introduced bill to
provide for the printing of school
books in the Ohio Penitentiary, and for
| their gratuitOus distribution. Instant
ly the printers of Ohio were up in arms,
and Mr.. Lawrence soon found that, like
the boy who demolished the hornets
nest, he got more than he bargained
for. The printers instantly sent into
the Senate petitions to introduce
the study of law into the Pen1-
tentiary in order, as it was in
timated, to. raise the standard
of the profession, and when the
zebra brigade of cOnvicts had mastered
the glorious uncertainties of the law,
that they be
HIRED OUT AS PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS
| To counties needing them, and to per-
sons desiring their services. The fierce,
outspoken indignation of the Ohio prin-
ters, who felt most keenly the insults
thus offered to m-nineteentwen-
tieths, if not ninety and nine out of
every one hundred, being equal in tai
ent and respectability to the average
Legislator the author of Mr..
Lawrence's bill to educate convict
printers from his purpose, and, after
succeeding in getting his proposed law
so amended as to provide for learning
the deaf mutes of the State the art and
mysteries of printing, leaving out of it
all about convict laber, he suffered it to
die natural death, without leaving on
the journals recorded vote in its favor
Had the
OTHER TRADES OF OHIO,
Represented by convict labor hired out
pursued similar course, the system
would long ago have been abandoned
and none of them whose apprenticeship
was passed in State Prison, would have
been found crOwding honest men out Of
employment by working at reduced
rates, stealing, perhaps, to make up the
difference between honest and convict
labor. That, as is asserted in the plat
form of one of the political parties in
Ohio, at late State Convention, "tht
abuses of the present convict system il
our State Prison by which the products
of criminal labor are brought into com