The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1883-06-23
. CENTURY AGO.


to the comforts and convenieuces of lie.
they have at the same time grown char.
table and humane. There IS, indeed.
scarcely scrap Of information bearing
upon the subject which does not 90 to
prove beyond a question that the genera
tion which witne sed the Revolution was
less merciful and tender-h hearted than the |
generation which witnessed the civil war. |
Our ancestors, it is true, put up just |
cry Of horror at the brutal treatment Of |
thG calA &c countrymen in the prison !
ships and hulks. So great was their in.
dignation that money was to be stamped
with representations of the atrocities OF
which they complained, that their de-
scendants to the remotest generation
might hold in remembrance the cruelty of
the British and the suffering of the pa
triots. Yet even then the face of the
land was dotted with prisons where deeds
Of cruelty were DONE in comparison with
which the foulest acts committed in the
hulks sink to u contemplate insighili-
| canoe. For more than fifty years after
the peace there was in Connecticut an
underground prison, which surpassed in
horrors the Black Hole in Calcutta
This den, known as the Newgate Prison,
was am old worked out copper mine, in
the hills near Cranky. The only entrance
TO it was by n cans of ladder down
shaft, which led to the caverns under
ground. There, in little pens of wood,
from thirty to one hundred culprits Were
immured their feet made fast to iron
bars, and their necks chained to beams
in the roof. The darkness was intense;
the caves reeked with filth; vermin
aboundod; water trickled from the roof
and oozed from the sides of the caverns;
huge masses of earth were continually
falling off In the dampness and filth
the clothing of the prisoners grew mouldy
and rotted away, and their limbs became
stiff with rheumatism This prison was
perhaps the worst in the country, yet in
every county were jails such as now
would be thought unfit places for the
viiest and most loathsome Of beasts. At
Northampton the cells were scarce four
feet high, and filed with the noxious
gases of the PRIV vaults, through which
they were supposed to be ventilated.
Light came in from two chinks in the
wall. At the Worcester prison were a
number of like cells. four feet high by
eleven long, without window or a chin
ney, or even hole in the wall. Not a
, ray of light ever penetrated them. In
other jails in Massachusetts, the cells
were SO small that prisoners were lodged
: in hammocks swung one over the other
! In Philadelphia the keeps were eighteer
, feet by twenty feet, and so crowded that
at night each prisoner had space sl'
D feet by two to lie down in.
D "The mi sery OF the unfortunate crea
e lures cooped up in the cells, even of tn
1 most humanely-kept prisons, surpasse
S in horror anything ever recorded in fc
5 ton. No attendance was provided 10
5 the sick. No clothes were distributed t
r the naked. Such thing as a bed wa
i rarely seen, and this soon became so fou
with insects that the owner dispense
with it gladly. Many of the inmates c
n the prisons passed years without SO muc
u as washing themselves. Their hair grey
u long. Their bodies were covered wit
u cabs and lice, and emitted horrib'
d stencil. Their clothing rotted from thei
% backs and exposed their bodies, tormente
Is with all manner of skin disea es and til
!. yellow flesh cracking open with tltl
v the death rate often stood as high as q
u in 1000. As if such torments were M
: hard enough to bear, others were adde
'o to the half-maddened prisoners. n
y sooner did a new conner enter the door
cell lnun u rush WAS 'lnuhc lpl hi'h
) the inmates, who stripped him of h
l. clothing, and let him stand stark make
l. till it was redeemed by what in Il
4 peculiar jargon of the place was know
"a as drink .mnny. 1t sometimes happent
that the prisoners We're in possession OF
W carefully preserved blanket. Then til
H. ceremony called garnishing was pa 81
Id over for the yet more brutal one
i. blanketing. In spite Of prayers and @
p. treaties, the stranger was hound, throw
into the blanket, and tossed till he W
half dead and ready to give his tormel
d. ors every superllupus garment to sell
d; money. With the tolls thus exacte
~ liquor was bought, fendish reyel "
al had, and when bad rum and bad tobao
at had done their work, the few sober
"a mates of the cells witnessed sneh seer
Is a, would he thought shocking in I
ld dance houses which cluster along
wharyes OF our great seabord towns.