The Daily clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1888, 1884-02-16
REPORT OF
COMMITTEE ON PENlTENTIARY.

have had under consideration the present system of
Furnishing and imprisonirg the convicts in the State
of Mississippi, the prison houses leasing system an6
treatment of the same and while they have been able
in some instances to trace the results of the manage
ment in of the camps, want of time and dispU-
stion upon the part of the guards at different points
to evade process and examination, and of sub
lesseeS to retaId thorough investigation, has done
much to delay and even prevent your committee from
making as full and perfect an investigation we had
hoped could be done and as the necessities ofhe
demands, they beg leave to report as follows:
The number of convcts for the years 1882 and 1888
on hand 1863 not including county convics in the
walls and of this number have to report the start
ling fact that 217 have been and reported dead
A list of the names of whom and at what camps they
died. hereto attached and marked Exhibit A. for your
information, which means death rate of 115l per
cent per annum; as see Exhibit "a This includes the
death rate of all convicts from year to life, but
when you eliminate the shorter terms and take the
of the ten years previous alone there about
2S in each one hundred who die and live out their
time. A thorough examination has been made of the
Pententiary and all of its buildings, workings etc., in
the State Capital and report the same neat in all of its
departments and well kept; the buildings and grounds
in good condition, save some repairs of machinery
and more commodiops Hospital needed if the leasing
system is to be kept up nasmuch as the convcts are
when sick, frequently returned in great numbers to
the walls by the sub essees for attention The pris
oners confined in the walls well fed and cared for
comfortably clad and doing as well in confine
ment could well dohe of acute diseases being
very few and the death rate remarkably small 2t per
cent. The guards and officers to be humane and
very much beloved by the prisoners
The committee has taken quite an amount of testi
mony on the leasing system, sub-leting, ETC.,
adopted by the laws of this State, and we have deb
eratey concluded that that system is worse than
the old English plan of letting out out prisons
franchise and that crimes have been committed under
the guise of our laws, more cruel and offensive than
in Fleet Marshalsea by Higgins Bainbridge, Corbit
& Acton, under the English system While they adj
NIT hat he has witt
pense to the State, and in fact at profit of s.,
yet can but say that this has been done at the
pense of human lives-the lives of helpless manacled
human beings, and this money can only be regarded,
las it is due the State lies in her treasury blood
money, and can but recommend its expenditure in a
manner to relieve the present convict system of this
State and removing this cursed blOtted page from
State history and relieve convict system of the
just reproach that the punishment of common larceny
Tor the smaller feonies is equal to capital punishment
and this penalty imposed by the hand of the low, ire
sponsible and dastardy cowardy guards of tho worst
character and meanest instincts without the least
blance of law Investigation shows the lessees to be
humane and generous men, who, upon occasions
when the cruelties of their underlings have to
their ears, have promptly punished or discharged
but this committee is compelled to say that in some
instances they have not made their subeses as care
full as they might have DONE and that close exami-
nation into the treatment of the prisoners the law
and their lease required, would have caused them to
annul and cancel many of their sublessees. Those
having control and charge of convict labor. both
on farms and public works, far has to our
knowledge have used the most nhuman and uncom-
mon modes of punishment and totally without au-
thority of lawoften putting' the prisoner until he
would faint; and in instances where the prisoner has
been reported escaping, he has been shot down and
killed and in no instance of sudden death have we
been able to find that jury of inquest has
been called in; by the lash used on the naked back
while the sufferer by four strong holding each
hand or foot, stretched out the frozen ground
or over stumps and logs and beaten often with three
hundred stripes at time which more than once it is
thought resulted in the death of the convict men
unable to work have been driven to the DEATH and
have even died when fettered in the chain gangwih
one exception, which occurred plantation in this
State the prisoners poorly fed that they would
pick up and the of that had been dropped
in the field and gather the wild berries along the rows
aad eat The question Of food for these men is not
one of the numbered crimes generally, as the rule
seems to be feed aoe and then them long as
they could stand up but, when working in the swamp
or fields they refused pure water and
PEELED to drink out of the swamps plow burrows in
the fields in which they labored although pure water
was near at hand One instance of this being on the
n and E. r. r.. where the owners were unable to get
contractors to work at given point known as Cany
Swamp uncommonly hard work and unhealthy; they
hired from the subessees the labor of convicts rs
per hand per day. to do this work. they were placed
In this swamp in water ranging above their knees in
almost nude state, spadng in cany and rooty ground
bare feet chained together by chains to tether that
freted into the fesh compelled to attend to the calls