The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1885-11-06
sing-s1ng Prison Punishment.
Letter to San Francisco Argonaut.

SlnE.SlnS frlSOn fun1SnmcnCs
Letter to San Francisco Argonaut.
The party was put in the hands Of a
head keeper and sent the rounds.
The keeper was an Irishman, with a
clean-shaven and crafty-looking face.
He had an observant eye, and he did
not smile while he was showing the
party around, until he came to a room
which was fitted up with dark cells.
A real professional dark cell is about
the BLACKLIST thing on the face of the
earth-when you are in it and the door
is closed. The party played pleas
ant and agreeable little trick on the
Oldest member. He said he had heard
great deal about the exaggerated
notions men had of time spent in
dark room, and he asked the keeper if
he would not lock him in there for five
minutes by the watch, and let him
have the experience; so he was locked
up in little whitewashed cell, in which
he could scarcely turn around. Not a
particle of light was admitted, and a
man might yell himself hoarse forever
without being heard outside: Having
locked him in securely, his kind friends
went cheerfully off and investigated
the iron-foundry, shoe-shops, saw
mills, and docks. Nearly an hour
elapsed, and then they returned and
released him.
at seemed a pretty long five min
utes, didn't it, colonel" asked the
youngest man, fippantly.
"N-no," said the colonel, who had a
strained, round-shouidered,, hollow
eyed, nervous, melancholy, and unnat-
ural air.: mo, shouldn't think was
there more than five minutes. You
see it's great thing to have a strong
it run away with you, Still,'' wearily,
II must say that that three-legged
stool was rather uncomfortable.
At this moment the attention OF
everybody was attracted by the keep
the first time his features had relaxed
during the day, and the crowd gath
cred around him.
y
vention of my own," he said, pleas
antly, (which has been adopted all
over the country. [ suppose you
know that the criminals often get ugly.
The place that harbors more than
scum must necessarily have a number
of hard characters to deal with. Men
here get rebellious, ill-tempered, and
unmanageable pretty often. Informer
years they used the lash, the paddle,
the douche, and often calmed men by
putting them into the black-rooms.
The fercest spirits are quelled by inn
prisonment in q dungeon. The Wild
est case we ever had turned to lamb
after twenty-five days imprisonment,
without a gleam of light, in a black
cell All that is settled now, however,
by my little invention. Wedon't have
to use the black-cells, Or anything
else, and the men are so thoroughly
scared by what l call my weighing
machine that they no longer fight and
rebel" He then showed it to us. If
q convict becomes desperate at i'll
treatment, oVer-wOrk, or 1reallZat1on
of the awful duration of q twenty-years'
sentence, he is dragged into the keepers
1Oohl pan VI IL oii eciS
screwed tightly around his wrists. Then
the chain which connects the two hand
cuffs is hooked to a pullY, and the
mans hands are drawn UP until he is
almost lifted from the floor. Here he
hangs against the wall until his spirit
is subdued. The wall was smeared
with the stains of blood from the
wrists of the poor wretches who had
hung there.
t'It's daisy" said the keeper, ra-
diantly; "the toughest man in the
whole jail has never been able to stand
it more than three-quarters of a min
ute. 1t cures rheumatism, blindness,
and all the other ills that criminals
are heir to-"
E'It must be torture"
'tWell, rather, 1t stops the circula-
ton of the blood, you know"
And he still smiled as he stood with
his hands on thepully, while the crowd
wandered away. It's great thing to
have clear idea of the humorous.