The Pascagoula democrat-star. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1878-1920, 1888-04-06
GheD emnrrat-S Star
A Cursed System.
Birmingham Daily News.

birmingham DAILY News.
The grand jury ut jackson, Miss,
has been inspecting the peniteIi-
tiary at that place. RecltalS em-
bodied in the report are simply
horrible aud %diSgrdceful TO a com.
monwealth whose governing forces
suffer such enOrmities to befoul the
fame of alleged christian civilatiou.
The innocent unpretending grand
jury says after the inspection of
this State prison that they found
twenty-slx inmates of the hospital.
recently brought from farms and
railroads, many of them with cOu-
sumption an incurable disease,
and all bearing ON their person
markes of the most nhumau and
brutal treatment most of them
have their back cut IN great wales,
sears, and blisters some with skin
peel'ng of in pieces as the result of
severe b%eatings.
Their feet and hands in sone
instances shows signs of frost bite,
and all of them with tue stamp of
manhood almost blotted out OF their
faces, which show that they have
been treated more cruelty and brut.
ally than Il nation of Savagss would
in1ict upon its couvicts. They are
lying there dying, some of them on
bare boards, so poor and emaciated
that their bones almost come
through the skin, many complain
ing TOR the want of food.
These poor creatures get beet wa
ter apd meal for soup, with coarse
meat aud ca6bage-such diet as
they can not eat. One poor fellow
burst out crying and said he was
literally starving TO death. They
actually saw live vermiu crawling
over their faces, aud thelittle bed
ding and clothing they have is in
tatters aud stiff with filth.
The board of Control under the
law can do little to remedy these
evils. ave believe they will do
the best they can. We do inveigh
against the principle aud system of
this State taking a poor creatures
liberty, and turning him over to one
whose interest it is to cOiu his blood
into money"
"As a fair sample of this system,
on Jan. 6, 1887, 204 cOnvicts were
leased to Mcdonald up to June 6,
1887, aud during this six months
twenty died, nineteen we're dis.
charged and escaped, and twenty
three returned to the walls diSabl-
ed and sick, many of whom have
since died. God will never smile
upon a State that treats its convicts
as mississippi does. After a full
examination and conference with
the kind hearted prison PHI sician,
DIR. johnson, we find the following
persons in the hospital almost in u
dying state, some of them With
hOpelessly incurable diseases and
Others badly afflicted, and all of
them confined Tor minor Offenses, |
comparatively speaking, aud who
have GlOng since suffered the tull
penalty OF the law in being beaten
and SO cruelty ~mistreated, and
whom we here earnestly beg the
Governor to pardon Immediately,
SO that they may at least die free"
W. commend the facts above re-
cited to the consideration of the
prison Reform Society, which sits
at an early day in Washington.
But this Is only half the STORY.
Why should honest labor be de-
graded by forced competition with
this of crimef Why should tue
law interpose to reduce wages OF
honest toll 10 a level with that OF
this dreadful system of white and
black slavery. This leasing system,
as Practiced in Mississippi, is ac-
cursed of Heaven aud would be ex-
ecrated III He'll.