Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-11-22

this year. and the workshop. with its
buzz of machinery and its intelligent
labor. would have been exactly like q
part Of an arsenal here or in Europe,
except for the red clothes and the hum
BILE prostration-
The next shop contained the wood
carvers. and here upwards of hum
dred were sQuatting with blocks OF
wood between their knees carving
with the keenest interest upon all sorts
of things, from thick. simple trays and
bowls to fragile and delicate long
legged storks. After the carvers came
the paper-makers, then the weavers.
weaving and dyeing the prison cloth
ing; then the sandal-makers. then the
lawmakers, then the lantern-makers,
then the marvellous basket-work and
mats and nets; then an extensive
printing-shop, where the proof-reader
was a prisoner who had formerly been
Secretary of Legation in France, had
absconded with 100, 600 francs, leaving
his shoes on the banks of the Seine as
evidence of suicide, and eventually been
arrested with his mistress at scene of
high jinks in Germany. Then We
visited a workshop where jinrikishas
were being made. then one where UNI
brella-handles were being deliberately
carved, then one where every kind OF
pottery from the rough porus bottle
and jar to the eggshell teacup was
rolling from dozen potters' wheels,
and then came the great surprise. Two
days previous l had visited the house
of the most famous maker in Japan OF
the exquisite cloisonne ware-the en-
amel in inlaid metal work upon copper
who rivals in everlasting materials
the brush of Turner with his pigments
and the pencil of Alma Tadema with
his strips of metal. And had stood
for an hour behind him and his pu-
pills, marveling that the human eye
could become so accurate and the
human hand so steady and the
human heart so patient Yet I
gave my word that here in the prison
at Ishikawa sat not six but sixty men.
common thieves and burglars and
peace-breakers, who knew no more
about cloisonne before they were SEN
fenced than a Hindoo knows about
skates, doing just the same thing
cutting by eye measurement only the
tiny strips of copper to make the out
line Of birds beak or the shading o;
his wing or the calculations of his
toe, sticking these upon the rounded
surface of the copper vase, filling up
the interstices with pigment, coat upon
coat, and firing and filing and polish
ing it until the finished work was so
true and delicate and so beautiful that
nothing except an occasional greater
dignity and breadth of design marked
the art of the free man from that of
the convict. Cetait ne pas croire
one simply stood and refused to be-
lieve ones eyes Fancy the attempt
to teach such thing at Pentonville or
Dartmoor or Sing Sing! When our
criminal reaches his prison home in
Tokyo he is taught to do that at which
the limit of his natural faculties is
reached. If he can make cloisonne,
well and good. If not, perhaps he can
carve wood or make pottery; if not
these, then he can make fans or UNI
brellas or basket work: if he is not up
to any Of these he can make paper or
set type or cast brass or do carpenter
ing; if the limit is too high for him,
down he goes to the rice-mili, and see
saws all day long upon balanced
beam, first raising the stOne-weighted
end and then letting it down with a
great flop into mortar of rice. But
if he can not even accomplish this
poor task regularly he is given ham
mer and left to break stones under a
shed with the twenty-nine other men
out of two thousand who could not
learn any thing else.
Prisoners employed at the higher
classes of labor are credited with one
tenth of the sum received for their
handiwork. But as the work was so
good and the running expenses
seemed so light / was much surprised
to learn that the prison was not yet
self supporting, only seven-tenths of
the total cost being realized from the
sale of prisoners work. Another
curious fact is that every adult pris-
oner is detained for six months after
his sentence expires if he is not claimed
in the meantime by his friends; and
until he is of adult age if he has not
reached it and is unclaimed These
prisoners wear blue material instead
of red after their sentences have ex-
pired.
The women's quarter at Ichigawa is
separated from the mems by high
wooden fence and gateway guarded by
a sentinel, and consists of two or three
dormitories and one large comfortable
workshop, where all the one hundred
and ten are employed at labor let out
by contract. When l was there they
were all hemming silk handkerchief,
IL