St. Paul daily globe., 1888-02-20
SING SINGS IDLE PRISONERS.
They Don't Like to Be in Their
Cells, and Would Gladly Get
Back to Work.

They Don't Like to Be in Their
Cells, and Would Gladly Get
Back to Work.
The 975 conyicts in Sing Sing prison,
who are shut out of the workshops and
shut in their cells because the legisla-
ture has not passed the appropriation
necessary to carry on the prison indus
tries, are by no means pleased with
their enforced idleness, says the New
York Sun. They were locked up all
day yesterday, except at dinner-time
and at O'Clock, when they had twen-
ty-minute march about the yard.
About 400 of these men are employed
in the stove department and the rest in
the shoe shop. Generally there is no
busler place of industry to be found
than these two workshops, but there is
no money to run them with just now.
and yesterday when a Sun re-
porter visited the prison he found both
places deserted. In the shoe shop shoes
in all stages of manufacture were piled
i'll racks and on benches; but without
money citizen help can not be employed
to direct and oversee the making up of
goods. nor the packing ard shipping of
the completed stock, already overdue
by contract. In the stove foundry each
mans task for the day was lying as it
had been left OH Tuesday evening, and
sparrOWs were twittering in the rafters
as if the big shop had been a ruin for
years.
The laundry, which employs 223 men,
the bake shop, the tailor shop and the
job shop were still running. Work in
the laundry will cease tomorrow unless
the appropriation is passed to-day. The
more distinguished inmates are not af
fected by the present financial crisis.
in. the printing office, where he
prints all the letter-heads and
blanks used at the prison.
Alderman Jaehne was busy convert
lug leaf tobacco into fine cut, while
Sergt. Crowley and Aid. McQuade were
warming themselves in the big range at
the hospital kitchen. Warden Brush
has been i'll for month, but every
thing goes on as usual under the direc-
ton of Principal Keeper Connaughton.
Several men asked me to-day" said
MIR. C0nnaughton, ''how long it would
be before they were put to work again.
asked each one if he was not glad he
did not have to work, and each gave me
an emphatic No. sirp for an answer.
The reason the stove and shoe depart
1ilSHlo QlO ClUOCu ID IlidI VIC dlC OUIlSCu
to employ citizens to instruct the men
in their work. to oversee its execution
and to superintend the shipping of
goods. Of course, without money, we
can't employ these men,
what effect will this enforced idle
ness have upon discipline?'
swell, feel justified in saying that
at the end of week, if the men have
to be shut up so long, the regular dis
cipljne at the prison will be impaired to
such an extent that it will take me six
months to get it back to what it was
yesterday. There will be twenty-five or
even fifty men to be punished where
there was one before.''
There are just 1850 prisoners and
1924 cells, so that fewer than 400 men
have to ''double up" The twenty-min-
ute walk is the best that can be done
for them, but marching in close order,
even when the ''lock-step" is not re-
quired, is poor substitute for the eXer-
else of making stoves or shoes. The
men evidently enjoyed the walk yester-
day in the bright sunlight.