Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-08-27

department for the insane, with ward
for males, containing go patients, and TO-
| females, containing 37-all their accom-
modations being entirely distinct from
the rest of the institution. There are
also separate infirmaries, as well al
scboolrooms, etc., for sick children, ano
every comfort and convenience in the
way of drugstore, baths, ETC., etc. Or
the roof is meteorological observatory
with all needful instruments.
Rev. John Rowland, Congregationalist
m ssionary at Gu adalaxara, most kindly
placed at the service OF our party the
excellent horses necessary for his timer
ant work, land 1 hardly know what we
would have done without them, as riding
horses, we found, were only to be had for
love, not money, in Guada., and one
wild afternoon, when we had been
8 ampering about for some hours through
frequent gusts and squalls and show
ers, we galloped up to a long, i'm
posing structure at the west side, and
found it to be the Penitentiary for which
we had been looking. Begun in 1S43,
by order of Governor Antonio Escobedo,
for whom it is named, it is not yet com
pleted, although occupied. 1t comprises
three departments; the offices of the
criminal and civil judiciary; the cells, of
which there are over 800, and the shops.
The edifice is quadrangular, 300x150
meters, with twO-storied Doric portico,
long lines of heavily barred windows,
and turrets for guards at the angles, and
it presents most imposing appearance
in its massive, sullen strength. The
second or cell department, is calculated
to contain 5000 comfortably. 1t is well
ventilated, with good hospital, lazaretto,
etc. Baths and all other conveniences
are provided. An ingenious arrange
ment is made for the hearing of mass by
prisoners in solitary confinement; six
teen galleries, with tiers Of cells on
either side. radiate from the central
chapel, so that the solitaries are not re-
moved from their cells for religious SER
vice. In the shops are carried on the
trades of carpentry, shoemaking, tin
merry, cooperage, brass working, hats
and other straw work, and weav-
ing, eighteen looms being occupied
with the manufacture of rebozos,
zarapes, (headscarfs and blankets) be-
sides the cotton cloth used for the
trousers, blouse and beret, which, with
good shoes, constitutes the prison uni
form. The women work in a separate
department, beside preparing the food Of
the institution. In schools taught by
the most modern systems, the prisoners
are taught such branches, in conjunc.
ton with the trades in which they are
instructed, will fit them for becoming |
good citizens at the expiration of terms,
and to the same end, and to promote in
dustry, each prisoner receives with his |
liberty twenty-five per cent OF his earn
ings while in prison. The inmates are
provided with good, wholesome food,
and all practicable comforts, and they
appear as contented as men deprived OF
their liberty may be. A guard, civil
and of state troops, of some fifty strong,
watches over the prison. think that
the magnitude and system of these in
described necessarily with |
great imperfecton in paper of this de-
will perhaps dispel some err
roneous ideas, and that good Angelefios
will agree with me that such achieve
ments are fairly good for "benighted
Mexico" Y. H. ADDS.
August 1888