Morning journal and courier., 1888-07-31
THE COUNTY JAZZ.

Largo Number OF Prisoners
FOR the SeaSon-Life Mt the Institu-
tAon-A Wide Range of OGences-t
Gloomy Within, attractive without. |
The county Jail at present has an unusually |
large number of prisoners for the summer.
In winter the Accommodations at the Whalley
avenue institution are usually pretty well
tested, but in summer the highways and
hedges offer more tempting resting places
and the county's hostelrie is not as popular
a. it Is when winters bleak winds blow.
There are now some two hundred men and
about thirty women confined there, while the
buildings will accommodate over three hum
dred men and fifty women. Drunkenness
and breach of the peace are the charges on
which the greater part of these unfortunates
are confined, but the list of offences includes
nearly all the petty crimes and misdemeanors
known to the law: Larceny, theft, fast driv
ing lascivious carriage, injury to property,
vagrancy, keeping diaorderly house, bigamy,
forgery, embezzlement, resistance to officer,
non-support of wife, obtaining money under
false pretenses, abusive language, defrauding
boarding house keeper, indecent expos
ure, taking horse without leave,
are some of the charges noticed on the books
of the Jail. These people when not sick are
kept busily at work, the men Gaming chairs,
women doing the cooking, washing and gen.
eral kitchen work. But there are on an
average from dozen to twenty on the sick
list. Colds and the minor ills that flesh is
heir to are the usual complaints, but occa-
sionally case of want to be sick is met with.
Some of the women again are unfit even for
the simplest work in the kitchen. Many of
them are SO dsnsely ignorant that they gre
unable to count the pans in which the food
ia rrJy n
are not elaborate although they are substan-
tial. At meal time each man is given a tin
pan with his food therein and spoon 10 eat
with. Hash is the staple breakfast dish and
mush and molasses the supper. For dinner
corned beef and soup rotate, SO that the
same menu is not provided two days in sue
cession. Yesterday the prisoners were re-
called on bean soup. The food is cooked in
immense cauldrons, of which there are sever
al in the kitchen. 1t takes about two bush
els of corn meal to make the mush consum-
ed at supper.
the Jail in charge of an officer with q miti-
mus for the mans incarceration is not in all
cases of the most courteous nature. He is
promptly invited to take bath. Now, it so
happens, that there frequently comes man
for whom water is a source of terror. He
sees SO little of it that he is afraid of it
when it does meet his gaze. He declines
the officials kind invitation to battle. When
urged he demurs. It is not the custom at
the institution to waste any time in
useless argument. If the candidate
for Mr.. Munson refuses to remove his vest
ments he is unceremoniously tumbled into
the water with them on. Time works won
drous changes and it often happens that he
who expressed the greatest terror of cleans
ing becomes, after few trials, a most ardent
lover of the bath. Cleanliness is sought, as
the kitchens, which are most scrupulously
clean, indicate.
The prisoners oonfnt d on civil process
| instead of q criminal, as was Conductor ELS
worth recently, occupy large room upstairs
I in the main building. They cannot be kept
in close confinement and do no work. We'd
nesday and Saturday afternoons are known
as visiting days, when the men do no work
and their friends are allowed to visit them.
At these times visitors with provisions for
some incarcerated friend are numerous.
While all within the Jail buildings is
gloomy and dispiriting, the grounds in front
present pleasing appearance. The lawn
and flower garden are nicely kept and have
expended on them daily the toll of several of
the inmates of the institution. Like avelvet
carpet of green the lawn always looks even
in the driest season and the Towering shrubs
add diversity to the scene. The brightness
of the exterior lends a semblance of reality to
the inscription over the heavy iron door
within. which opens into the corridor where
the cells are located. How many of the
wretches that pass through that door under
stand those words, "Dum Spiro, Spero"?