Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-11-09
WOMEN IN PRISON GARB.
HOW THEY ARE EMPLOYED IN A PENN
sYLvANIA BAsTILE.
The Lone Grave on the Pennypack and
the Story that 1t Recalls-A Chat
with Prison Officials.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer.l

The EaStern-D0uhQ train which REACHES
HoImesburg Junction shortly after noon
yesterday carried among its passengers a
motley crowd-the human fotsam and jet
sam of great city. They were the men
and women who had been committed to
the House of Correction. With a police
man leading and couple of officers as
rear guards, as soon as they alighted they
took up their march down the dusty road
to their future home, where they were re-
celved at the great eastern entrance gate
by Master Warden Mcbride in full uni
form. They filed into large, cool room
on the left of the wide hall, the men to
the right the women to the left, where a
half dozen clerks, wearing the striped uni
form of the institution, stood at tall
desk. The Master Warden and the moral
instructor took positions insidI rallied in
closure. The former laid bundle of
commitments on his desk. AT signal the
women arose and were marched to the
scales. After being weighed their hight
was taken and written on a strip of green
paper. As they received them their names
we're called by the Master WaraAn, and
each woman was catechized according to a
regular form.
The first one questioned was gaunt,
angular woman Of about 6S, with thin,
gray, unkempt hair, snappy black eyes, a
long nose and sharp, peaked chin. The
! oh of 10 am
wonderful pattern-a long sack, many sizes
too large for her, and a skirt of ample
width, torn and draggled. A bonnet of
the fashion of forty years ago was perched
upon her head.
SHE WOULD NOT ADMIT HER AGE.
"How old are you?" asked the Warden
"Twenty eight" was the unblushing an
swer.
Her fellow prisoners Uttered audibly and
a smile passed across the face of the moral
instructor.
"Whatp
"Thirty-eightr' she serenely answered.
1t is Just possible that several reitera-
lions of the astonished "WhatP would
have eventually brought out her true age,
but she was permitted to go down on the
records "38-unmarried."
sThat woman is evidently a crauk,"
said the Master Warden. "We get to
know them as soon as we see them. She'll
remain here till next Saturday, when we
take the usual weekly collection of cranks,
paupers and generally helpless people who
| have been committed here through the ig-
norance or stupidity of the magistrates to
| their true home-the almshouse. Some
magistrates seem to think that the Correc-
| ton Is a refuge for the manned, the halt,
| the blind and the idiotic.
While he was speaking young girl
stepped forward to the desk. Her clothes
were of fashionable cut, and her bold
ewes were raised to the Warden's from
under a frizzled bang. She gave her age
as nineteen, and unblushingly admitted
| that it was her second commitment for
street walking.
| A bright-colored mulatto, in answer to
the usual query, do you drink liquor or
beer?' SAID, mo, sahr
SHE WAS A MUSICIAN
She had been sent up for drunkenness,
and the Warden ironically asked:
"What do you drink, then ?"
"Gin, sab"
"What is your trade or occupation ?"
"Pse musician, sah."
"Ah! On what instrument do you
play?"
"De mouf organ"
One or two of the younger women cried
when they took their pls ces before the
desk, and one was hys erical. They
ranged in age from 16 to IS, and the ma
iority were old offenders. A slatternly
neeress grinned and bowed Familiarity as
she came forward.
"Well, Alice" said the Warden, 81
think you had better live and die here.
This is your sixth commitment, is it not ?"
Eyes, sah." Sry kaE1 @5zEsz
Before the Warden's "soiree" adjourned
the matron entered, holding in one hand a
greasy parchment paper, in the other a
roll of bank bills which had been taken
from dirty, frowsy-headed Irish woman,
whose swollen, dis6gured face and whisky
laden breath proclaimed rum as the cause
of her downfall.
"Here are $3.50 and deed for ceme-
terry lot that took from around her waist"
said the matron.
The woman had answered 'no" to the
usual question as to whether she had any
money in her possession, thinking that no
one would discover its hiding place. She
was professional begger.
"The women received to-day are an
average lot" said the Warden, as he rolled
up the bank notes. They have been
committed for vagrancy, begging, street
walking and drunkenness, and several by
the Court for assault and battery.
When neighbors get to quarreling, result
ing in fist fights and hair-pulling, the
matter is frequently brought to Court. The
offense is too trifiing to merit prison sem
tenee, but the virago needs a lesson. The
Judge suspends sentence in the case, and
commits her to the House of Correction
for short term. 1t usually has bene-
fetal effect in making woman of that
class exercise better control over their I'M
ruly members"
THEY PUT on THE STRIPED DRESS.
While the men were being weighed and
registered the women were taken to the
bathroom. Most of them are strangers
to water in any form, but they yield re-
luctant assent to this part of the pro-
gramme. In case of obstinacy or refusal
Tic ItlfdCtOll BOtSOn ID teAhSh III NAe-A - ~
three or four of the matron's assistants,
ducked into the tub and scrubbed vigor-
ously with a brush. Then they don the
House of Correction dress, a calico skirt
and sack of a small plaid pattern, with the
number of the cell and wing stenclled on
the skirt. After dinner of bread, meat
and vegetable soup they are locked in their
cells for the remainder OF the day On
the morrow they are put to work, either in
the sewing-roon, the knitting-room, the
laundry, or armed with pail and brush to
scrub the cells and corridors. All the gar
ments worn by the inmates are made in
the institution.
"AIost of the women who are committed
here" said thematron, "buy their clothing
ready-made and know no more about sew
ing than little child. When they are
first set to work. half what they do has to