Evening journal., 1893-01-05
BEHIND PRISON BARS.
WHAT MAY BE SEEN m ANY GREAT
HOME OF CRIMINALS.


Strength in Visible Government.
A prison interior has a strange, NOR
bid fascination for the average freeman.
There is such a general atmosphere OF
weird unreality about it all, accentuated
by the sternest realities Of an iron disci-
pline. From the burly, hard faced
guard, who leans upon his shining Win
chester in the sentry box on the walls,
to the pale consumptive murderer, whose
hacking cough is the only sound that
breaks the stiffness Of the prison hos
pital everybody and thing is strangely
different from the outer world. Hum
dreds Of silent, striped suited conyicts
bending over their workbenches, walk
ing about the yard with arms folded OF
marching in lockstep with eyes averted,
surround the visitor on every side.
There is a peculiar odor born both by
the prison apartments and by the prison
inmates which is as marked and dis
tinctive as the odor Of the hospital or Of
the steerage. 1t tells Of a life Of torpid
ity, barren Of sunshine and OF change.
It tells of utensils and cells made stale
and foul with constant usage in spite Of
endless scrubbing and rinsing. The
prison is one great hive Of yellow, close
cropped, hangdog looking humanity,
speaking to their keepers or to their
companion laborers at rare intervals and
in subdued tones, but possessed Of some
secret freemasonry and means Of com
munication with one another and with
the outside world that battles the most
rigid discipline and searching inquisi-
tion.
The thing that strikes the visitor from
the outer world most is the apparent
weakness of the governing power. A
hundred convicts armed with knives two
feet long and sharp as razors are cutting
out great piles of clothing in a room
guarded by half a dozen apparently un-
armed keepers. Another company Of
surly malefactors are plying the hammer
and chisel in q stone yard, mingling with
a handful Of guards whose skulls could
be split in five seconds after the giving Of
preconcerted signal. 1t is the vast but
unseen slumbering power of the state
that holds them; the knowledge of the
keen sighted, iron nerved marksmen on
the outer walls, whose repeating rifles
carry seventeen lives apiece, and the
hopelessness Of fight to a world where
every mans hand would be against them,
and even temporary success could only
end in death or heightened punishment.
Principal Keeper Connaughton, Of Sing
Sing prison, has spent seventeen years Of
his life among conyicts and never car
ned pistol. Dozens of times he has
been assaulted by desperate convicts, but
his brawny arm and heavy stick have
carried him through safely.
"What was the narrowest escape YOU
ever hady o wondering visitor asked him
once.
"When a fellow jumped on me with a
knife as was sitting in my Office, said
the keeper.
"What did you do?"
"Sent him TO the hospital when fin
ished, was the laconic but expressive
answer.
"They have no heart, continued this
steely eyed convict driver with the
square, massive jaw. ''In the days
when we worked them in the quarlies
have seen three hundred of them break
away in a body and 90 running down
through the yard to the railway track.
Only two guards with Winchesters
stood between this rushing mob and
freedom. The first three shots dropped
the first three convicts, and the rest
turned and ran for their lives back to
quarters"
Among the curiosities Of every prison
are the famous convicts, notorious mui-
derers, fallen bank presidents, clever
swindlers and romantic desperadoes of
every type. The Oldest prisoner is also
trotted out for inspection by the spe-
cially favored; some old, white haired,
pale faced man, who for twoscore years
perhaps has not looked beyond the
prison walls, stands blinking before the
visitors. When he left the world the
civil war was unfought, France was an
empire, Germany q mass of disorgan-
lied states. Outside the shining river
still draws its water from the purple
hill, and busy life flows on, but all is
dead to him..
As the visitor stands in the little
green courtyard at sundOwn and sees
company after company Of sicl1ly look
ing prisoners issue from shops and store
rooms and wind around the walks like
so many huge centipeds, with the un-
dulations of the lockstep, each man
with a slop pail on his arm and loaf of
bread in his hand; as he views them dis.
appearing into the cryptlike dining
room, whose floor is wet with the slops
from q thousand tin coffee cups, OF
watches them filing into the tier after
tier of galleries that lead 70 their mar
row, stuffy little cells where the night
is passed under lock and key; as he
comes through the low arched entrance
on his way to freedom and catches a
glimpse Of the waiting room, where a
prisoner stands with look Of agony in
his dull face beside the sob shaken form
Of a visiting sister or mother; as he
hears the great iron gate shut with a
harsh, jangling sound behind him and
slowly shakes off the horror and dis.
grace that steep the very atmosphere of
the place, he realizes as he never did be.