Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1893-03-09
4 Visit to Sing Sing.

\ Visit to Sing Sing.
y prison interior has strange, NOR
bid fascination for the average free
man. There is such q general atmos-
phere of weird unreality about it all,
accentuated by the sternest realities of
an iron discipline. From the burly,
hard faced guard, who leans upon his
shining Winchester in the sentry box
on the walls, 10 TIE pale consumptive
murderer, whose hacking cough is the
only sound that breaks the stiffness of
the prison hospital, everybody and
thing is strangely different from the
quite. world Hundreds of silent,
striped suited convicts bending over
their work benches, walking about the
yard with arms folded or marching in
lockstep with eyes averted, surround
the visitor on every side.
There is peculiar odor born both by
the prison apartments and by the
prison inmates which is rs marked and
distinctive as the odor of the hospital
or Of the steerage. 1t tells ofa life of
torpidity, barren of sunshine and Of
change Ii tells of utensils and cells
made stale and foul with constant usage
in spite of,endless scrubbing and rims
ing. The prison is one great hive of
yellow, ose-cropped, hangdog looking
humanity, speaking totheir keepers orto
their companion laborers at rare inter-
walls and in subdued tones, but possess
ed Of some secret freemasonry and
means of communication with one an
other and with the outside world that
battles the most rigid discipline and
searching inquisition.
The thing that strikes the visitor
from the outer world most is the appar-
cnt 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 i'll
room guarded by half dozen appar-
emily unarmed keepers. Another COM
pauy of surly malefactors are plying
the hammer and chscl in q stone yard,
mingling with handful of guards
whose skulls could be split in five sec
onds after the giving of a preconcerted
signal 1t is the vast but unseen slum-
bering power of the State that holds
them; the knowledge of the keen sight
ed, iron nerved marksmen on the outer
walls, whose repeating rifles carry sew
enteen lives apiece, and the hopeless
ness of flight to world where every
mans hand would be against them,
and even temporary success could only
end in death or heightened punish
ment.
Principal Keeper Connaughton, of
Sing Sing prison, has spent seventeen
years of his life among convicts and
never carried a pistol. Dozen oftimes
he has been assaulted by desperate
convicts, but his brawny arm and
heavy stick have carried him through
safely
"What was the narrowcst escape
you ever had ?" wondering visitor
asked him.
when a fellow jumped on me with
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
stcely-cycd convict driver with the
square, massive jaw. Sin the days
when we worked them in the quarries
l have seen 800 hundred of them break
away in a body and 60 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 curiosites of every pri-
son are the famouus convicts, notorious
murderers, fallen bank presidents,
clever swindlers and romantic despera-
does of every type. The oldest prison
er is also trotted out for inspection by
the specially favored some old, white
haired, pale faced man. who for two
score years, perhaps. has not looked
beyond the prison walls, stands blink
ing before the visitors When he left
the world the civil war was unfought.
France was an empire, Germany mass
of disorganized States. Outside the
shining river still draws its water from
the purple hills, 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 sickly look
ing prisoners issue from shops and
store-rooms and wind around the walks
like so many huge centipedes, with the
undulations of the lockstep, each man
with a slop pail on his arm and loaf
of bread in his hand rs he views them
disappearing into the cryptlike dining
room, whose floor is wet with the slops
from thousand tin coffee cups, or
watches them filing into the tier after
tier of galleries that lead to their mar
row, stuiIy 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 n
glimpse oftfe waiting room, where a
prisoner stands with look Of agony in
his dull face beside the sob-shaken form
OF visiting sister or mother: as he
hears the great iron gate shut with a
harsh, Jansling 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
e., . H. 4 ~