The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1893-01-06
BEHIND PRISON BARS.
WHAT MAY BE SEEN IN ANY GREAT
HOME OF CRIMINALS.


A prison interior has strange, NOR
bid fascination for the average freeman.
Where is such a general atmosphere of
Nweird unhealthy about it all, accumulated
Nby the sternest realities of an iron disci-
#pline From the burly, hard faced
Mguard, who leans upon his shining Win
Mchester in the sentry box on the walls,
Ito the pale consumptive murderer, whose
Mhacking cough is the only sound that
III breaks the stiffness Of the prison hos
pital, everybody and thing is strangely
IN different from the outer world. Hun
q dreds of silent, striped suited convicts
Vi bending over their work benches. walk
ing about the yard with arms folded or
marching in lockstep with eyes averted
& surround the visitor on every side.
There is a peculiar odor born both by
4 the prison apartments and by the prison
4 inmates which is as marked and dis
tinctive as the odOr of the hospital or of
the Storage. 1t tells of life Of torpid
ity, barren of sunshine and of change.
1t 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 OF 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-
ton.
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 dozen apparently I'M
armed keepers. Another company of
surly malefactors are plying the hammer
and chisel in stone yard, mingling with
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
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 convicts and never car
ried 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 had?" wondering visitor asked him
tnce.
"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. I'm the days
when we worked them in the quarries |
have seen three hundred of them break
away in a body and go 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 mu.-
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 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 shutdown and sees
company after company of sickly look
ing prisoners issue from shops and store
rooms and wind around the walks like
80 many huge centipeds, with the I'M I
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 thousand tin coffee cups, or
watches them filing into the tier after
tier of galleries that lead to 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 8
glimpse of the waiting room, where a
prisoner stan.s with a 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, janging sound behind him and :
slowly shakes off the horror and dis v
grace that steep the very atmosphere of ,
the place, he realizes as he never did be-
fore that the way of the transgressor ia
hard.-New York Tribune.