The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-03-09
ROUGH DISCIPLINE.
Lie OF Convicts Behind the Bars lin
English Prison.

English Prison.
A comparison of the rules of an
American prison with those of an En-
glish prison shows that the American
prisoner has many more comforts and
liberties. man in an English prison
is almost as dead to the outer world as
he would be in his tomb. Nothing in
the way of food or reading matter can
be sent in to him by his friends. He
is never permitted to see a newspaper
or magazine. He can write and re-
ceive letters only at long intervals,
and from the time he enters the prison
until he leaves it he is not permitted
to speak unless he is addressed by a
| prison officer.
A prisoner sentenced for term of
three years or less may see a visitor
once in three months in the presence
of a prisoner, and he may write one
letter. To men whose terms are longer,
such privileges are granted less fre-
| quently.
For the first month the prisoners
bed consists of nothing but a broad
| board like a tabletop, three or four
inches above the floor of the cell. He
has no Mattress and the bedclothing
consists of a rug, blanket, pillow
and two coarse sheets. At the end of
a month, if he has earned sufficient
number of goodconduct marks, he has
a mattress three nights week. Later
he has a mattress five nights a week.
and at still later stage, if his con-
| duct has been uneXceptionable he may
have a mattress every night
He has also in his cell bucket, a
water-can, tin wash bowl, towel, a
soap-dish, a salt-cellar, wooden
| spoon and a tin plate. He never has
a knife or fork, and he has nothing
to eat requiring the use of these i'm
| plements.
He must be up at six o'clock, and his
breakfast is brought to him at half
past seven. He eats every meal in his
cell. In the first stage of his imprison-
ment he has only bread and water for
breakfast, and for dinner pint and a
half of ''stira bout" a gruel-like mix
ture of oatmeal and Indian meal.
In the fourth and best stage of his
imprisonment he has pint of porridge
with his bread for breakfast, and bet
ter dinner, but even the fourth-stage
bill of fare is never changed through
out the year. There are no holiday
dinners, nor an extra dish on Sundays,
as in some of our American prisons.
| Not all the prisons have workshops
attached to them, and where there is
no workshop, a man who has a labor
sentence must go on a treadmill for
two hours and half in the morning,
and for two hours and three-quarters
in the afternoon.
In some prisons there is a worse kind
of labor than even the treadmill. 1t
consists of turning heavily weighted
crank, which serves no purpose what
ever except to record the number of it's
own revolutions. A days labor con-
sists of from eight to ten thousand
revolutions. In other prisons the
| prisoners are set to pumping water
AS this serves some purpose it is not SO
depressing as the crank movement.
The entire system of discipline in
English prisons is military In it's rigidi-
| ty, and it is never relaxed. There are
no demonstrations" of discomfort, of
delight, or of contempt on the part of
the prisoners; pandemonium is never
reproduced, and whistling, the yelling
and ''cat-calling" in which American
prisoners sometimes indulge are never
| even remotely initiated in an English
| prison.
The English convict is not by nature
more respectful or orderly than the
| American convict, but he knows that
| disobedience will be Immediately pun
ished; he knows that the statutes of
| parliament have framed the conditions
under which he is to serve out his SEN
tence, and that the power and the sys-
tenn of the prison are such that he
must obey the rules or suffer the con-
sequences,
Escapes from English prisons are so
rarO that they assume the character of
marvelS-BostOn Herald.