The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-07-17
A FAMOUS PRISON.
HAS SHELTERED
MANY NOTORIUUS CROOKS.
Daily Routine and Labor OF the
Convicts-Always Employed,
Even If They But
Turn Crank
TTHERE is vast and compli.
Gated system of prisons in

Gated system OF PRISONS III
England, where persons
amenable to the laws are con-
fined. English law, says the New
York Journal, is peculiar in that it
reaches a result quicker than out in
the United States. A man in the
clutches of the English law gets his
sentence and begins his time of pun
ishment quicker than in America
But at the same time there may be
taken into consideration the old saw
that quick haste makes less speed.
English law gives penalties for some
thing like FIVE subdivisions of crime.
Capital otfenses are punished by hang
ing inside of prison walls. Next IN
line comes the crimes for which penal
servitude from fze to lifelong years
is the penalty. Then comes the
numberless ofenses, for which the
punishment is imprisonment, with or
without hard labor. This latter I'm.
prisonment is usually applied for all
.ofenses which are punishable with
Imprisonment when the sentence Is
not punishable with penal servitude.
Sentences Of this kind are usually
given from one month to ten years.
Money fines for misdemeanors, which
are served out in jails, make another
subdivision. When comes the ques-
tion of the confinement of prisoners
from one to five years in Houses OF
Correction.
England and Wales together have
fifty-seven prisons, while Scotland
brings up the rear with fourteen,
making grand total of seventy-one
institutions. In addition, there are
the local prisons, or penal institutions,
in the city of London, which will
swell this list still higher.
Early in English history every class
Of criminal was huddled together
much the same way as in vogue in the
average State Prison in America. But
in 1928 the English took step which
America might we'll follow. They de-
cided to separate prisoners into
classes. 1t gives sort Of criminal
quarantine, and stops the spread of
vicious infection which is bound to
come when the morally dead associate
with the beginner in crime.
Of all the prisons, the most famous
from the fact that it has sheltered
more than the usual number Of ia.
nous crooks within its walls, is Pen.
tonville Prison, OF, as it is better
known, the "Model'' prison of all
England. Within it is now confined
Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright and
feloD, and it is now, for that reason
alone, q curiosity in the criminal
world. It Is, further, a fair sample
OF the average English prison.
Pentonville Prison is @ series of
buildings walled oil around with in.
sane asylum-like windows. Entrance
is gained through q portcullis gate
way, with square porch hanked with
by square clock tower. It,requires
Government order to inspect the pris-
on, but anyone interested in the con-
fnement of convicts has no trouble in
gaining the necessary permit at the
Home Office of the English Prison
Department at Whitehall, s. W.
Possibly the first thing that strikes
the mind of the visitor is the exquis-
ite cleanliness of the prison. In the
dainty private home OF a New York
woman of fashion no more attention
is paid to cleanliness than in Penton.
vile. All the floors in the. institution
are of cut stone highly polished, and
all of the walks ore of carefully kept
street asphalt. Unlike American
prisons, there is no trace OF that
"prison smell" which is the first
thought that strikes the visitor to an
institution where convicts are pun
ished in the land of the free.
The care taken in ventilating and
airing Pentonville Prison IS point
which is not looked after all over
England, it may be confessed, but in
this case care ls certainly taken to
reach decided condition for good.
The prison interior is divided into
four long corridors, which radiate
from center like ribs in a woman's
fan. All of the corridors are stone
paved and are we'll lighted by glass in
the arches of the roof. Like the in
terror CT the new prison IN the Tombs,
the walls on each side of the corridors
are pierced with cells. Above the
corridors, too, are three tiers or
stories of other cells reached by light
iron balconies and steps. This deli
cate tracery of iron work is joined
here and there across the balconies by
narrow bridges, where guards sit day
and night in commanding position
which overlook the corridors, with
their teeming population of criminals
locked in the cells which range along
them.
To the observer there is none of
that horrible semi.darkness of the in
terror of an American prison. The
main feature in the centre structure
seems to be an effort to gain bright,
CHEEKY and airy building. Even the
windows do not partake of the barred