The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-06-09

~ HcA Hlshl comes the hammock Is sluns
apout three feet from the floor to iron
oars set in the walls of the CELL which
gives the advantage Of a good bed and one
mat does not take up room in the day
ume. A little table and stool make Up
the remainder of the furniture of each
cell, while on the walls Of each is placed
the rules of the prison, which convicts
must carefully obey.
me prison garb Of a drab canvas. shot
pientifully with broad arrows. is fully as
beautiful as the drab and pale yellow
striped cloth Of the New York state prison
eonViets at DanemOra, Auburn or Sing
Sing. With each suit is furnished two
changes Of plain white cloth underclothes
Scotch cap and heavy cowhide boots.
All convicts in Pentonville prison are
known as soon as they become prisoners
by numbers. If a man before he became
a prisoner bore the proudest title in the
peerage of England, Scotland Irelani
or Wales, he becomes upon his entrance
10 the institution only a number. He is A
2,l14 or J,05l, as the case may be, and he
must wear at his breast at all times a dig
brass badge bearing this number.
Look out there, A 2,174," sings out a
guard when addressing a prisoner. And
all through the prison life of a convict
only this number is used. 1t would puzzle
even the warden Of the prison to tell the
name of a prisoner without reference 20
the records upon which, opposite his name
and number, stands the Christian ami
surname of the convict.
Prisoners are by no means starved in
Pentonville. The allowance for break
fast to each convict is 10 ounces Of bread,
three-quarters of a pint of cocoa, with
two ounces Of pure milk and two drachms
of molasses. For dinner half a pint Of
soup, four ounces of meat beef or NUT
ton, alternately, five ounces of bread and
t.
tea each man gets a pint of Cruel, made
of an ounce and one-half of meal and
sweetened with five drachms of molasses,
with five ounceA of bread. In case of
certain line Of punishment these rations
are reduced. The most salutary form of
punishment is in the docking of rations
A prisoner will give in quicker when placed
on starvation diet than for any other
cause.
In the prison there are four stages of
service. In the firs0 class the prisoner
has to perform hrst-class hard labor for
a certain number of hours in each day.
That means he has to work in the tread
mill, or upon what is known as the
"cranks."
The treadmill, or treadwheel, is not
particularly useful machine. The pris-
oners call service upon it threading the
wind" and that is about what it is for
it seems to serve no useful purpose, except
to keep prisoners employed. The sole use
the machine has Is merely to keep a GER
tain number of men employed when there
isn't anything else for them TO do.
Each tread wheel or mill is so con-
structed that if necessary "a men can be
employed upon it at a time The mill is
divided into "a little compartments, or
stalls. Each compartment is some less
than "a inches in width, and is separated
from the adjoining one by high wooden
III. H. .&r.r1 MIL
fan, which is so arranged as to give
enough resistance to the mill to make
the words ''hard labor mean what they
saw There are twenty-1our steps in the
wheel, which are eight inches apart. This
makes the circumference of the wheel l6
feet. The wheel performs 80 revolutions
in each quarter of an hour, and each man
walks on an average 10 quarters of an
hour a day. So he ascends something
like 1900 feet, or 2,4O0 yards, for a days
labor.
Crank labor consists of making 10000
evolutions of a crank which is placed on
narrow iron drum put on legs with
long handle on one side, which, when
turned, causes a series of caps or scoops
in the interior to revolve AT the lower
part of the drum is a quantity of sand,
which the cups scoop up and carry TO the
top of the wheel where they empty them
selves A dial plate registers the number
of evolutions made. A convict, at ordi-
nary rate of speed, makes 1,200 evolutions
of the crank an hour so to turn TO-
900 of them means about eight hours and
twenty minutes labor.
In.the case of physical inability to do
tread-mill or crank labor, the convict is
placed at second-class labor, which means
the picking of oakum, stone-breaking and
kindred pursuits. All a prisoner has to do
is to sit and pick from three to six pounds
of old rope per day into oakum. The guam
tity picked into Oakum in Pentonville
prison will average about three and one.
half tons a week 1t is sold, and brings
in some return for the labor. In addition
trades are taught in the prison which are
usually akin to the useful arts.
Punishments in Pentonvlle prison have
been made into five classes. First comes
the loss of advantage which the prisoner
gets in being rated in classes. Then
comes the transfer from the highest to the
lowest class of servitude. Next comes
fasting and a bread-andwater diet, and
the next stage is confinement in a cell of
correction. Lastly is ranked bodily chas-
tisement, but this is limited to IS lashes to
prisoners under IS years of age and So
lashes to older men.
Another point, too, which all the English
prisons have in common is in giving con-
victs with exceptionally good behavior res
leave" which allow them to leave an in
stitution and keep at large without re-
turn during good behavior.
Holloway Jail, or as it is called officially,
the City House of Correction, is one OF
London's most famous local prisons. The
convict prisons for compulsory labor on
public works are at Portsmouth, Port
land, Chatham, Dartmoor, Parkhurst
Working, Bors tai and Dover. They do not
differ very greatly from the Pentonvlle
prison or from the county or shore institu-
ton, except that two uniforms are worn
by first and second-class prisoners, the
first having Ii drab ground and yellow
stripes, the second being marked by blue
stripes.
The House of Correction at Holloway IS
a splendid building of the castellated Goth
ic style Female prisoners here wear a
cheap cloth gown and tight cap, which are
plentffully sprinkled with the broad arrow
the usual mark of the English convict.
Another famous local London prison is
the Middlesex House of Correction, Cold
bath Fields A peculiar feature of this
prison is in the manner in which friends
visit the prisoners. Little cells are ar
raved with grated windows, on each side
of which friends and prisoners stand when
talking other famous London local prisons
are the Female convict prison at Brixton,