The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-07-13
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II Will NOW HAVE TO 20 LABOR.



ii Climb Inn Eleven Miles Sd
1t Stairs. . IS.
no would hare thought not long ago
stnat Oscar Wide the apostle Of dainty
saestheticism, the wit and Il poet, feted
every where and even. worship peds at times
by people Of positio On and discerninent -
who would have dreamed even would
come to sweating on a prison treadmill3?
Yet there he Is, shaven and Sshorn, rough
clothing ehafng his flesh that once knew
only the softest fabrics, the associate Of
vulgar and brutal crirninal s--himself a
criminal. No more unlikely transform a.
ton could have; been imagined. He who
predicted such a future for this lover Of
the beautiful would have. been regarded as
q malicious iconoclast or an idiot Yet
stheresis Oscar Wilde, treading, treading,
with the drear prospect Of continuing to
tread for nearly two years to come.
At Pentonville, where Wilde is serving
the sentence, the prison suit is Of dirty,
;drab canvas marked with three arrows,
heavy rough shoes and an ugly Scotch
cap. Life in this prison is not pleasant by
any means. Wilde's sleeping accommo-
dations are the .scantiest. Cots are I'M
known to the prisoners here. A plank
bed composed simply-of a board raised six
inches from the floor. without a mattress,
is what he sleeps on. He is given each
week! two clean sheets Of heavy coarse ma
S&,1S n orty
shorse blankets, The rules about. COM
ceedingly severe. He. can neither write
nor receive a letter from his friends or
family until three months of his sentence
has been served and then he may write
and receive one letter "a month, and be
@ .s. .g. I. 5ie5
Is The tread-mill is. the great bugaboo
OF the English convict. It is almost
barbaric in its severity and savors some
what of the torture inflicted upon unfor-
Inmates 500 years ago. Z It. is shaped
somewhat like the wheel Of a stern
wheel steamer or. the paddle wheel Of a
ferry boat except that the d-mill
is considerably wider than they are. For
the accommodate of the many invol-
untary workers at a height which. a man
of ordinary physique can easily reach
is a long bar Of wood. When all is ready
the prisoner jumps upon one Of the steps
of.the wheel and grasps the bar with his
hands. The steps are called floats in
the far land Of Pentonville. The weight
of the men turns the wheel and as they
sink down on one foot they must step UP
to the next float when it comes round.
SCI, s1ya al orfi as11 or W
nasty flight Of stairs with no ending at
the top. 4s}@ az: s58ss NJ
i What is more, there is no lodging or
Sinking the work. When the, float
comes round, Oscar Wilde, like all his
brother felons, must step on it, other
wise he will get an ugly knock on the
shina. by the ever turning wheel, which
will peel, the bark off from the knee TO
the instep. 1t is not pleasant work by
amy means. It is the kind that com
pletely takes the heart out Of the most
hardened criminal. At the end Of a
long day Of ceaselessly: stepping from
float ito float there is nothing to show
for it. Each man is nothing more than
a very Insignificant section. Of a huge
mass Of machinery. The work OF the
convicts in America is play in compare
SON with it. In PentonVille all that the
workers Of the tread mill have to look
forward to is the short breathing spells
permitted by the prison regulati ions:
!, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to do hard
labor and this means that his time at
the treadmill will be four hours a day,
the most severe work provided for by
the prison rules. Two hours Of this is
done before dinner and two hours after.
Some idea Of the awful physical strain
Of the work can be gained from these
facts: The men work twenty minutes
and then have five minutes rest. in
those twenty minutes they have made
the equivalent Of an ascentsof 5000 feet
ora trifIe more than a mile and an
eighth. In four hours work they have
done the same labor that 9. man would
have done in climbing eleven miles Of
stairs makes an ordinary mar. man wish forr
an elevator. n s 81. SC, u. sz3 3
a M = 1.1,1as at sanx ~ $t1fa nrisnnters
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