The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-05


 pulled up in front of the prison. A sentry with shoudered rifle paced to and fro under the shadow of the high walls, picture in strong contrast to that on the opposite side of the road, where half dozen aged convicts were quietly wedding and hoeing ln an old lashloned garden, rich with the scent or roses, mignonette and double stock. One could not help retecting on the peacelulness of the scene, and imaGin- Ing the difference between the innocent occupation of those old fellows and the possible guilty callngs in the pursuit or Which many had grown gray and feeble. The almost contented look on their worn faces was the first surprise Of many experienced that day, for one IS apt to entertain grewsome ideas as to the lie within convict prison that are sometimes dissipated by such g. Vlslt as am attempting to describe.
 The two things which impressed me most inside the jail were the silence and the cleanliness, the one as painful as the other: Wherever we went, in the shoemakers' shop--where the men sat in long rows. working with surpris- ing diligence, with only one warder to considerably over fifty convicts armed with tools that might easily be turned into murderous weapons-in the bake house. with it's occupants moving quick ly and noiselessly in felt slippers, and in the kitchen, where steamed huge coppers Of tea and cocoa, soup and gruel (no self-respecting warden is ever betrayed into speaking of "skilly'D; in each department there was this dead silence, this painful cleanliness. One positively yearned to see @ speck Of dirt on the bleached boards or on the burnished cans and cups In the little cells and to hear one of those gaunt figures burst the bonds of his dumb ness. Gaunt seemed nearly every one of the convicts we saw in Portland, and there were close upon thousand; gaunt not because they were thin or l ill-fed-far from 1t; but the close crop ped hair and the beard of day or twos growth, as it appears (the fact is | they shave with a sort of horse clip per, which always leaves "stubble'), coupled with the paleness of those not working in the open, gives the features | drawn expression, like a man on a sick bed.
 It is surprising how difficult it is to recognize in the sombre prison garp and with the closely cut hair the faces of those who, after maybe brief noto- riety and much figuring in the illustrat- ed papers, are now paying the penalty of their transgressions in this penal es- tablishment There is a rule in her | of tho in- mates should be specially pointed out to visitors, but there are ways of know ing without adopting the rude and ele- mentary method of pointing the finger. And so it was that at one end of the tailors' shop, where rows upon rows of silent workers piled the needle, l saw Mir Wells of Monte Carlo engaged ln | the peaceful and by no means arduous pursuit of bookbinding. Although l was present in court when he received his sentence of penal servitude, I alto- gether failed at first to recognize in the | drab form bending over one or the vol umes of the convicts' library the man of address and fashion who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. His hands, how ever, are still as white and delicate as 1 ever. Iy HIS Sldt SetN et iiiehii NiSs'7SN | in compiling a catalogue of the prison library in a hand which would have made the fortune of law copyist, and his face lit up with satisfaction as the warder asked him for some specimens 1 of his work to show to the visitors, Another convict had wrought beauti- full stone altar piece for the Catholic chapel, and third, whose duty it was to burnish the handcuffs and chains in the "armory," had exercised his inge- nuity so cleverly that the words Port | land Convict Prison" were formed by the artful disposition of the steel inn plements on a red baize background. | Some of the more sensitive conVicts bend their heads when a visitor enters, but they need have no fear--recogni- tion. as I have said is almost impossi- ble. Who. for instance, would have imagined that g. squat figure, working with the utmost energy. in the adJoln- ing quarry, was the once round and rubicund Jabez Spencer Balfour, now | in the pink of condition and certainly engaged in an honest days labor. It was a sight which would doubtless have | gone some way toward rec0nciling many of those poor shareholders to their losses. Far away from the ex-M. P, at the other end of the prison estate, was his old friend Hobbs, engaged in carpentering, at which he is, I under | stand, an expert.
 On every hand there was evidence of the humane system which places pre- mium on good conduct. Good behavior will earn for a man extra food and such a luxury as afternoon tea, will secure more liberty as to writing letters and receiving vists, and, besides shortening his term, may gain for him what may l be styled the order of the blue coat, the wearer of which has an extra three soV- ereigns in his pocket when his sentence expires. I questioned warder why he addressed all his colleagues with Sir, and he answered, If we show respect to each other the convicts respect us. We visited the refractory cells, and out of all that motley gathering of convicts only three had so misbehaved them selves as to warrant their incarceration in that part of the prison. The better educated are the best behaved, it ap- pears, and 1t was rather a surprise to learn that some of the old offenders give the most trouble. Nearly every cell we peeped into-all the convicts were out engaged in the shops of the | Iplarrips-containad VolumeS from the