Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1897-04-29
HOW PRISONERS coMMvNIcArG.
ingenious Methods Employed By Thsm -
Talk 70 Each Other.


Talk TO Each Other.
The prisoners make every cOncelv-
able effort to hold intercourse of some
kind with their fellow-culprits, II only
to relieve the silence and solitude
intolerable to persons OF their class,
who have not sufficient cultivation OF
mind to supply them with food for
thought. Knocking on the walls Of
separation between the cells, scratch
Ing sentences on the sides of the baths
or the bottoms of the tins used to
contain their cruel. and many other
devices of that inadequate nature, are
instantly detected and stopped by the
officials. The chapel is perhaps the
most favorable ground for enabling
them to let their presence at least be
known to acquaintances who have been
lncarcerated at an earlier or later
period from themselves. The male
and female prisoners are, of course.
rigidly separated during the services.
A high and strong wooden partition
divides the portion of the building they
respectively occupy, but they do not
allow this serious obstacle to deter
hem altogether from the communica-
Ions they specially desire to hold with
he opposite sex. In singing the hymns
they often try to introduce words OF
their own, or innlle very peculiar re-
sponses, which can be understood over
the wall. A male prisoner will be
afflicted with an extremely bad cough,
which in measured attacks, makes
known to lady friend on the other
seldom oppressed by this bronchial
malady on more than one occasion,
since the governor informs him that
as his cough is SO distressing, he is to
remain in his cell, and not be exposed
to the air of the chapel until he is
Oetter-a cure for his complaint which
is at once perfectly complete. On the
female side of the partition a woman
permitted to take her infant, born in
prison, to chapel with her, pinches the
unfortunate mite until it's shrill yells
reveal her proximity to its father, at
tentively listening through the wall.
Recently the governor of one Of our
county prisons was greatly perpleved
by the discovery that the female pris-
oners in his charge managed in some
mysterious manner to ascertain the
presence of every individual man on
the other side of the impervious divid-
ing barrier. One of the women mad
vertently let drop the fact that she
had recognized her husband, whose
position there must, according to rule,
have been completely unknown to her.
None of the officers could account for
an unpermitted knowledge which was
found to be shared by all the other
women. At last very careful exam
ination of the chapel gave an explana-
ton of the mystery. Although strict
male and female prisoners faced the
altar in their seats, and over it had
been fixed a very large brass cross
against the wall, so highly polished as
to form very good mirror. In its
clear surface the women saw the re-
Fiction of every man as he passed to
his place and had enjoyed the specta-
Gle with impunity till wife, much in
spouse, had made an imprudent re-
mark to one of the officers, which re-
vealed the fact. The brass cross in
disappeared, and the
bland wall behind 1t no longer tells
any secrets London Hospital.