The age-herald., 1898-10-26

| of the conviets here, and those that will | in future come here, are in better heath, l physically and morally, than they were | at home. They are better fed and better clothed than in freedom. The state has 1,I63 state convicts and 7S6 county convictS at it's several prisons, an aggregate of l 2,549.
 Of this total about 2,9OO are negroes. Paragraph the figures and reflect on the meaning.
 Let us take bird's-eye V ew of Alabama penology from the beginning. For the first twenty years of statehood there were only the wretched county jails, the whipping post and the branding iron means of punishment. Nearly all the convcts then and for many years later were white men. The negroes were mostly slaves, and were controlled by individual masters on widely separated plantations.
 October l ,1S1 the penitentiary at We tumpka was opened. The first prisoner to enter was white saddler and harness ma ker from Mobile conv cted of murder. Three acres were enclosed by brick walls,
 and within were workshops. After four
 years operation the prison had cost the
 state $31, ,S90 more than its receipts, and all
 the workshops and their valuable tools had been lost by fire meantime.
 Another policy was now adopted, and in measure continued until now. The prison was leased, with the prisoners, to private persons who manufactured wagons, har- ness, shoes, bagging and rope, etc. The lessee Dr. Burrows, of 1862, was killed in the walls by white conv,ct, and the con
 vict was tried and hung in the walls In
 the latter half of the war the institution supplied the confederatae army With vari-
 ous important manufactures.
 In 1865 detachment of Wilson's cavalry
 rode up there from Montgomery, and, by
 way of retaliation, opened the gates and released all the prisoners. white pris- oner named Murray alone refused to aban- don the place. He remained and protected
 the property until the state resumed pos
 session.
 The state was very much to blame in its management of convicts from 1866 to recent
 years. Even now there is room for i'm
 provement of a radical kind. Under the re-
 publican party regimes of 1868 and 1873 one
 negro in each was on the board of inspect ors The management all along was Ettle
 short of brutal. Warden Bass, Warden
 John H. Bankhead Robert Mckee, Miss
 Julia Tutwier, Dr. J. B. Gaston pr. Je-
 rome Cochrane, Inspector R. H. Dawson,
 Dr. R. M. Cunningham and Judge A. A.
 Coleman. in their respective lines of action,
 must be allowed as true reformers of the system whatever others may have done in
 the same direction. Judge Coleman went to the legislature from Hale county in 1SS2 expressly for the purpose of procuring re-
 form punitive legislat on. He did not get all he wanted, nor in the way he marked if out but from what he was able to have
 enacted the present reforms have devel- oped.
 The practical farming at this place is dis tributed between crops named as follows, aaa ,fo fn xU applied the seed of the year before, ar1 150 pounds of commercial fertilizer per acre, yield about 300 bales; 2oO acres of oats, yield, say, forty bushels to the acre; l59 acres of COW peas and 50 acres of binders; 45 acres of sorghum and ribbon cane; 40 acres of sweet potatoes; 25 acres of garden, now green with suitable variety of vege- ables Fifteen acres make tobacco for home use There are 51 work mules, all in good order and housed in a model plantation mule stable; about 200 hogs will be Killed this season for pork, about dozen cows are in milk. The land is sandy, lies well and where rolling, is protected in some de- gree from washing. The reliance for corn this year was placed on other state lands, situated on the Talapoosa river, but 10000 bushels there was lost by overflow recent ly. A creek bottom is now being cleared for corn. Fences are high, and in good order and the gates open and shut with out strain. There Is no effort at orna- mentation anywhere, but the signs Of sys- tenn and order in the farm are manifest. MT. Thomas C. Dawson, of Wilcox. is the farmer.
 The cotton is ginned on an S0-saw stand of Pratt's improved manufacture run by steam. The bales are stored in brick warehouse near the factory and the gin house and warehouse, about 300 yards apart, are connected by a railroad where the mule is the motor. The factory has the latest machinery and the best scientific management The women and boys are the operatives The manufacturing goes on in winter only Water is pumped by the gin house boiler from bold creek into tank at the factory for factory use. At the fac- tory is a stationary fire engine and hose. Water from the factory tank is conveyed -bv pipe to fire plugs in the yards where Inc nrisoners live and for use in the stables and for other purposes.
 Resides the stripes and sheeting and shirtings for the convicts, the factory man. ufa cures rope. blow lines of the best quail itv. and the material used is wholly the waste.
 Under the gin house roof is large grist mill for home use. Near the gin house Is the mill for making molasses of two kinds, sorghum and cane.
 On a grove-clad hill near the gin house Is the cottage of the master of hounds. MT. T. l.. Smith. The state has twelve grown hounds in yard, high fenced, with ken nels and troughs within, also in separate yard dozen hound pups now in training. MT. Smith rides trained horse and daily both sets of dogs are practiced separately. convict assists by starting out a-foot one hour or such matter before the dogs to