Virginian-pilot. (Norfolk, Va.) 1898-1911, 1900-12-05
A CRYING EVIL.
Necessity for Enlargement of
the State Penitentiary.
ITS overcrowdcd Condi tion and Poor venti
Iation is !. Serious Menace to the Health
of the Inmates Other State Prisons

a called meeting of our Legislature
will convene shortly, but far more
important object than that for which
1t convenes can be brought before it
when it meets, and brought by you.
Three great leading newspapers OF
the United States have, in the past
| year, published singing criticisms up
on the condition OF the State Prison
of Virginia-criticisms which should
make every lover of his State blush
with shame, not at seeing our Com
monwealth held up as public spect-
acle for the scorn and disgust OF the
civilized world, wherever these arti-
cles are read and copied, but because
every word that has been written is
strictly true, and each one of us citi-
zens of this state is responsible for let
ting the horrors so freely mentioned
continue in existence.
Our state prison, built for three
hundred men, has for some years past
held an average of fourteen hundred.
One very ordinary sized room, or cell.
during the past year has contained
twenty-nine men; several others have
contained over twenty each. All hold
entirely too many inmates for their
capacity. Sleeping hunks, or shelves,
are let into the walls on two sides of
the cells almost from floor 10 ceiling
in some of thenO. leaving very small
space for the mass of men packed there
TO move about upon the floor between
them.
Each cell is lighted and ventilated
only by small, heavily barred, win
dow at one end. and a very small tran
som over the door. which is opposite
the window. and leads into d little con-
fined. court yard. that, itself. has poor
chances indeed for fresh air, as it is
enclosed on every side by the high,
heavy walls of the prison, which are
built all around 1t. Lately. barred iron
doors have been substituted in the
worst cells. in warm weather. for the
ordinary heavy wooden ones This
inerciful effort at relief las been of
some benefit in decreasing the suffer-
inGs of the inmates of these suffocating
rooms. No ordinary convenences of
modern city houses supply the insti-
tuition, except rooms where the men
can battle: and every relief of nature
must take place within their cells.
1t Is almost n miracle that no scourge
or disease has broken out among them,
and from this one dreadful fact alone.
Loathsome vermin are in the walls that
cannot be eradicated. although the
effort is made to do so, and the prison
ers. In summer, cannot escape being
u
night, in addition to their circulating
misery from the fearful heat. foul, dis
gushing air and denSely crowded state.
Many liberated prisoners have told me
that on summer nights sleep was an
impossitility TO them and life itself
an intolerable burden. There have
lately been two hundred and fifty-eight
cases OF the tormenting skin-diseases
known as Itch" due entirely to their
overcrowded condition. and but for the
most stringent medical precautions
every prisoner in the place would. no
doubt have fallen victim TO this odicus
malady.
But 1t is useless for me to try to des-
cribe the situation of these our wretch
ed, unfortunate. wards OF state locked
into that horrible place by u.s. allowed
to continue there year after year, with
out hope of relief and without appeal
from our decision that thus they shall
remain. cannot attempt to do jus
tice to their situation, but I can ask
you to think what they must endure
when their whole lives sleeping.
breathing. eating. must be in these
loathsome holes that they inhabit, ex-
cept when taken out for labor in the
workshops.
Small wonder, then. that the hospital
has needed and received large add-
| tional building within tn past few
years. This hospital. itself. the
| most probable place for originating
and propagating the germs of disease,
is right in the midst of the close, con-
| fined court yard, into which the door
and transom of every cell opens for
| its only chance of fresh air,
No wonder that men can die in such
place so easily. No wonder that so
many come out from there. broken
| down in health and spirits. when they
entered it strong, active men. I heard
one of our most prominent citizens say
! that Virginia might blush beside ST.
| bera. If her prisons We're compared. I
| heard one of the leading citizens of the
| United States say, after he had visited
| our penitentiary that it was the most
| dreadful place he had ever seen on
| earth, or words to that effect.
| Another horrible result of the crowd
! ing system is this: Numbers of com
paratively innocent, inexperienced
| young men. locked in. for perhaps q
| comparatively light offence. are forced
| inexorably into closest contact with
! desperate hardened Williams. to be ia
| miiiarized with degradation and vice
| that no decent being can even mention:
| which vice cannot be banished while
a mass Of crminality is thus packed
| hopelessly together. 4 comparatively
| innocent. and altogether unvicious
youth can thus be ruined forever by
| being sent TO our state prison as 1t is
| at present.
Go to Maryland Pennsylvania. al
most to any northern or western state.
and see the large; ventilated whole
some buildings. the cells in which one
or, at most. two prisoners are confined:
then come home 20 our boosted com
| monwealth and see the dreadful. abiect
condition of misery. IN which you and
I keep our helpless wards. and then.
my brother, I think YOU Will he ready
TO go 70 your member of the leg.sla-
ture and tell him that unless he tries