Sunday Washington globe., 1902-02-02
PART III
FoRTIETH PAPER.

Occupation is the mission of man. and If
he is shut up where he cannot work, those
who are responsible commit crime against
nature The condition of the idle-nOuses
before the present administration began
was such as to excite discussion in the press
throughout the state. More than half the
prison population were doing nothing and
a thousand men were crowded together in
the idle-houses to watch the knots and
count the nail-heads in the plaDks of the
flooring, TO trace strange goblins in the
devious cracks on the whitewash of the
walls, to scan their companions hopeless
faces and try to read their biographies in
the wrinkles upon them, to ponder over
their condition, to recall incidents in their
past, to scheme future enterprises, to frame
plans for subsequent burglaries and larce-
nies, to imagine sensual pleasures to revel
in unholy recollections, to waste their
bodies in constrained postures, to rest their
souls into rust, to mediate into Madness to
reflect upon the condition of their families,
left destitute, and then rise and run amuck
and be carried raging to the asylum.
Papers all over the country suggested
remedies, but there was and is only one
remedy--a remedy prescribed when the FIRST
man-child saw the light-work. Labor
0R7Hta giHcit and it is the only couqueror.
Reading aloud was adopted and while that
was a relief, it did noteover the evil Moth
ing can take the place of labor in the human
economy. IF man will not work, neither
shall he eat, said ancient Wisdom and
that means he shall not live if he does not
labor A thousand men were idle in 1896,
but to-day there is not an ableb bodied man
in the institution unemployed, and three
fourths Of the cripples are working. A
great change in the spirit of the idler's
dream has occurred. The idle.houses have
become workshops, and monuments to
Saint Labor are set up every hour. If only
this had been done, it would be sufficient
90 make dozen men famous.
While men harness and direct that Pc
gasus which is called electricity, its char
acteristics are not wholly understood, and
It is liable to balk or run away sometimes
unexpectedly, and as likely to do the one as
the other While the hostler who has
charge Of this fiery steed may understand as
much as any man living about the heavenly
courser, when it is about to be tried in a
new field, he is bound to be solicitOus as TO
its behavior The Fort Wayne Aternator
is the machine used in electrocutions in this
prison, and it has the apparatus necessary
AuI CAGGnlE ukAAAhE dAAos 50 AAht IL Ndu uN
put to a double use. The current is sent
direct to the annex from the machine at the
power house about one hundred and fifty
yards distant. The capacity is about four
teen ampheres, voltage twenty two hun
dred, enough to kill the largest elephant in
the world or any animal of prehistoric
times, enough to still the most wicked and
rebellious heart that ever brought pain and
murder into the social circle
Turning from dark ness to light, the peni-
tentiary is strictly in the illuminating busi-
ness The eIeCtrocution apparatus has
lighting capacity of six hundred lamps, but
the other dYnamos have, for a long time,
done all the electric lighting for the estab-
lishment and still bear the brunt of il
Those nocturnal suns the arc lights flood
the walls and grounds all night with their
white luster, while in many Of the shops
and Offices the bulbs of the incandescent
lights are numerously in evidence. The
gasworks supply every building in the
prison and furnish jet for every cell, be-
side supplyingslight for two other state in
stitutions-that of the Blind and Of the
Deaf and Dumb.
The plan of measuring adopted by the
prison administration during its frst year
has been very successful. II is not very
pleasant to be subj to the scientific
measurements invented by that ingenious
Freuchman, Bertillon, but il is a great sys-
tenn for all that and has saved the lif= of at
least one man. He was convicted of mnr
der and condemned to death bat protested
he was in a.certain prison in France under
another name at the time of the murder
His statement was true. and the Bertillon
record stepped between him and the guillo-
tine.
When you have mounted the front steps
of the hospital to get the benefit of the
Frenchman's legacy, you recall all you have
heard of il and look around you for instru-
ments Of torture.
On the wall to your left is a horizontal
scale that leads you to imagine that you are
to be strung along the wall to have your
length taken. Hard by is a perpendicular
scale against which you fancy you will have
TO be hung, heels upward, with hands
clutching at nothing. Close to that pair
of weighing scales and table upon which
lie several strange, complicated and horrible
looking instruments.
The first step in the process is a step to
the wall with bare feet, where your height,
standing, is carefully taken by the perpen-
dicular scale, against which rests a wooden
.
it being placed on your head by the opera
tor. Then he takes your sitting height,
while you are seated with your back to the
wall The height Of persons sitting varies
greatly.
Then you are made spread eagle by
standing with back to the wall and stretch
ing yonr arms to their utmost extent along
the horizontal scale. This measurement
also varies greatly among different men.
After that you lift your eyes and observe
the senior deacon Of the Bertillon approach
ing you from the south, holding in his hand
an instrument like a pair Of refined and
cultured ice hooks, with which he double
hooks your head.
1t Is called the head callipers and ac-
curately measures your brain pan. The
ends OF it wander tenderly over your bumps,
feeling for the largest and when it gets in
the right position a vernier scale upon II