The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-30
How Alabama Cares
 for Its Convict Laborers

Is there any place above or below earth in which a negro can't sleep?
 This question rose naturally. anf spontaneously in our minds as we stoot at the mouth of slope number 10, Prat Mines. The mouth of the mines was black hole six feet big. About II above the earth and in the sunshine the ground was white and clean. I'm dirt, the confusion, the disorderec works which one would expect to find were nowhere to be seen. About the dark hole all was as clean as a child playground.
 But through into the dark mouth ran a wire cable, on one side and out or the mine ran the wire cable on the other side. It was the same cable, an eno- less chain four miles long. two mites into the mine and two miles out strong engine outside puffed and pui!- ed steadily at the endless cable. It came around and around like the chain of an old-fashioned pump. II was very like chain pump, one Of the oid sort, fitted up with little cups, fast ened at regular intervals. And when the old pump was set to work the chain went around and around and tne little cups came up with successive cargoes of water and as the cups reached the mouth of the pump they tilted over and their cargoes flowed into the waiting buckets.
 And for cups on this endless wire rope four miles in extont, there were fastened at regular intervals, short. deep cars filled with the coal that ca:.1.e from the bowels of the earth. And the cars came around and around like the old cup trimmed pump chain and like the cups. the cars automatically emp tied their contents into a huge coal tipple.
 In a never ending procession the cars followed the endless cable out of the dark mouth and having been emptied they slid back into the subterranean darkness. On each of these cars load cd to the level with coal lay a negro convict sprawied out and sound asleep Now and then a white convict rode out on car of coal, but he came forth from the subterranean depths alert and with wide-open eyes. But the negroes sprawled up on the coal slipped ipto the daylight as sound asleep as If they were lying upon their cots.
 wakened fin Garish Lght.
 A negro trusty stood at the mouth of the mine guiding the cars and watch- ing for hitch in the machinery out side the mine. As each car reached the daylight he would call out, '.Hipe,' and the sleeping convict would sit up rub his grimy face and blink at the garish sunlight. as 1t fell upon his eyes which for eight hours had seen nothing but darkness.
 It was o'clock in the afternoon The sun was still high in the heavens These men gliding out of the dark and fathomless hole had finished their days task. The days work that society was demanding from each of them had been done, one days part of the expfation of their crime had been paid The re- ma aitaxt Of kA la. in rest and fin conversation with their fellow unfortunates. The State which was regulating the penance they owed for their offense was no slave driver no tyrant. It was insisting upon that which. each convict each day should pay the forfeit of eight hours labor in the mines for his crimes against society. But he was not be worked beyond his ability, he was not to be forced beyond his power. The eight hours over his days work was over.
 The mouth of the mines, the open ing of the slope, out of which the con victs rode was surrounded by the stockade and that stockade was as clean as a careful housekeepers' kitch- en. The rim of the stockade was a great tall board fence, perhaps fif- teen feet high. Here and there, 1t was surmounted this wooden wall with little one room structure. not unlike pigeon house. Each of these houses had big windows on each of its four sides. Within each house there sat a guard with a loaded gun. The convicts were treated with bu- manity, but there must be no chance for escape.
 There is cleanliness, cleanliness everywhere in this big convict camp. From white washed fence to white wash fence fhara which careful housekeeper could make just complaint Look fo- in- stance at the blinking convicts un- loaded from the coal cars and the course they take when they gre un- loaded into daylight. They are not a pretty looking set. them. They have been down in the darkness digging and lifting among the oUal dust. They come forth wearing a dirty greasy can ornamented with a miners little lamp burning dimly garish in the sunlight. Their clothes are covered with coal dust and worn, but these are their working clothes. they are for use on ly in the mines. suit of clean clothes is waiting each convict in the path house. They are stripes, of course, these clothes. but they are clean
 And one large building is fitted m with waterworks and a series of inn mense big tubs. A couple of convicts have been busy in the bath room pre- pairing for the thrush of coal covered miners. Fresh from the mine and grime besmirched convicts make a break for the bath room. There each one or them. white and black, wash way the stains of the mine work and clothe themselves in the clean suit of stripes. .4-@+ '--.:s
 No Mixing of Races.
 The bath room is cut in two. for a white apartment and a colored anart- ment' For in the convict camp here as elsewhere in Alabama no mixing of me races is allowed. This bath room Is put to use every day No convict is permitted to return to the sleeping quarters or to have a seat in the dim ing room until he has doffed the old clothes, had a bath and invested him. self In dry, clean clothing This fea ture of convict life here at Pratt Mines is emphasized first, for the purpose of indicating the absolute cleanly condi- ton of the camp, and, second to re- fleet the careful sanitary precautions that are required of the men, whom society has sequestrated for crimes committed against society.
 Over against the hillside close against the fence, is another big long building It is the laundry, and it is kept industriously at work couplc Of negro convicts who have been busy washing clothes were out in the yard hanging them on long lines to dry out in the October sun.
 The dining room Is scrupulouslv as the white dining room Where q great many mon ara fad y,,ho.t.,, ;