Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-04-16
PRISON REPORT.

The special commission appointed
to investigate the management and
affairs Of the Vermont state pri. on at
Windsor has made its report to Gov
ernor Charles j. Bell. The report
overs the sanitary conditions Of the
prison, with regard to which num-
Der of recommendation are made,
and also number o. charges against
officers of the prison.
In considering the charges that i'm
morality existed in the prison, the
committee found the cause of this
condition in the interior construction
of the prison buildings, which afforded
no barrier between the quarters occu-
pied by female prisoners and by
female employees and the portions of
the buildings occupied by the guards
These arrangements are strongly con-
demned, and specific alterations are
recommended which will more thor
oughly isolate the women inhabitants
of the prison.
Concerning Miss Durkee, the ma
iron, the only criticism of the COM
mission was upon her employment of
her 16year- niece, Miss Kimball,
as assistant matron and the intrust-
ing to so young person of such re-
sponsibility as often came within the
province of the assistant.
The charges against ex-Supt. Cakes
to the effect that he had diverted
prison supplies to his own use are
considered in the report and the COM
mission finds that the superintendent
was just fed in whatever appropria-
tons of this Kind he had made, ex-
oept in tie case # as use of the state
telephone, for which, the report de-
CT res, he should have paid an amount
aggregatipg So or Sc during his term.
The commission finds that upon the
whole, Mr.. Cakes conducted the affairs
of the institution conscientiously and
economically, but that in the latter
years of his administration he lacked
the activity, diligence and care that
his, flee demanded, and that he
trusted too much to his subordinates.
During his term of Office only two
prisoners escaped, one of whom was
recaptured, while the other was con-
victed and executed in a neighboring
state.
Of E. D. Harpin, warden from Oc-
tober 4, 1889, to March 7, 1905, the re-
port says:
"Mr. Harpin was good discipline
rian and an efficient warden, but his
personal conduct in and outside the
prison was of character that can not
be too severely censured."
Wilson s. Lowell, superintendent
since March, 1905, is commended for
his business like methods and his dis
| cipline. The commission finds "great
lack of judgment on his part' in con-
nection with his admitting Miss Batch
elder, reporter, to interview Mary
Rogers; in his conduct in the case of
of Mary Rogers heard before Judge
Wheeler at Brattleboro, and in his
accepting service of process in con-
nection with the Mary Rogers case,
(which conduct" says the report,
chad it not come to the attention of
the attorney general, would probably
have resulted in again postponing the
execution of Mary Rogers" Mr..
Lowell is also censured for his failure
to recapture an escaped prisoner
named Clarke.
The charges against Harold Harpin,
son of ex- Warden Harpin, in connec-
ton with the Mary Rogers case the
com mission finds untrue.
Included in the report is a recon-
mendation that the present prison
uniform of red and black be ex-
changed fer one of solid gray. The
present uniform, the report declares,
sis very uncomfortable in summer
and at all times looks repulsive and
degrading"
In closing, the com mission says,
1--WE are pleased to report that we
| find no evidence whatever of graft or
dishonesty in the management OF the
financial affairs of the PRISON.
| THE CHRISTIAN churches at CONSTANT