New-York tribune., 1915-02-27
By ELEANOR BOOTH SIMMONS.

! BY ELEANOR BOOTH SlMMONS.
/ Four girls who appealed for help at
/ Mrs. o. Fl. P. Belmont's free soup
/ kitchen recently told her that their
only home was a closet which they
rented together for twenty-five cents a
week, and which was so small that
! they couldn't lie down, but sat with
| their backs to the wall. in the four
corners. all night. Investigation con-
frmed this story. They were shop
girls, and the place where they worked
had shut down. They were trying hard
to get other jobs, but hadn't succeeded.
II these girls were clever they would
get themselves convicted of murder and
sentenced to the electric chair. Then
| they could live in nice house over
looking the Hudson at Ossining, with
five attendents. at a cost to the state
Of something over 5000 month. That
is the treatment accorded to Mrs.
Madeline Ferola, found guilty in the
Supreme Court in the Bronx Court
house May 10, 1914, Of killing Car
melo Conistrsle. who promised 10
marry her and then went back on his
promise.
| went up to Sing Sing this week to
see Mrs. Ferola. II was o bright sunny
day, and she was taking a constitu-
tionsl. with q guard walking on one
side and q mstron on the other, up and
down the front porch of her house. IL
is the old P. KS house (P. X. being
short for principal keeper, and stands
on the hill Just above the prison, with
the pillared porch looking down on the
prison and water beyond.
Comfort, but No Happiness.
As Mrs. Ferols walked up and down,
up and down. her eyes were fixed
always on the building which holds the
Offices Of Sing Sing, below. And
when. accompanied by Miss Madeleine
Il. Doty, the pri-on worker, and a
guard, | climbed the steps to her she
grasped my hand and clung to it and
wouldn't let it go. 1 fairly had to
wrench it away.
If "stone walls do not prison
make" front porch ard a view don't
make freedom. Maybe Mrs. Ferola
hasn't a mind to appreciate views. |
wasn't allowed 70 talk to her, but |
am told that she is an ignorant woman.
But, ignorant or enlightened, the pros
pect of the electric chair would tend
to shut out beauty, and the warden's
door, out of which some one may come
with the promise of reprieve for her,
or the touch of anybody from the out
side world is probably more to Mrs.
Ferola than all the advantages which
-, safc
her.
The state, however, is not thinking
Of Mrs. Ferolas wellbeing in giving
her such commodious quarters. The
reason for her being there is what
Warden Thomas Mott Osborne calls "a
fool law" The law is not foolish in
itself being simply a provision IN Sec
tion 49l of the Criminal Code OF the
State of New York TO the effect that
persons sentenced 20 the electric chair
must be delivered TO "the agent and
warden OF Sing Sing prison" But the
law doesn't take any account OF women.
Fool Law" Says Osborne.
Maybe the makers OF the Criminal
Code we're too gallant TO suppose that
a woman would commit a capital crime.
Most likely they just forgot that Sing
for a woman. But that is the case, and
when on May 90 an automobile contain
ing Mrs. Ferols and several keepers
arrived at Sing Sing, there was nothing
to do but TO make special provision for
her
ut is perfectly absurd" Warden os-
borne said TO me, "when you reflect
that in the womsns prison at Auburn
this woman could be cared for at an
expense Of few cents a day. The
cells are there, the guards and matrons
are there, and the only cost would be
the actual food she would consume.
$50 far Mrs. Ferola's keep has cost
;.e taxpayers $4,000, at a conservative
estimate. She has three guards, who
get 500 a month each, and two ma
irons, whose monthly salary is SIS
apiece. Then there is the lighting and
heating. For awhile q kitchen was