Year: 1879

THE CASE MIDE OUT,


The evidence in the charges of cruelty at
the State Prison was concluded yesterday,
and the committee will meet again Tuesday
to consider the report. The charges have
been fully sustained, and as in the matter of
Belts, at the Insane Asylum, the remedy
should follow, as it did not in that case. The
testimony relative to cruelty ecessarily came
from those who had been inmates of the in
st.tution. There was no other source from
which it was obtainable, but it has been so
uniform and corroborating that it bears in
ternal evidence of being strictly true. There
was great difficulty in producing this evi-
dence, because, no matter how hardened
man may be, he does not care to publicly
advertise himself as criminal OF as having
been one. Some of the most important
witnesses kept out of the way on this very
account and the sergeant-at- arms was unable
to subpoena them.


AS a matter of course, the testimony of
men who have been in prison is declared by
the ring TO be unworthy Of credence. This
is the only basis of defence made by the
ring. They deny the statements made, and
say that they come from men of bad charac-
ter as evidenced by the fact that they were
sent to the penitentiary. Because man is
sent to the State prison he does not cease to
be human being, and if inhumanly
treated he is capable of suffering
and his evidence should not be presumed to
be necessarily false. The testimony of
all those who have been released, is uniform
in regard to the cruelty. It was the sheerest
farce to question convicts now in prison, for
not ons would dare to allegs any brutality,
unless his sentence had about expired. The
committee called number of convicts who
are sen fenced for life-the very men of all
of being punished for their evidence, as there
is no release in store for them save by par
don or escape. The only witness now in
prison who testified to the cruelty, was the
prisoner who will be released next week.


But if any doubt of the cruelty existed, it
would have been dispelled by the evidence of
Deputy Warden Hall, given yesterday. He
slibly described how he hung a convict up
by the wrists and left him hanging during
the entire night. That confession, uttered
with the utmost self-complacency, stamps
the brutal character of the man. His ac-
count of knocking prisoner down three or
four times also shows the character
of the man. His plea that it was neces-
sary for the purposes of discipline to
hang a man up by the wrists for the
entire night is false on the face of it. No
such barbarism is an essential to preserve
order. We can see where in case Of mutiny
in prison, it may be necessary to shoot
men dead and such acts are perfectly justifi-
able, but inhuman torture is another matter
Hall testifes that he found but two dungeons
in the prison, and that he had more made at
once and had plenty of use for them. He
admits that his discipline produced terror
ism in the prison and we'll it might. His
own statement stamps him as brutal, pas
slonate man, entirely unfit to be placed in
despotic command over any class of men.
1t is no wonder that prisoners who are still
IN his clutches trembled when brought be-
fore the committee and declined to com
plain.


Though fully authorized to 20 into the
financial management of the institution, the
committee have strangely ignored that branch
of the work.