Year: 1875

practicable the keepers seek to repress


criminal or demoralizing "reminiscences


and communications, but comparatively


little restraint can be directly exercised


In this way under existing conditions.


The lightest punishment in use in


Clinton prison is the "yoke "a collar


of iron with three outwardly curved


prongs reaching above the head, and


weighing some fourteen pounds-which


is worn by the culprit as many hours or


days as necessity seems to demand. The


"paddle is sometimes employed upon


peculiarly refractory fellows, and it is


the experience of the keepers and guards


here that although this punishment is


never severe enough to do the prisoner


any serious injury, they never have to


paddle the same man twice. The cat


o'-nine tails" formerly used, is still kept


upon exhibition, but is said to be never


employed. Of course the murderous


and abominable dark cell, the "humani-


tarians' diabolical choice of torture, is


the heaviest penalty for serious infrac-


tlons of discipline. There are six dark


cells in this prison, two of which, at the


time Of the writer's recent visit, were


occupied by men who had been incar-


cerated there for nine days. These un-


fortunate wretches had been found in
possession of a skeleton key by which


they would have been enabled, opportu-
nifty occurring, to pass through the


kitchen, and possibly thence to escape


by scaling the stockade. They would
not tell who had made the key for them,
and were consequently doomed to con-


iinement here until they would confess.


In such cases it is the rule, when the
victim of the cell is once more able to
walk and work-he having succumbed to
the fearful pressure upon both mind and


body, and been let out in time to save
him from actual death in the celtic
trammel him with heavy ball and
chain, weighing twenty or twenty-five
pounds. which is thenceforth his con-
stant companion by both day and night,
sometimes for many months.


Not unfrequently this added infiiction
drives prisoners to the most ingenious
devices for freeing themselves from the
calling burden and to attempting the
most desperate measures for escape.
Heavy rivets fasten the strong bands of
iron about their ankles, but these they
are cunning enough to saw out and re-
place by others of lead, which may be
quickly cut through at an opportune mo-
ment, and sometimes they even saw the
anklets 80 deeply that they may easily
be broken, the cut being filed up with
bread crumbs covered with rust. Not q
little ingenuity is occasionally displayed
by the convicts in making for themselves,
from their blankets, coarse suits of
clothing resembling those of the Cana
dian woodchoppers in the neighborhood.
All such suspicious manifestations of
skill are, however, punished severely.


Every intelligent officer in the prison
coincides in the opinion that the dark
cell is, of all punishments, the most in
human and permanently injurious, while
it is at the same time the one least con-
ducive to moral reformation. They say
that it ruins the physical and blights the
mental condition of those subjected to
it. A term in the dark cell, long or
short, according to the individual
strength of the victim, inevitably re-
duces him to such q weak and abject
condition that from sheer lack of strength
or will to combat he finally succumbs,
but his submission has behind it nothing
Of moral conviction. It has come upon
him like a disease, and when he regains
his normal vigor, if he ever does, he
will be at least as bad as he ever was be-
fore. When q man is confined in the
dark cell he is allowed but gill of water
and two ounces of bread per diem, moth
ing else. This is not in itself quite so
severe a punishment as it would seem.
For the first two days he will suffer with
hunger and thirst. Then his bowels
cease to act. He becomes almost torpid,
physically, and is in a great degree I'M
conscious of the process of starvation
which is going on. He may endure
agony from thirst, for mental conditions
may supervene to bring on an intense
fever, but he is no longer hungry. The
damp, penetrating cold of his stone
coffin chills the very marrow in his
bones. His whole frame aches from con-
tact with the unyielding stones, for he
has no other bed or seat than the floor.
His lungs are poisoned and his stomach
sickened by the foul ar. Worst of all
to endure are the deathly silence and op-
pressive darkness. To him it seems as
il he were alone in a world immersed in
eternal night, and often superstition or
q too vivid imagination peoples thickly
with phantom terrors the impenetrable
gloom Again and again prisoners in
these hideous dungeons, upon being al
lowed once more to come forth, have
been seen to fall on their knees, weep
ing with JOY at sight of the light.


The ordinary prison arrangements
here are all good enough. There are
five hundred and forty ty-eight cells of fair
size, big enough to hold two men in
each if necessary. There is a chapel
capable of acc mu odating SIX hundred
persons, where once a month a priest
conducts Roman Catholic services, and
twice a month a Protestant chaplain,
whose name have mislaid, holds forth.