The Honors of Prison Life.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1644, 25 February 1886, Page 4

The Honors of Prison Life.

. • — = « . I ; There are 1500 desperate-looking "wretches at Sing Sins Prison (says an American writer). They are close shaven, clown-trodden, apparently, hopeless, and utterly discouraged. They are not allowed to speak a word to one another under the severest penalties, and they work away with a < dogged discontent that a man who has once seen them never forgets. It was rather impressive m itself to be among 1500 men for hours, and not hear a single one of their voicos. The abuses of Sing Sing have often been exposed and investigated, but there is still room for improvement. While I was there v poor round-shouldered, sallow, and unhealthy-looking convict was brought m from the iron foundry. He held a cloth, which was liberally stained with blood, to his left eye. The doctor pushed him over by the window, opened the eye, wiped out the spark with a steel instrument, and scut the man out into the yard again. His keeper ordered him off to the foundry. The convict fairly cried us he I 1 egged to be allowed to bathe his eye, .or return to his cell for an hour ; but he was sternly sent back to his work as pitiful, bloody, and unfortunate a specimen of mankind as I have ever yet seen. As prisons are generally managed, the great majority of felons emerge from them at the expiration of their terms as bad as when they entered. Seventy five per cent, of our convicts are men under 40. So when they are released, the great majority are capable of as much mischief as before, and, beng hailed as veterans by their fellows, their influence is stronger than" ever, even to the extent of hindering the administration of justice and corrupting legislation. One writer says of the Elmira Reformatory that ibis "a great educational institution, the entrance to which is through the door of crime ;'' and another who believes that the piison should be maintained as a pkcehaving an influence -for the repression of lawlessnes, asks, with sarcastic accent : " Which is the wiser policy, to let 5000 children of tender years and pliant minds run wild without instruction, and give a classical education to 500 full-grown thieves, or to educate and care for the children, and let the thieves take care of themselves ?"