Volume 142, Page 1916 View pdf image (33K) |
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1868.] OF THE SENATE. 505 The numbers employed under contract at mechanical labor were divided as follows ; At broom and cedar and oak ware work, 71 white males, and 57 colored males. Total, 128. At manufacturing of cabinet ware, 57 white males, and 34 black males. Total, 91. At tin can work, 30 white males, and 26 black males. Total, 56. At shoemaking, 29 white males., and 6 black males. To- tal, 35. Making the gross number of white males 187, and the gross number of black males 123. There are, also, under contract at paper match-box mak- ing 40 colored females. Total engaged under contract, 250 persons. With the exception of those engaged in washing, cleaning up and cooking, the balance have no work to per- form, and hence are a "dead expense" to the State. It is gratifying to be able to say, that the comfortable and cleanly clothing of the prisoners, the bed and bedding, ap- pointments of the dormitories of the prison, the general ap- pearance of the grounds, and the workshop departments, all evidence the most faithful and effective management upon the part of those charged with conducting the institu- tion. Such, however, has been the very great increase of prison- ers for the last two years, that it has produced a truly lamen- table deficiency of sleeping room. The accommodations in this respect are not more than ample for the comfort of four hundred. There are but 320 single cells or rooms in the eastern dormitory, and 64 of these should not, with a due regard for the physical condition of the convicts, be occupied for sleeping apartments. In the old or west wing of the prison, the sleeping apartments are much larger than those of the east wing, and might, if space was the only desidera- tum, accommodate four persons to each room. These are now occupied by nine ro each apartment, which is much be- yond their proper capacity. This is objectionable, not only on the score ofthe health ofthe occupants, but it is to be re- gretted, because in the contact of numbers it opens the door for plots and contrivances for prison escapes, and becomes a school-house in the teaching of crime, and by familiar reci- tals of offenses, places upon the horrid image of vice a come- lier front. Notwithstanding this expedient necessarily adopted for the want of room, the Warden has been compelled to sleep in a single room (measuring less than fifty feet each way) one hundred and sixty colored male prisoners. In such 33 |
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Volume 142, Page 1916 View pdf image (33K) |
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