Prison wall

“ Yes. We turned into a street which runs down toward the prison. On one side are small houses, on the other the long wall of the Government quarries. The street was empty; only now and then—very seldom—some one passed along it. On the top of the wall, there were sentry-boxes built at intervals, for the warders to overlook the convicts. ”

“ No escape has taken place since the days of Paddy McGraw, before the completion of the prison. Entirely new methods must be tried: the road to freedom leads underground! But digging out of the prison is impracticable in the modern structure of steel and rock. We must force a passage into the prison: the tunnel is to be dug from the outside! A house is to be rented in the neighborhood of the penitentiary, and the underground passage excavated beneath the eastern wall, toward the adjacent bath-house. ”

“ It is small, of course; and the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or minute of the night. Every day, the prisoners receive their dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall; and each man carries his to his sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up, alone, for that purpose, one hour. The whole of this arrangement struck me as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison we erect in England may be built on this plan. ”

“ For most men in a brazen prison live,
Where, in the sun's hot eye,
With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
Their lives to some unmeaning task-work give,
Dreaming of naught beyond their prison-wall. ”

“ It is perched, like a bird of ill omen, on a rocky ledge, where all might see it in passing over the high-road. Thus, in the early day, the traveler on entering the county town encountered, first, the stocks and whipping-post; continuing his route, he in due time came to the gallows, at the town's end. The exterior of the jail is not especially repulsive, now that it is no longer a prison; but the inside is a relic of barbarism—just such a place as I have often imagined the miserable witchcraft prisoners might have been confined in. The back wall is of stone. ”

“ The jail is admirably situated for the purpose of performing the operation of breaking a man’s spirit; for it has on one side the death chamber, and on the other the prison dynamo with its ceaseless grinding, night and day. It is a vaulted stone dungeon about fifty feet long and twenty wide. It is absolutely bare except for one wooden bench along the north end, a locker where the jail clothes are kept, and eight cells arranged in a row along the east wall and backing on the wall of the death chamber. The eight cells are of solid sheet iron ”

“ It is evident that there must have been some regulation as to who, from among the prisoners, should be admitted from each quadrangle. It is certain that the gates of the quadrangle were not thrown open for the whole of the 5,000 or 6,000 to go to the market, and it is probable that certain trusted individuals, delegates from each prison, were marched under guard across the turnkeys’ court, out on to the road between the squares, to the east gate, through which they passed into the prison market held in the space formed by the embrasure of the great outer wall. ”

“ But, looking back, you see the great high wall of the prison, and remember that the little spot in the prison yard and the sky overhead is all the glimpse of the world that these poor men get, and, no doubt, is all that some of them ever will get, for some of them are shut in there for life. ”

“ There is always a keeper in every shop while the prisoners are at work, and he is armed with a sword. A guard is placed on the wall during the day, armed with a gun, loaded with a ball and buck shot; and at night there is one in the entrance of the prison to prevent escapes.
Such is the general history of the prison up to 1830, when a new prison, on the plan of solitary confinement, was erected. This contains about one hundred and seventy small cells, in which the prisoners are confined separately during the night. ”

“ The floors, walls and roofs of the entire prison are of Cuban stone and are “sluiced” twice a day. The “dormitories” are large, airy casemates and both ends are covered by steel bars which make a window fifteen feet square. A continuous sea breeze blows through them. The berths or bunks extend in one tier on each side of the casemate and are made to fold up against the wall. The “bed clothes” consist of two duck sheets and a blanket for cool weather, which are changed twice a week. A row of shower baths completes the furniture and the inmates are required to take at least two baths a day. ”

“ It seems pitiful that hardened criminals should have such opportunity to corrupt the minds of the young or of those who have committed their first offense under peculiar circumstances of temptation. Those prisons which are constructed with the cells back to back, with door opening into a corridor toward the outside wall of the building, admit more readily of the separation of the various classes of criminals. ”

“ All our prison buildings hitherto erected are hid from the sight by the high boundary wall that encloses them, producing nothing interesting to the citizen or the traveller but a monotonous façade. Mr. ”

“ Most of the colored prisoners, and those accustomed to outdoor life, such as farmers and the like, quickly develop the germs of consumption in close confinement. Now, this willful murder -- for it is nothing else -- is absolutely unnecessary. The yard is big and well protected by the thirty-foot wall, with armed guards patrolling it. Why not give the unemployed men air and exercise, since the management is determined to keep them idle? ”

“ The model corresponds in its main features with the plans which I have enumerated. It is on a large scale, beautifully executed, and its p. 20production must have required months of hard work. It is the only plan, or model, which shows a prisoners’ theatre in the centre of the south-east quadrangle.
M. Foulley’s model is incorrect in certain details. It represents the prison wall as quadrilateral inclosing a square, instead of an octagonal space. It omits the large and deep embrasures, in the recesses of which each of the four gates of the prison stood. ”

“ Sometimes the little prison was empty, and then again every cell would be occupied, but in a week I generally saw from thirty to fifty inmates. Mature men predominated, but women and boys were also to be found. The women were invariably separated from the men by at least a cell wall, but the boys, and I saw some not over ten years old, were thrown in with the most hardened criminals. They were allowed to pass about among the men in the lock-up corridor, and at night were shut up with them in the cells. ”

“ This is a cell in one of the oldest parts of the prison. It has a concrete floor and plastered walls and ceiling, and looks clean. From my grated door, being on the second tier, I can see diagonally out of four heavily barred windows in the outer wall, looking across about ten feet, over the open space which drops to the stone corridor below, and rises to the highest galleries. Through the two lower windows I catch glimpses of the ground, through the two upper, of leaves and branches and the sky. The daylight in the cell is enough at the present moment to read and write by, but none too good. ”

“ In the new prison, walls for all prisoners are regarded as monstrous things. The old prison drove men like brutes to work and often to mutiny. The new prison blows the whistle at noon, and the men come in from all over the farm to dinner, and go to their rooms or to the dormitories afterward for a short rest, and then back to normal work. The old prison—and there are many of them still—believed in squeezing the life blood out of the prisoners for the benefit of the State and of private contractors. The new prison believes in the working of the men for State profit, if for profit at all. ”

“ There are also to be built dormitories for trusties and semi-trusties, cell-blocks for the least tractable, kitchens, dining rooms, a chapel, women’s industrial building, school building and a greenhouse, all within a high wall inclosing eleven acres. The present intention is that the buildings and wall shall be constructed by the labor of inmates. Unfortunately there are no funds in sight to proceed with this construction.
All commitments are made to the original workhouse in the city. There the women remain, but about two fifths of the men are transferred to the correction farm. ”

“ As to the hole made in the wall, we believe the causes and reasons have been already sufficiently explained by the affidavits laid before the public. With respect to the prisoners being between the iron paling and the wall, it could have been, if it was not, easily explained to Mr. King, had he given an opportunity. It seems, that on the afternoon of the 6th, some of the prisoners having obtained leave of the sentinels on the walls to go over and lay upon the grass, others seeing them laying so much at their ease, went over to enjoy the same privilege ”

“ In the present great demand for prison-room these are held to afford ample accommodation for a little crowd of twenty persons. Their one window is so high in the wall, that the wretched men who are shut in here are obliged to mount by turns on each other's shoulders, to obtain a breath of air. ”

“ As my [Pg 45] officer has not come back, and does not do so for some time, there is an opportunity to practice what is apparently the most necessary virtue of prison life—patience. I take my place along the wall with the other convicts and watch for a chance to open a whispered conversation. From where I stand I can look up a short flight of steps into the front room of the hospital, where there are a number of men moving about ”

“ There is nothing to prevent spirits being smuggled in after dark through the prison windows. And the men do get rum, and drunkenness is a common offence. Prisoners may work outside prison walls; but I remember no other prison that is not within walls—that looks from open windows on to open roads, as is here the case. ”

“ The prisoners themselves were scattered by the thousand over their exercise yards, with red-coats stationed upon the inner wall around them. At one point outside the War Prison a large building arose and, guarded by the soldiery, a crowd of men laboured upon it.
"They are making a church," explained Grace. "The French build and the Americans do the carving and the woodwork inside. 'Tis to be dedicated to St. ”

“ There, prison'd in a parlour snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall,
The man of business and his friends compress'd
Forget their labours, and yet find no rest; ”

“ The prisoner’s quarters are in the wings, which extend from either side of the keeper’s quarters. In the gloomy office, men with that indescribable prison air all such officials bear, lounge about, and come and go on business. There is iron everywhere, from the huge bolts on the outer doors, and the door inside of them, to the barred windows and other doors beyond number, that open and shut with a sullen clangor that goes echoing through the stone passages as if it would never die away. The smell of the jail is as powerful in its way as these evidences of its actual strength. ”

“ A prison under ground is something awful to contemplate. Whose hair does not stand on end at the thought of possible confinement in a dark, damp, cold stone prison-house, with rusty-hinged or even sealed doors, where no window opens to the light of day ”

“ Our allowance of food was small and coarse, but our room was the best in the jail—neat and spacious, and with nothing about it necessarily reminding us of being in prison, but its heavy locks and bolts and the black, iron lattice-work at the windows. We were prisoners of state, compared with most slaves who are put into that Easton jail. But the place was not one of contentment. Bolts, bars and grated windows are not acceptable to freedom-loving people of any color. ”

“ Through the thick drizzle of the early morning the convicts were marched in gangs to their daily tasks, some to build new walls within the prison precincts, some to break stone in the round yard, encircled by enormous iron railings fifteen feet high, some to the great kitchen of the prison and to the different workshops. ”

“ The furniture of each consists of a wooden bench, to serve as a bed—​though it is a hard one—​and a night utensil; and the flooring is of stone.
There are two doors on each cell. When shut, they not only exclude a single beam of light, but do not admit the slightest sound.
The deputy-governor remarked—
“There are very few punishments inflicted in this prison. Sometimes the prisoners infringe the prison rules by insolence to their officers or making away with their oakum instead of picking it. We have only had two persons in the dark cells for the past two years.” ”

“ The measured beat grows fainter and dies with the hollow thud of the last footfall, behind the closed double door leading into the prison yard. The pall of silence descends upon the cellhouse. I feel utterly alone, deserted and forsaken amid the towering pile of stone and iron. ”

“ It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely situated building on a hill, made of concrete, with an attap roof. The whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and eight warders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the scavengers' cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every morning! ”

“ A cheerier atmosphere pervades the shops and the cell-house in the summer. The block is airier and lighter; the guards relax their stern look, in anticipation of their vacations; the men hopefully count the hours till their approaching freedom, and the gates open daily to release some one going back to the world.
But heavy gloom broods over the prison in winter. The windows are closed and nailed; the vitiated air, artificially heated, is suffocating with dryness. Smoke darkens the shops, and the cells are in constant dusk. Tasks grow heavier, the punishments more severe. ”