Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1883 — Ont at the Elba. [ARTICLE]

Ont at the Elba.

Seven hundred convicts of the most wicked criminals of all Italy are. confined at the Bazno on the Island of Elba. Passanate, the would-be murderer of King Humbert, is imprisoned there for life. Admission to his cell is strictly prohibited. The convicts live in cells which have a double pavement of bricks, on which the prisoners sleep, attached to the floor by a long chain which unites the whole bad company. Of the entire lot there are only two who save money and send it to their families, although their opportunities are fair to make good earnings, in wellaired workshops, where 300 convicts are making carriages, furniture, stoves, carpets, nails and locks. Highway robbers wear yellow and black jackets, murderers black opes and thieves yellow clothes. Chained men in the wards, grim looking and lazy, drag themselves to and fro between the iron gates, like wild beasts waiting for feeding time. Whenevef one of the convicts is suspected by his comrades of being a spy, his fate is sealed, and if Hot removed in time, he is sure to be strangled. — Exclt ange.