Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1884 — The Skill of Prisoners. [ARTICLE]

The Skill of Prisoners.

“There is a great difference in the mechanical skill of prisoners,” remarked a gentleman interested in a firm which contracts for the labor of tbe prisoners at Wethersfield. The convicts aro employed daily upon machinesfor making shoes and as I say there’s a great difference among them.” “In what respect ?” “Well, a long term man, one who has been sentenced for a series of years, goes to his work with eagerness, and seeks by constant and hard labor to make the his confinement pass by as rapidly as possible. By this means his mind is kept free from disagreeable thoughts, and by night the work he has accomplished during the sunlight enables him to rest easy. On the other hand the ‘short term' men, such as tramps and others sentenced for minor offenses, pay but little attention to their work, and pass their days in fretting and longing for their release, If it could be helped I wouldn’t give much for the average ‘short termer.’ “What class of prisoners are the best workers ? The burglars especially those who have been engaged in robbing safes —are by all odds the best. It seems a queer thing to say, but I am always pleased when a bank burglar is sentenced to State Prison. lam quite sure then that he will be a good workman. Four bank burglars were recently sentenced from Fairfield County. I am now on /the lookout for their arrival”—Hartford, ( Conn.) Post,

t: A mother had taught her little girl to pray for her father. Suddenly the father was Removed by death. Kneeling in her sorrow at her mother’s .side at evening, the child hesitated, her voice faltered, and glancing into hex mother's eyes she sobbed* “O mother, I canned * leave him all out Let me say, ‘Thank God I had a father once,’ so I can keep him in my prayers.” . . The following ages have, on the authority of skilled arboriculturists, been - attained by trees: Year, 3,200 years; schubertia, 3,000; cedar, 2,000; oak, 1,500; spruce, 1,200; lime, 1,100; Oriental plane, 1,000; walnut, 900; olive and cypress, 800; orange, 630; maple, 500; e1pi,.300;" • -