Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1875 — Inhuman Severity. [ARTICLE]

Inhuman Severity.

days ago I wanted to hire a man to wheel half a dozen loads of rubbish out of my garden, and after looking around for a while I found a seedy chap sitting on the end of the wharf fishing through a hole in the ice.’ When 1 asked him if he would attend to the job, he replied thus: “I really can’t. I’m sorry,hut the fact is, I’m in jail for six months for larceny. Sentenced last December, I don’t mind it much, only they don’t act honest with me up yer at the jail. The first week 1 was there Mrs. Murphy—she’s the keeper’s wife—wanted to kinder clean up, and so she rousted me out, and I had to hang round sorter homeless for more’n a week. Then, just as I was gittin’ settled agin comfortably, the provisions run short, and so Murphy tried to borrer money of me to feed the convicts, and as I hadn’t none to lend out I had to go agin. In about two weeks I started in fresh, and got everything snug and Cheerful, when Murphy’s aunt stepped out. Then what did that inconsiderate asS do but chock me out agin and lock up the jail, and put crape on the doorhandle, while he skeeted off to the funeral. “ So, of course, I had to browse around, huntin’ up fodder where I could git it, sometimes nibblin’ somethin’ at the tavern, and other times takin’ tea with a friend. Well, sir, hardly was that ridicklous old woman unloaded into the sepulcher, and me once more in the cell, with the home-likp feelin’ beginnin’ to creep over me, but Murphy he says he and his wife’s got to go up to the city to git a hired girl; and when I refused to quit Murphy grabbed me by the collar and rammed me into the. street, and said he’d sick his dog on me if I came ratin’ around there, makin a fuss. “I hung about for a few days, and then I went Jo the jail. The boy said Murphy hadn’t got back, an I’d have Jo call ag’in. Next time I applied the boy hollered from the window that he was ‘engaged,’ and couldn’t see me. Murphy was still rummagin’ for that hired girl. I went there eight times, and there was always some jackass of an excuse for crowdin’ me out, and I don’t know if I’ll ever git in agin. Night afore last I busted a window with a brick, and tried to crawl in through the hole, but the boy fired a gun at me, and, said if I’d just wait till Mr. Murphy came back he’d have me arrested for burglary. “Now I think I’ve been treated scandalous bad. I’ve got a right in that jail, and it’s pretty mean in a man like Murphy to shove me off in weather like this, and I’m bound to live six months in the prison some time or other, whether he likes it or not. I don’t mind puttin’ myself to some trouble to oblige a friend, but I hatC like thunder to be iihposedon.

“ ’Pears to me it’s no way to run a penal institution anyway. There’s Potts; he’s in jail for perjury for nine years, and Murphy’s actually shook that convict out so often and made him shin ’round after his vittals that Potts has lost heart, and has gone to canvassin’ for a life insurance company; gone to preambulatin’ all over the county tryin’ to do a little somethin’ to keep clothes on his back, when he ought to be layin’ serenely in that jail. But I ain’t goin’ to do that. If the law keeps me in custody it’s got to support me, and that’s what Williamson says too. Ketch him worktn’ for his livin’. He’s in for four years for assault and battery; and when they boost him out of the jail he puts up at the hotel, and nas th e bills sent into Murphy. “Murphy don’t have consideration for the prisoners anyway. You know he raises fowls in the jail yard, and just after Christmas he had a big lot of turkeys left on his hands, and, do you believe, that man actually kept feedin’ us on those turkeys for more than a month! Positively refused to allow us anything else until they was gone. It was fiendish. I had half a notion to quit for good. I was just disgusted. And Williamson said if that was the way they were goin’ to treat convicts, why, civilization was a failure. All through Lent, too, wouldn’t allow us an oyster; keep stuffin’ us with beef and such trash, although Potts said he’d never been used to such wickedness, for his parents was very particular. Wouldn’t even give us fish-balls twice a week. But what does Murphy care? He’s perfectly enthusiastic when he kin tread on a man’s feelin’s, and stamp ail the moral sensibility out of him. “And Mrs. Murphy, she’s not much better. All the warm days she’s home she hustles that baby of .hem on to me. Makes me take the squallin’little sucklin’ out in his carriage for an airin’, and then gits mad if he falls out while I’m conversin’ for a few minutes with a friend! I’d a slid him into the river long ago, only I know well enough they’d sentence me for life, and then I’d maybe have to stand Murphy’s persecutin’ for about forty years; and that’d kill me. It would just slay me. It would, indeed. He’s so inconsiderate. “ He used to give me the key of the jail tor keep while he’d go over to Barnes’ to fight roosters or to play poker, and one day I lost it. He raised an awful fuss, ana even Potts was down on me because they couldn’t keep the boys out, and they used to come in and tickle Potts with straws while he was sleepin’ in his cell. I b’lieve they expeck Murphy back day after to morrow, but I know mighty well I’m not goin’ to have much satisfaction when he does come. He’ll find some excuse for shufflin’ me out ’bout as soon as I git stowed away in my old qiiarters. If he does, I’ve got a notion to lock him out some night and run the jail myself for a while, so’s I kin have some peace. There’s such a thing as carryin’ abuses a little too far. Excuse me for a minute. I think I have a bite." Then I left to hunt for another man. I feel that the society for the alleviation of the sufferings of prisoners has a great work to perform in our town. — Max Adder, in N. Y. Weekly.