Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1876 — An English Prison as an Abode of Luxury. [ARTICLE]

An English Prison as an Abode of Luxury.

Through the massive portal 4 of the outer gate we have come, and, entering into the jail through that handsome door in the iron railing that closes the inside entrance, we find ourselves in a building in which three or more wings converge to the center hall. Each wing is divided into three stories. Along each story runs a light iron gallery which you can gain by mounting that ornamental circular stair running from top to bottom. Above, large glass skylights give ample light and ventilation. Everything is light, airy and cheerful. The brasses shine as only in jails and men-of-war. Here is a man making a pair of boots, and seemingly rather comfortable and happv. He has been twenty times committed for drunkenness. He is only a drunkard, so we may feel a certain amount of satisfaction that he is not very miserable. What a difference for him is his time spent in jail from the interval freedom. Here he works between six and seven hours a day, and out of his earnings he receives an allowance larger than ever was left him by the public-house when at home. Around him everything is exquisitely clean. His cell is boarded, and measures twelve feet by seven. It is ten feet high, and lit and ventilated in the most perfect manner. On his shell are his dish for porridge, and tins bright as silver for soup and milk. A clean ham mock, in which you flight sleep comloitably, is neatly folded and hung against the wall. In a Corner is a basin with water laid on, ill which lie can wash himself if he chooses. In winter the apartment is kept at a comfortable temperature by hotair pipes and a gas-burner diffuses a cheerful light iu the long winter evenings. Shouid hel'eel ill, lie pulls a bell-handle, on which a gong sounds in llie center hall and from his door the number of his cell starts out; and no millionaire at Claridge's is half so punctually answered as he is by the turnkey on guard, who inquires into his wants, and if necessary a doctor is at his bedside long ere tiie Union doctor could be found and persuaded to visit him were lie ai home. As he seems a quiet fellow we do not feel much regret that he has had the good fortune to become an habitual drunkard; but wliat shall we say to the occupant of the adjoining—well, cell? Here a burly ruffian is engaged in making mats. The work is pleasant; the cell a sac simile of the one described; and if we listen to the details of the crime for which he is undergoing two months’ j “ punishment” we cannot help contrasri&g his pleasant lot with the squalor and misery of his lazy, idle, polluted life outside, and feeling that in so punishing a ruffian for a brutal assault upon a woman humanitarianism has become a crime, and set up in our jhils a temptation to idle rascals to "come in and be happy,” against which it would require a large amount of abstract morality to struggle.— Belgravia.