NOTES.
An autobus has been installed to carry prisoners from New York City to Sing Sing prison. This will do away with the necessity of marching prisoners from the station at Ossining to the prison, a distance of about half mile. The prison is thirty miles from New York.
A hospital for tubercular convicts is to be established at the Maryland State Penitentiary, an appropriation of $35,000 having been made by the legislature. A prison school is also having excellent success.
Prison contracts are to be continued “indefinitely” in the New Jersey State prison, according to the Bayonne, N. J., Review of July 2d, because there are not sufficient funds for the installation of the State-use system. About 1,500 convicts are employed at the prison. Were the contracts permitted to lapse, the prisoners would be idle.
The county commissioners of Beaufort county, N. C., have voted that convicts on the county roads may be whipped. “The superintendent shall keep in his possession a lash 18 inches long, attached to a stick 18 inches long and not more than two inches in diameter, and said lash may split three times half-way from the end,” according to the resolution. No convict may be whipped more than once during two consecutive days, shall not receive more than 25 lashes at one whipping, and must not be beaten on the neck or head. (We append these details, because relics of barbarism should also be recorded in the Delinquent. Ed).
Out of a total of 1,478 prisoners confined in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania 1,008 have signed a petition which will be submitted to the next legislature asking Statewide prohibition.
The old State prison at Stillwater, Minn, was practically abandoned on July 31st, when the last shoe contract expired. Hereafter all work at the Stillwater (new) prison will be done for the State.
During July some riots of considerable seriousness occurred on Blackwell’s Island, New York City. Indictments for assault in the second degree have now been returned against the five ringleaders in the riots at the Penitentiary on July 8th. A maximum sentence of five years is attached to conviction.