Art. II.—TEXAS PENITENTIARY.
In March, 1848, the Legislature of Texas, in pursuance of a provision in the State Constitution, passed an act authorizing the Governor to appoint three Commissioners to select a location, and report the details, for the erection of a Penitentiary; the action of the Commissioners to be subject to the approval of the Governor. After careful and full consideration of the comparative advantages of the several sites offered, the town of Huntsville, the county seat of Walker county, was selected, and the selection approved.
Walker county lies just under the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and between the eighteenth and nineteenth degrees of longitude west from Washington; and the Trinity river forms its north-eastern boundary. Huntsville is very nearly the geographical centre of the county, and is about one hundred and twenty miles a little west of north from Galveston; and about one hundred and sixty miles north of west from Austin, the capital of the State. The town stands upon a low gravelly ridge, bare of trees, and with deep ravines upon three sides. Some few scattered houses, as well as Austin Collegeand the Andrew Female College, are built upon corresponding ridges, which rise on the opposite sides of these ravines. There is no extended growth of heavy timber in the immediate vicinity of the town. The approach from the east for some five or six miles, is through a sandy region covered with a dense growth of scrub oak and underbrush. Upon the west and south the country is more open, gradually merging into the rolling prairies of Grimes and Washington counties. Small streams run through the ravines and find their way into the lesser branches of the Trinity and San Jacinto rivers; but the supply of water is irregular and the ravines are often dry. The situation is a healthy one, the air pure and bracing, and the climate favorable. The town is regularly incorporated, and has from sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred inhabitants.
Upon the eastern outskirt of the town, on both sides of the main road from the lower Red River country, are the buildings and grounds of the Penitentiary. The main buildings and enclosure are upon the southern side of the road, and extend back down the slope of the ravine, with a gradual and slight descent. Upon the opposite side of the road are the storehouse and warehouse: the storehouse, which includes under the same roof the offices and residence of the Financial Agent, is sixty feet front by fifty deep, and two stories high; the warehouse is about forty feet front by fifty deep, and two stories high. The two buildings are separated from each other by an open space of some two hundred feet front; the intervening ground, together with a considerable lot in the rear extending back of the storehouse and warehouse, is mostly under cultivation as a vegetable garden for the convicts. The warehouse is used for storing the wool and cotton for the factory. In the storehouse are kept the manufactured goods for sale. The front of the Penitentiary faces north, and extends a distance of some three hundred feet directly upon the road without any intervening fence or wall. The storehouse and warehouse are immediately opposite the respective extremities of the front, the main entrance of the Penitentiary in the centre, facing the open space above mentioned. The front elevation consists of a centre building some sixty feetfront and three stories high, with two wings, each one hundred and twenty feet long and two stories high. The entire front presents one uniform extent of brick wall upon the same line for the whole distance, unbroken by any recesses or openings except the large, but plain, arched gateway in the centre and the rows of windows; and unrelieved by a single projection or attempt at ornamental or architectural display. The only thing to relieve the monotonous uniformity of the front is the additional story upon the centre building. The bricks of which all the Penitentiary buildings are built are made in the neighborhood, and are coarse and of a dingy red color.
At the main entrance, the large, solid, double leafed door, which mostly stands wide open in the day time, is stationed a guard, armed with a six-shooter in his belt, and a double-barreled shot-gun, loaded with buck-shot and ready capped, in his hands. An admission fee of twenty-five cents is charged for each visitor, and the amount received goes into the general accounts of the prison, and very nearly defrays the expense of the extra guard who is kept for the express purpose of waiting on visitors through the establishment. Any one, however, who has a higher motive than mere curiosity, and desires to examine the condition and management of the Penitentiary through an interest in the subject of prisons and prison discipline, and will make himself known to the Superintendent, will always be courteously received and every facility afforded for his inquiries and observations without charge. Passing through the archway, the visitor is admitted by the guard through the large grated iron gate which closes its inner end, into the yard of the prison. In the middle of the yard is a two story log-house, used now as the shoemaker’s shop, but built originally as a place of confinement for the convicts who were employed in the erection of the Penitentiary. The entire space enclosed within the limits of the prison walls is about three hundred feet square: the enclosure upon the northern side is formed by the front or main building; the southern side of the enclosure and the portions of the eastern and western sides adjacent thereto, are shut in by substantial brick walls; while the restof the eastern and western sides is formed by ranges of buildings connected with the main edifice. Just within the prison wall upon the southern side of the yard is the factory, a substantial building of brick, two stories high and two hundred and seventy feet long by fifty deep. Both cotton and woolen goods, chiefly of the coarser kind in demand for plantation wear, are manufactured. The establishment of the factory was authorized by the Legislature at the session of 1853 and 1854, and an appropriation made for the erection of the building, and the purchase of the necessary machinery. Carding and spinning were commenced in June, 1856, and the first loom started late in July of the same year. Steam power is used to drive the machinery, and the factory has been kept steadily in operation from the time of its commencement, the number of looms having been gradually increased as the success of the undertaking developed itself. The machinery was all made in Massachusetts.
The results of the employment of convict labor in this department of manufactures, is regarded by the Directors and officers of the Penitentiary, as a decided pecuniary success; and the Osnaburgs and woolens made here bear a high reputation throughout the State, and are undoubtedly of most excellent quality and finish.
The centre building of the front is about forty feet deep, and is occupied for the offices and residence of the Superintendent and other prison officers, except the Financial Agent. The lower story is curtailed in room by the archway passing through its entire depth, and affording access for vehicles as well as persons to the prison yard. The wings are occupied entirely for cells: these are built in three tiers one above the other from the floor (which is but slightly raised from the level of the ground) to the roof. The tiers of cells are entirely separated from the exterior walls of the building by corridors about six feet wide, which are open from the floor to the roof of the buildings; access to the cells in the second and third tiers being had from narrow galleries reached by stairways, one at the end of each wing nearest the centre building.One of the buildings upon the western side of the square is also occupied for cells arranged in similar tiers. Each cell is eight feet long by five wide, and eight feet high. The door of each is a grating of cross-barred iron, and affords the only means of ventilation and the only access for light; and as the doors are but five feet high, with the bottom edge on a level with the floor, the ventilation is necessarily imperfect. All the air is introduced from the corridors, and the windows of the corridors which open to the outer air, are small in size and not very numerous. The corridors, however, are sufficiently lighted for all ordinary purposes, except perhaps on very dark days. The interior of the cells and the walls of the corridors are kept thoroughly whitewashed. There are no water closets in the cells, but each is furnished with a movable vessel. In addition to the cot with its bedding, each cell is provided with a small table and stool, and a few have some one or two other small articles of furniture. There is no uniformity of neatness or cleanliness in the cells, the care of each being entrusted to its occupant; and beyond a certain, not very high standard, no special attention to these matters is enforced.
The buildings upon the eastern and western sides of the prison yard, afford accommodations for the cook-house or kitchen, blacksmith and wagon shops, in addition to a range of cells. The meals are all served to the prisoners in the cells—breakfast before they leave in the morning, and supper after their return at night. For dinner they are mustered from their work at the ringing of the bell at noon, marched back to their cells, and after dinner conducted again to their work. The provisions are of good quality and well cooked. The rations per day of each convict are, a pound and a half of beef, or three quarters of a pound of mess pork or bacon, and a pound and a half of corn-meal. Sometimes mutton is furnished in place of the beef, and the fresh meat is given on alternate days. To each hundred rations there are allowed six pounds of sugar, five pounds of coffee, fourteen pounds of flour, three pounds of soap, sufficient salt, vinegar and pepperfor seasoning, three gallons of molasses, eight quarts of beans or peas, and vegetables whenever they can be procured.Each convict who chews tobacco has one half plug per week furnished him.
The floors and ceilings of the cells and the roofs of the prison buildings are of wood, and a few years since the prisoners occupying three cells one over the other, made their escape by cutting through the floors and roof, and so getting down upon the outside. Since that occurrence the prisoners have been searched regularly twice a-day—once when they return to their cells for dinner, and again at supper time.
There were one hundred and eighty-two convicts in the Penitentiary at the time of our first visit, and two others were brought in on the day of our second visit. One cannot but be struck with the number of Mexicans, easily distinguishable by their dark complexions; long, straight, jet-black hair, and piercing black eyes. A very large proportion of the convicts are imprisoned for horse stealing, the most common form of larceny in this State; and which is very severely punished, the sentences ranging as high as fifteen years. There were no negroes in the prison. But very few free negroes are met with in the State; and for the higher classes of offences for which a white man or free negro would be sent to the Penitentiary, a slave is hung. The outer clothing of the convicts consists of a round jacket and pantaloons of the goods manufactured in the Penitentiary, cotton in summer and woolen in winter, with black wool hats. The jacket and pantaloons are each one-half dark and the other half light colored—the dark half of the jacket and the light half of the pantaloons being on the same side of the body, andvice versa. Osnaburg shirts, brogans, and wool socks complete the dress, each article of which bears a number corresponding with the cell occupied by the wearer; the numbers upon the articles of outer clothing being large and conspicuous.
All convicts who can read are furnished with a copy of the Bible, the Mexicans with Bibles in the Spanish language. They are also permitted to read such other religious or moralworks as the Chaplain may approve. They can have but little opportunity for reading except on Sundays, when they are confined in their cells all day, with the exception of the time of public worship. The Chaplain preaches regularly on the Sabbath twice a-day. There is no chapel or hall provided for assembling the convicts. The convicts are marched out of their cells, each bringing his stool with him, and ranged along the opposite sides of one of the long narrow corridors, in no very strict or regular order. The Chaplain stands about the middle of the corridor, while at each end are the guards fully armed; the Superintendent is also present.
By a special enactment of the Legislature, the front of the cell of any prisoner sentenced to solitary confinement for life, is painted black, and his name and sentence distinctly marked thereon. The object would seem to be to infuse a salutary dread into the minds of the other prisoners. Upon the only black-painted cell in the prison was the following inscription, in distinct white letters:William Brown, aged twenty-four years, convicted for murder in Grimes County, spring term, 1858, for which he is now suffering solitary confinement for life. Brown himself, however, was in fact at work in the factory with the other convicts! He entered the Penitentiary in May, 1859, and had been kept in close confinement in his cell,without labor, never being permitted to leave it for any purpose, until about the first of October, when his health was found to have suffered so much that, to preserve his life, he was, under a discretionary power vested in the Directors, released from the rigor of his sentence, and subjected to only the ordinary confinement of the prison. His health had since greatly improved. It is not to be wondered at that his health should decline under the strict enforcement of such a sentence. The cell in which he was confined was the same as to size, ventilation, and light as the rest; and being one of the lower tier of cells, the top of the doorway was some feet below the lower edge of the windows upon the opposite side of the corridor in the outside wall. He had even less chance for fresh air than if his cell had been in almost anyother location. It is the sight and knowledge of such instances of solitaryunemployedconfinement as this, and a wilful neglect or refusal to inform themselves upon, and recognize, the very wide distinction between the termsseparateandsolitary, that renders many persons so violently prejudiced against, and opposed to the “Separate System.”
There were but three female convicts. One was undergoing a sentence for arson, and the other two had been convicted of murder. One of these latter occupied a cell immediately under one in which her husband was suffering imprisonment, as an accomplice of his wife in the crime for which she was sentenced. She had murdered her father, to get his money. The husband of the other woman had died, in prison, but a few weeks previous to our visit. He, too, had been convicted as an accomplice of his wife; the victim of their crime being a niece of the wife, who had excited her jealousy.
Each prisoner occupies his own separate cell at night and during meal-times. Among the prisoners was a boy of seventeen, who had been sent there for want of any better place for him: his offence was stabbing. In consequence of his youth, he was not subjected to the same strictness of discipline as the other convicts, and was allowed many privileges, occasionally even being allowed to sleep in the same cell with another convict. His opportunities of intercourse with the others must have been frequent, and the association will, in all probability, prove most disastrous in its consequences. His return to the Penitentiary, in the course of a few years at most, can be calculated on with reasonable certainty. Whatever disposition he may show, or whatever efforts he may make, upon his release, to lead a proper life,—all will be neutralized, almost inevitably, by the knowledge of the fact that he has been a convict in the penitentiary; and some of those who have been his fellow-convicts, of a more hardened experience in crime, will be constantly on the watch to lead him astray, and with an influence of great power.
The grades of punishment for refractory convicts are: 1st. Confinement in the dark cell. 2d. Confinement on bread andwater. 3d. Confinement, and deprivation of tobacco. 4th. Irons, with or without confinement. 5th. Standing in the stocks. Flogging is also permitted, but only by special order of the Directors, to whom the Superintendent reports any case he may think deserving of that punishment, and the Directors decide on the expediency of the infliction. It cannot, however, in any case, exceed one hundred lashes, and is administered with a leather strap.
In case any of the prisoners escape, one of the guards has some two or three hounds trained to catch runaways, and used to track the fugitives. As some of the prisoners are employed outside the prison yard, about the storehouse and warehouse, and in the garden, the opportunity thus presented, for attempting an escape, is sometimes improved; and the dogs are then brought into use. Escape, however, is a matter of difficulty; and the attempt, even, is hazardous: for, in addition to the armed guard at the main entrance, the immediate vicinity of the prison premises is further watched and protected by armed guards, on duty constantly, in guard-houses a little distance from the walls, outside,—one at each corner, and one opposite the middle of each side, except the front.
Visitors are not allowed to hold any communication with the convicts, either by word or sign; nor are the master-workmen allowed to hold any conversation with them, except in giving necessary information or direction concerning their work. The master-workmen are also forbidden to converse, in the hearing of convicts, with other persons on matters foreign to their work. The convicts are also prohibited from holding any communication among themselves; but the impossibility of preventing this entirely, was manifest, and, indeed, was frankly admitted. The friends and relatives of any convict are permitted to see and converse with him, in the presence of the Superintendent, at his discretion.
The officers of the Penitentiary are,—a Superintendent, Financial Agent, and three Directors; all of whom are appointed by the Governor, for four years. In addition to these, the master-workmen, physician, chaplain, sergeant of the guard,and steward, are considered as officers of the prison, and all hold their appointments from the Directors. The salaries of the Superintendent and Financial Agent are $1,500 per annum, each; of the Directors, $250 each; of the Physician, $500; and of the Chaplain, $250.
The present Superintendent is Col. J. H. Murray, who has been in office some eighteen months. He is a gentleman of liberal and intelligent views, and feels the responsibilities of his office. To his courtesy and attention we were indebted for the opportunity of obtaining much of the foregoing information. The present Chaplain is a Presbyterian; but ministers of other denominations occasionally supply his place. Any convict who may wish is allowed to see a clergyman of his own particular denomination. The Directors are required to visit the Penitentiary at least twice in each month, and to report to the Legislature biennially.
A few words as to the County Prisons of Texas. The only opportunity which offered for visiting a county jail was at Brenham, Washington County. The jail building stands near the court house, a little off from the public square, in the centre of the town, and is without enclosure of any kind. It is a plain, two story building, about twenty-five feet square, built of a double thickness of hewed logs. A narrow corridor runs around the inside of the lower story, and surrounds the dungeon, which is the only room upon this story, and has walls of a triple thickness of logs. The entrance to the dungeon is through a heavy iron trap-door in the floor of the second story. The single door of the jail itself opens directly from the street into the corridor. The second story has but two apartments, which occupy its entire extent; and one of these is appropriated for female prisoners, when there are any. There was but one occupant, a man, at the time of our visit. A short time previous, a prisoner had been confined in the dungeon, awaiting his trial on a charge of murder, but had succeeded in making his escape, in which he must have had assistance from the outside. No jailer or other officer lives at the jail, nor is any special watch kept. The only furniture was a rude stool or two, and a few bed-clothes,laid upon the bare floor. There are no windows in the building, and a few narrow, horizontal openings in the log-walls, secured with iron bars, afford the only supplies of light and air; no shutters, sashes, or other means of closing these openings are provided. There is no provision made for warming the prison, and the cold must sometimes be severe, especially during the prevalence of the Northers. The jail is in charge of the Sheriff, and the food of the prisoners depends altogether upon his discretion. It is possible, that in Galveston, and perhaps in one or two other places, the County Prisons may be upon a better plan, but in none of them is the separate system in force. The prisoners, untried as well as convicts, have an almost unrestrained intercourse. From all that we could learn, it is to be feared that the jails of many of the Counties are even less comfortable than the one at Brenham. But very many things combine to render it peculiarly difficult to awaken the public mind of Texas to the necessity and importance of a careful consideration of the subject of Prison Discipline.