There is also, we
are told, a kinder feeling towards prisoners here on their leaving the
jail than in England, and this saves them from the want and consequent
temptation to which our English ticket-of-leave men are exposed; the
result is that a much less proportion of those released in America are
re-committed for new offences.
We visited the workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see
the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we
afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner
it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat
twice a day; their drink is water, except when the doctor orders it
otherwise. There are chaplains, called here Moral Instructors, who visit
them and perform the service in the chapel, and evening schools are
provided, at which the chaplains attend to teach reading, writing, and
arithmetic. A library of books of general information is provided for
the prisoner's use, and to each a Bible is given, and they are allowed
to buy sound and useful books. They have each a gas lamp in their cell,
which enables them to read there when their work is done, and they are
allowed to see their friends in the presence of an officer. Sixty of the
prisoners were Negroes, which is a large proportion when compared with
the total numbers of the white and black population, especially as the
blacks are often let off, owing to the leniency of the committing
magistrates who have compassion on their inferior intelligence; and it
is owing, it is said, to a like leniency that there are so few females,
though certainly not for the same reason.
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