Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 edition. Excerpt: ... constructed, and out of repair. This, comparatively, is of little consequence. It was dirty, ill-kept and neglected. A wall, nearly twenty-five feet high, plastered within, surrounded the exercise yard. There were no criminal prisoners: the only occupants of the jail apartments, when I was there in August, were two madmen, in chains; if the rats, of which I heard some intimation, are not included in the category. The men were chained and in separate rooms, or one in a passage, and the other in a room, apart for their mutual safety. I did not see their food, and know nothing of its quantity or quality. I saw no bedstead, nor any furniture. The man in the outer room, or passage, was somewhat cleaner than the other, but I must be excused from entering upon special details; the other was covered with soot, and coal-dust and dirt, and was extended upon the floor, clanking his chains, and beating his head, shouting and singing. Here fell no ray of comfort, hope, or consolation. One of these men is decidedly homicidal, and, with the exception of a short interval, has been, I was informed, in prison fifteen years. On one occasion, becoming violently excited at seeing an intoxicated man put into his room, and possibly provoked by him, for no one knows how it was, he fell upon and murdered him in the most shocking manner. When the keeper came to visit his prisoners, a horrible spectacle presented itself--the murdered drunkard, mangled and lifeless: the madman exulting in the deed and covered with the blood of his victim! He also when at large burned a building. The other man has been insane about seven years. Both are dangerous, and are subject to paroxysms of fury. Every person must comprehend something of the difficulties of taking care of the...
