PRISON PUNISHMENTS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 900, 14 December 1871, Page 3

PRISON PUNISHMENTS.

The " New York Times " publishes a long and scarcely credible account of a visit to Sing Sing Prison by a " reporter who has spent some time in investigating the subject." The writer says:—" Despite official precautions, it has been discovered that two new instruments of torture are in vogue in that prison. When a legislative enactment abolished the use of the shower bath, crucifix, and cat-o'-nine-taita in our penal institutions, every humane citizen applauded. It was not thought that instruments of torture equally barbarous wonld supply their places. That this impression was erroneous will be readily conceded on learning the operations of that mysterious room so carefully shielded from public observation. In this room is what the prison officers facetiously term the ' trapeze.' It consists of two thin tarred ropes run over a pulley—a harmless-looking contrivance, yet it never fails to drive the colour from the face of a convict who expects to feel its power. The ends of these ropes are fastened to the thumbs of the convict who is to be punished. Then one pull by Pat Shinuess, the convict torturer, and the victim is lifted off his feet. : As|the man dangles in mid air, his entire weight depending on his thumbs, his sufferings are really horrible. The most excruciating pains are felt in every part of the body, and every fibre quivers with keenest agony. The tendons of the arm are stretched to their fullest length, and seem like red hot wires in the man's flesh. Elbow joints and shoulder blades snap as if ready to separate, and the thumbs, swollen and black with compressed blood, often actually split open. At this point the miserable wretch, filled with terror, happily sinks into insensibility. When released he is generally unable to walk by reason of temporary paralysis. One keeper who was questioned concerning the trapeze, said to the reporter: —' I have seen men hung up until their thumbs swelled out like a bullfrog's head. The rope cuts right into the flesh ss soon as a man is swung clear from the floor. Very often a man will faint while hanging. When they get through with a man on the trapeze he very frequently gets chucked into a dark cell. Next day he may get hauled out and hung up again.' 'How long are convicts subjected to this torture V was asked. ' Sometimes for an hour. But a good many men will faint before that time's up was the answer, . . But there is still another favorite method of reducing refractory convicts to submission which is fully as bad as the trapeze. The dark cells are stone dungeons 7 feet long, 3£ feet wide and 6 feet high, with a solid iron door that shuts off all ventilation. In one of these dark cells is a campanion piece to tho trapeze. It is termed the "Bed of Roses.' This luxurious couch is a stout wooden flooring which covers the cell bottom. Upon this frame is fastened half spheres of hard wood about the size of a billiard ball cut in halves. These are secured tightly, with the rounded surface turned upward. The prisoner to be punished is forced upon the bed, after he has been deprived of his coat, shoes and stockings. A few days in a cell containing this worse than stony bed, and a reeking, poisonous atmosphere, reduce the convict to a state of utter physical and mental weakness. In vain he seeks for rest in sleep or for a position of ease, the hard knobs press into his flesh, and fill his body with a thousand pangs; every motion increases his tortures, but hia cries for mercy meet with no response. When he leaves his dungeon it is with blinded vision and unsteady gait, with limbs bruised and body lame and sore throughout. Men are often confined in these dark cells for a period of three weeks at a time, occasionally for months. During that time seeds of disease and death are implanted, which yield their harvest speedily. In the yearlS2l the effect of solitary confinement was tested thoroughly in Auburn Prison. The cells were palaces compared with the black holes of Sing Sing. Vet, notwithstanding this fact, the prisoners suffered terribly. Out of 80 convicts confined, five died before a v ear had expired, one became hopelessly insane, another jumped out of his cell and over a gallery when his keeper's eyes were turned away, and was killed. The Governor finally found it advisable to pardon twenty-six convicts in order to save their lives. Some of the ordinary cells ary very damp and unhealthy, almost as bad as the dark cells. At night the flagging along one at' the galleries is as Wet, as if water had been drawn over the stones with a mop Tho gallery is called the ' graveyard' by the convicts,"