The halls were light enough, being whitewashed frequently and set with
the narrow skylights, which were closed with frosted glass in winter;
but they were, as are all such matter-of-fact arrangements for
incarceration, bare--wearisome to look upon. Life enough there was in
all conscience, seeing that there were four hundred prisoners here at
that time, and that nearly every cell was occupied; but it was a life of
which no one individual was essentially aware as a spectacle. He was of
it; but he was not. Some of the prisoners, after long service, were used
as "trusties" or "runners," as they were locally called; but not many.
There was a bakery, a machine-shop, a carpenter-shop, a store-room,
a flour-mill, and a series of gardens, or truck patches; but the
manipulation of these did not require the services of a large number.
The prison proper dated from 1822, and it had grown, wing by wing, until
its present considerable size had been reached. Its population consisted
of individuals of all degrees of intelligence and crime, from murderers
to minor practitioners of larceny. It had what was known as the
"Pennsylvania System" of regulation for its inmates, which was nothing
more nor less than solitary confinement for all concerned--a life of
absolute silence and separate labor in separate cells.
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