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Penitentiary 8th Mo 9th 1826.
Esteemed Friend
Thy note of the 3d Inst. covering a letter from the Governor of Tennesee; I received at a time I was much engaged or it would have been attended to at an earlier date I now hasten to answer the queries of Governor Carroll Viz. 1st This institution Building is 206 feet front, with a build= =ing 3 stories high, 56 feet long, & 26 wide, in the centre, originally intended for the residence of the Superintendant, but since converted into an office, store rooms, &c with a wing at each end 94 feet, running at right angles with the front; at the termination, of the wings, com= =mences a semicircular building connecting the two wings; the whole forming a half oval figure, it cost originally $136,000 and has been in operation 26 years, the outer walls are from 5 to 71/2 feet thick, & are of brick, it now contains 148 cells including 31 for close solitary confinement, under sentence of the court, 2 large rooms for the females, 12 dungeons, to punish offences against the police, & 20 rooms for offices hospital, kitchen, eating, washing &c &c making 182 of every description; there are exclusive of the dun= geons & including the 31 soliltary cells 144 construc= ted ^each for one prisoner, tho' unnecessarily large for that purpose, being generally 7 by 11 feet in the clear
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2d Our criminals are clothed, from cloth, made in the building, of cotten [sic] & wool for winter & tow & cotten [sic] for the summer, fed by contract (except the sick) for 6 1/2 cts. per ration, which consists of 1 1/2[?] Indian meal 1/2[?] of fresh, or 1/4[?] of salted pork or bacon; 1 pint of Irish potatoes, or 1/2 pint of peas, 1/2 gil of molasses, & 2 qts. of salt, & 2[?] soap for every 100 rations; from these ingre-dients soup is made daily, & a plentiful meal twice in the day is served the Superintendant can increase, or diminish, the rations according to the merits, or demerits, of the convicts, and where the season of the year requires it for the health of the prisoners, can commute with the contractor for any other, he may think proper, of the same value;/
3d The convicts are employed at shoe & Harness making, Blacksmithing, nailing, wheelwright =ing, coopering, carpentering, weaving, tailoring brush making, pump making, & making bar? millstones, the latter is by far the most prof= -itable, but can only be carried on to a very limited extent, the next is Wheelwright & manufacturing coarse cloth, for labourers clothing
4th They are punished with stripes, confinement in the dungeon, on bread & water, (only) for any violation of the policies.
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5th So far as respects the maintenance of the convicts their labour produces a revenue of $7665.50 this includes the amount of money paid discharged convicts; but when the of= ficers salaries $6034.20, transportation of convicts from the different counties in the State, to the Penitentiary, $5006.47 expences of the store in town, including Agents salary, $4151.28 directors salary $700 leaves the in= =stitution a debtor to the Commonwealth, of upwards of $8000. There are practicable changes that should be made, to lessen the expences of this institution; when done there is no doubt but the institution will main= tain every expense incident to its existence & at the same time, carry the provisions of the law into full affect, while on this head I will remark, by taking an abstract view of the Penitentiary, where from one to two hundred persons are employed at labour, it appears strange, that a source of revenue is not the result, because in every establishment carried on by in =dividuals & prosecuted with industry, produces a profit upon the capital employed; and why should not a Penitentiary? seems to be a question askd by all; but upon a more mature reflection & calculation, it will be seen that there is no analogy between the one & the
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other, for this obvious reason, the number that have acquired trades previous to their convic-tion and to the whole number received as one to 9 & one to 7, taking several years for the data, every one has at least six months of their sentence to undergo close solitary confinement, the one half to be inflicted on their first coming into the building, and large propor-tion are for some time unfit to labour by means of the close solitary confinement, add to this, the shortness of imprisonment most are sentenced for, say, one or two years; their expences are as great as those sentenced for long periods; it is ^then readily perceived that such cannot even pay for the raw material wasted, while learning a trade; much less, their maintenance, & the number of old men (that are convicted without any knowledge of such business as is carried on in the Peni= tentiary) whose time of life even precludes their acquiring a trade, were they ever so anx-ious, is another cause combining against a clear revenue in favor of the institution, these difficulties are unknown in any regular organized establishment, conducted by indi-vidual enterprise, to these inconveniences there is another and perhaps not the least,
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that may be added to the list, the number confined in solitude, those actually sick in the hospital, & those whom age & imfirm-ity excludes Them from any valuable labor at the time they must be clothed & fed, where all these things ^are taken into consider-ation how can it be expected that the institution, is to make do more than maintain itself, unless it was the object to make mo= -ney without regard to punishment, were this the case & solitude abolished, that sys-tem of police dispensed with, which is a strong inducement for many to feign the-selves sick, in order to get into the hospital where liberty & hilarity unrestrained can be enjoyed, & when they are first received & found the least diseased, from confine= -ment in the county Jails, before they were convicted to be sent to the hospital in order to restore them to health for labor; then it ought to be expected to produce a neat profit to the State ^But under such apparent favourable circumstances were crimes & immorallity continued to increasd to an alarming extent, & at a ratio beyond the increase of natu= =ral population, wherein, would the public be benefited,? Certainly not by the small revenue derived from a place avowedly in-tended to keep vice in check; when