on the second
Thursday of each month. You may talk to your friend through the
screen, but there is no hand shaking, no lovemaking, no kissing;
and a guard walks up and down and hears what you talk about. Those
who visit must come perfectly sober, for even the smallest fragrance
of the stuff that made Kentucky famous upon their breath means
that they do not go in; and you must not carry any bottles in your
hip pocket, for there is a new law passed, making it a felony to
bring opium or whiskey into the pen - so be careful.
Opposite the reception room is the
warden's office and that of the chief clerk. On the other side
of the hall is the old abandoned postoffice, now used for the steward's
headquarters. One stairway leads down into the basement where are
the warden's kitchens and warerooms, and, another leads upstairs
to the warden's apartments on the second floor, and to the deputy
warden's apartments on the third floor. Here is also the female
department.
|
I
have always thought that it was a shame to send a woman to the penitentiary.
There has been one hundred and four female inmates in this prison since
its establishment in 1869, of which fifty-eight were negroes,
one an Indian, and forty-five white women. The rooms in the
women's department are large and airy and resemble more the
rooms in a hotel than prison quarters. Two women occupy one
room, and all they have to do is to keep their quarters clean.
I wish that all the girls working in shops and stores could
have as comfortable rooms as these prison girls at Lancaster.
There are at present six colored women and one white woman.
Of the one hundred and four women, sixty were sent here for
larceny, two for horse stealing, one for aiding in rape,
and two, (strange, but nevertheless true) for rape, sixteen for
murder, and the remainder for assaults of various kinds.
On the outside, their occupations were: fifty-five domestics,
thirteen demimondes, one
|