THE PRISON CHAPLAINCY
PART II.
Under the Punitive and Money-making System.
1. Warden chosen, and new arrangements for the chaplain. Some weeks of the new year had passed, when the warden's place was filled by the choice of J. C. Pillsbury, of Concord. Report said that the delay had been by reason of a division of sentiment on the case in the council chamber.
I directly waited on the new incumbent, at his office, to arrange for my duties. He seemed to feel that he had been put there for correcting important abuses that had grown up in the prison management, in what particular department I did not learn. But he laid out my work as follows:
"Chaplain, we will have the meetings held in the chapel as heretofore; that is, the males assemble Sabbath mornings at nine and enjoy the same exercises as usual, none else to be admitted except at my special invitation; Sabbath school continue Sabbath afternoons, and I will select such teachers as I think best. Wednesday evening prayer meetings to continue, I inviting in some of the religious men of the city to help carry them on, and not a prisoner be allowed to open his head in them. These fellows are here to be punished. They must not be called men, but criminals, for such they are."
Such in substance was my programme, on which this colloquy followed between myself and warden:
"Warden, you did not speak of admitting the female prisoners to the Sabbath worship in the chapel."
"No, I don't purpose to admit any females to that service."[1]
[1] I understood his objection to be, that the sight of a woman is demoralizing to a prisoner.