An overseer told me, that the men in his division became so weak that it required great effort on his part to keep some of them at their task, they being hardly able to stand up by their machines. But his duty forced him to keep them there as long as they could do anything, though a part became unable to accomplish more than one quarter of their ordinary work. His heart would really ache for the fellows.
It should be recollected that everything in the shop, but tending them, is done by machines, each operation having a machine for performing it, the business of the prisoners being to pass the articles to and from the respective workers. Hence, the amount of work turned out did not, of course diminish in proportion with the failing strength of the workmen, as must have been the case in the old method of hand planing, sawing, &c.
I subsequently learned that food would be carried into the shop for the suffering men, but I know not to what extent. At first mentioning, I thought that it could not have been done, and expressed the doubt, but my informer explained how, showing a perfectly feasible way.
The effect of the new system was plainly visible, too, on the health of the men. This, of course, could not be avoided. A man, who was very healthy, and vigorous to work when it commenced, ran through the winter into early spring when he began signally to fail, said he could not eat the rations any longer, and went without food of any amount, still constantly performing his task, till his system entirely broke down, and he was taken to the hospital for a drugging course, the doctor remarking to me that he had "failed with no apparent cause." I think the want of food was sufficient cause. Had he received proper care and suitable aliment, he would, doubtless, have been spared this sickness. I was informed that, when he was near death's door, he was pardoned, to die with his friends.
Another, who had fallen a victim to prison treatment and was in the last stages of consumption, said to me, "Had they used me as well when I was in health and able to work as they now do, I should not have been here at this time." Calling the next day, I learned that he had received pardon and been carried home, that he might die there. His stay, I learned, was very short.
How many of these pardons were granted in view of death, I never knew. They were gratifying to friends most certainly, but would make the prison mortality appear smaller than it really was. For, surely, if a man sickened in prison and received pardon as above, his demise should of right be set down as among the prison deaths.
A man came out in the spring, having been a prisoner one year; was well and robust when entering, but the ordeal of the winter brought on a rheumatic difficulty, so that towards its close he was really sick, and, as he remarked, solicited the warden for the privilege of laying off and doctoring a little, with the answer, "I know what the matter is with you, you wish to get rid of work; you can go to the shop;" and he was given no respite, nor was anything done for him while there. He went home so used up, that, as his father asserted, it did not seem that he could have lived at the prison but a few weeks longer. He revived, however, with home air and home treatment, worked considerably through the summer, but, as fall came on, had a return of the rheumatic trouble contracted in prison, with which he suffered many months, and died. A number of others, too, on their leaving, I found completely broken down, who were sent away to friends, or places of their usual abode, to be maintained by relatives or at public expense. A man, when leaving, said that he had there sometimes been forced to work, when so sick that five dollars a day would have been no temptation to him for thus laboring. One was reported to me as having been kept to his machine till fainting, and then carried to the hospital. One, with a consumptive difficulty, not able to work in the shop, was put in the cook-room to do what he could there, and kept at his task till, one Sabbath eve, he was taken to the hospital where he died the next Tuesday morning.
But why pursue this dark recital? All such management, of course, made the prison sickness appear less in the physician's account than the reality. It seemed fortunate to the men that the term of sentence to many so expired as to leave them under this rule but a comparatively short time.
In conversation with an overseer here, who had large experience, the idea was started as to how long time would be required for the system reigning at the prison this year to use up completely the number it commenced with, could all have been kept truly under its influence, with no respite or mitigation. His conclusion was some two years. Nor could I think he was much out of the way, that is, take the case as it bore on a large share.
The system left its legitimate effects on the minds of the inmates, aside from driving to insanity and idiocy, namely, irritability, angry feeling, or moroseness. Under the former rule, the men, when leaving, would generally express much gratitude towards officers and friends for the interest taken in their welfare, apparently filled with a hope and inspiration here gained, prompting them to strive for their own best good, from which no little advantage, to them, might be hoped. But under this rule, how different! Men fully admitting the justice of their sentence, and having come with the purpose of serving it out submissively, and with not a word of fault-finding, would go away complaining of the wrongs done them in the general prison fare, their hearts filled with bitter feelings, prompting them to execrate those from whom they had suffered these wrongs, and curse the State for putting such men in power over the prison. One who was so reduced that he found it a task to walk about, remarked, on leaving, "I have some accounts to settle with them over there" (meaning the warden and deputy), "and if I recover, I shall return to Concord and settle with them. I will have my pay unless they are the strongest." Some would leave with the feeling of don't care as to what course they should take.