To return, however, to the Board Tree Tunnel: Mr. Tyson told us that the difficulty of restoring it to a safe condition was so great as almost to dishearten him till he had arched it completely over from one end to the other with solid stone masonry, which has rendered the recurrence of the accident impossible; but the disheartening circumstance, while the work was in progress, was the danger to which the men employed in the work were exposed, from the constant falling in of the roof. During its progress no less than forty-five men were killed, and about 400 severely wounded. They were chiefly Roman Catholics, and were it not for the encouragement given by an energetic Roman Catholic priest, he hardly thinks the men would have continued the work. The doctor, too, who attended the wounded, and whom we saw at breakfast at Grafton, was also most devoted to them. It was quite touching to hear the tender-hearted way in which Mr. Tyson spoke of the poor sufferers, for he was constantly there, and often saw them go in to almost certain death. He mentioned one poor widow to whom he had just sent three hundred dollars as a gift from the railway.
Before leaving the subject of Mr. Tyson, I must tell you one or two of his good stories. I had been telling him of the negro meeting, which I described to you in my last. In it I told you how the negroes had cried out "glory! glory!" from which it appears it is almost impossible that they can refrain. In corroboration of this he told us of a nigger woman who was sold from a Baptist to a Presbyterian family. In general slaves adopt, at once, the habits and doctrines of their new owners; but this poor woman could not restrain herself, and greatly disturbed the Presbyterian congregation, by shouting out "glory! glory!" in the middle of the service. Next morning the minister sent for her and rebuked her for this unseemly interruption of his sermon; but she said doggedly, "Can't help it, sir; I'm all full of glory; must shout it out." Many of his amusing stories were about Irish labourers employed on the road. One of these, whose duty it was to show a light at the station as the train passed, failed one night to do so, and was seen asleep. The man who drove the engine threw a cinder at him as he passed, to awake him; but, instead of hitting him, the cinder broke his lamp glass. All this was told to Mr. Tyson, and also that the man was very angry at his lamp being broken. When Mr. T. went down the line next day, he stopped to lecture him, and the following colloquy ensued:—
Mr. Tyson. "Well, your lamp was broke, I hear, yesterday."
Irishman. "O, yes sir;" (terrified out of his life at the scolding he feared was coming, for he saw that Mr. Tyson knew all about it;) "but I forgive the blackguards intirely, sir, I quite forgive them."
Mr. T. kept his counsel, said nothing more, and the lamp has never failed since; but half the merit of this story depended on Mr. Tyson's way of telling it. He was deliciously graphic also, and full of witty sayings of his own. When, for example, I showed him my photograph of your little brother, he exclaimed, "Well, he is a fine fellow; he don't mind if corn is five dollars a bushel." I think you will all appreciate this as a perfect description of the unconcern of a healthy intelligent-looking child, unconscious of the anxieties of those about him; but I must reserve his other good sayings and stories till we meet.
To-day we have been most busily employed, for Mr. Garrett, our railway friend at Baltimore, not only did us the good service of sending us by the car under Mr. Tyson's auspices, but gave us letters of introduction both to this place and to Cincinnati; and his letters here to Mr. Neil and Mr. Dennison have been of great use to us, as one or the other of them has been in attendance upon us since 11 o'clock this morning, together with a very pleasing person, a widow, niece of Mr. Neil, and they have shown us the town in first-rate style.
Columbus is built on the banks of the Sciota, about 90 miles from the point where it falls into the Ohio. It is the capital of the State, and its streets, like those of Washington, have been laid out with a view to its becoming one day a town of importance; but as the preparations for this, though on a considerable scale, are not so great as at Washington, the non-completion of the plan in its full extent produces no disagreeable effect. In fact, the streets where finished are completely so, and the unfinished parts consist of an extension of these, in the shape of long avenues of trees. In the principal streets the houses are not continuous, but in detached villas, and, judging by the one in which Mr. Neil lives, appear to be very comfortable residences. He and his niece called upon us yesterday evening, and, although he is an elderly gentleman, he was here by appointment this morning at half-past 8, and took papa to call on Mr. Dennison, when they arranged together the programme for the day.
At 11 o'clock Mr. Dennison called, and took us to the Penitentiary, where nearly 700 prisoners are confined. I think he said 695, although it will hold the full number of 700 if need be. For the credit of the sex, I must say that only ten out of the whole are females. These ten are lodged each in a small room, for it can scarcely be called a cell, very well furnished, and opening into a large sitting-room, of which they all have the unrestrained use, although the presence of a matron puts a restraint on their tongues. They were employed in needlework. The cells of the men are arranged in tiers, and are certainly very different looking habitations to those of the women, and greatly inferior in size and airiness to the cells at Philadelphia, where, in addition to the grating in front of the cell, there was a door behind leading into a small enclosure or court. Here the only opening in the cell is by a door into a long gallery, and the cells were much smaller than either at Philadelphia or at Kingston; but the prisoners only inhabit these cells at night, the solitary system not being adopted or approved of here.
The silent system, however, is practised here as at Kingston, and the prisoners are employed in large workshops, chiefly in making agricultural instruments, hoops for casks, saddles, carpenters' tools, and even rocking horses and toys, which must be rather heart-breaking work for those who have children. The men have certain tasks allotted them, and when the day's work is done, may devote the rest of their time to working on their own account, which most of them do; the chief warden told us that he had lately paid a man, on his leaving the prison, a hundred and twenty-five dollars for extra work done in this way. The warden told us that the men, when discharged, were always strongly urged to return to their own homes instead of seeking to retrieve their characters elsewhere, and that their doing so was generally attended with a better result than when they went to a new place and had no check on their proceedings. This does away with the chief argument of our quaker friend at Philadelphia, in favour of the solitary system, which was, that the prisoner's return to his friends became more easy, when none of them knew that he had been in prison, of which they could not well be ignorant if he had mixed with other prisoners in a public jail. It must be borne in mind, however, that the great demand in this country for work renders it much more easy for a person so circumstanced to obtain employment, even with a damaged character, than in England, where our ticket-of-leave men find this almost impossible. There is also, we are told, a kinder feeling towards prisoners here on their leaving the jail than in England, and this saves them from the want and consequent temptation to which our English ticket-of-leave men are exposed; the result is that a much less proportion of those released in America are re-committed for new offences.
We visited the workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat twice a day; their drink is water, except when the doctor orders it otherwise. There are chaplains, called here Moral Instructors, who visit them and perform the service in the chapel, and evening schools are provided, at which the chaplains attend to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. A library of books of general information is provided for the prisoner's use, and to each a Bible is given, and they are allowed to buy sound and useful books. They have each a gas lamp in their cell, which enables them to read there when their work is done, and they are allowed to see their friends in the presence of an officer. Sixty of the prisoners were Negroes, which is a large proportion when compared with the total numbers of the white and black population, especially as the blacks are often let off, owing to the leniency of the committing magistrates who have compassion on their inferior intelligence; and it is owing, it is said, to a like leniency that there are so few females, though certainly not for the same reason. There are a large number of Irish in the prison.