The entire building is exceedingly strong. The floors are of stone, and the stairways and doors of iron. It contains 500 cells for men, and 256 for women, but the number of convicts is generally in excess of the number of cells, and still greater accommodations are needed. It is probable that a new and larger Penitentiary will be erected on Hart’s Island, in Long Island Sound, about twelve miles from Blackwell’s Island. The prisoners at this institution are sent here by the city courts, for terms of from one to six months. Some, however, are sentenced to imprisonment for several years. The convicts are all required to labor. Formerly the men were required to engage in excavating stone from the rich quarries with which the island abounded, but which have now been exhausted. The erection of the new buildings on Randall’s, Ward’s, and Hart’s islands, furnishes constant employment to the convicts, who are daily conveyed between the prison and these institutions. Those who are able to work at the ordinary trades are allowed to do so in the workshops of the Penitentiary. The women are required to do sewing, housework, and the like.
No visitors are allowed on the Penitentiary grounds without a permit from the Commissioners. Sentinels are stationed along the water fronts, and guard-boats patrol the river to prevent the escape of the convicts. In spite of these precautions, however, men have succeeded in making their escape to the opposite shore.
The convicts are clothed in a uniform of striped woollen garments, and are supplied with a sufficient amount of bedding and with an abundance of excellent but plain food. The allowance is about one pound of beef, and a quart of vegetable soup at dinner, ten ounces of bread at each meal, and one quart of coffee at breakfast and supper, to each man. In 1869, the total number of prisoners confined here during the year was 2005. A very large number of those sentenced to the Penitentiary are under the age of twenty-five. The proportion of females is about one-fifth. The foreigners are a little more than one-half of the whole number. A system of evening schools, at which the attendance is voluntary, has been instituted. The commutation system is also practised, by which the prisoner by good
conduct may receive a proportionate abridgment of his term of confinement. Such conduct is reported every month by the Warden to the Commissioners, who report it to the Governor of the State, who alone has the power to shorten the terms in the manner mentioned. Religious services are conducted every Sabbath by Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen.
To the north of the Penitentiary are two handsome and similar structures of stone, separated by a distance of 650 feet. These are the Almshouses. Each consists of a central story, fifty feet square and fifty-seven feet high, with a cupola thirty feet in height, and two wings, each ninety feet long, sixty feet wide, and forty feet high. Each is three stories in height. Each floor is provided with an outside iron verandah, with stairways of iron, and each building will furnish comfortable quarters for 600 people, adults only being admitted. One of these buildings is devoted exclusively to men, the other to women. Both are kept scrupulously clean, and it is said that they are kept by a daily brushing of the beds, which are taken to pieces every morning, entirely free from vermin. The grounds are well laid