Deer are hunted on the Mississippi, both by whites and Indians, in a way unknown in the eastern states. In the hot nights of summer, the deer resort to streams and ponds, to escape from the myriads of mosquitoes with which the woods teem, and stand immersed in the water for hours. Sportsmen take advantage of this habit to destroy them. A board is placed in the front of a canoe, before which burns a torch. The board serves to deflect the light from the person of the hunter, who paddles as silently as possible along the margin. The devoted deer seems to be fascinated by the glare of the torch, and suffers the canoe to approachwithin five yards of him. Nay, even the sound of a gun close at hand will scarce startle him. Two or three are often killed within a stone’s throw of each other.
We are not aware that, besides the particulars already noticed under this head, there are any occupations or amusements peculiar to the people of the west, of sufficient importance to require description.
CHAPTER XIV.—PENITENTIARY SYSTEM.
MOST of the improvements made in the manner of punishing and reforming persons convicted of enormous crimes in the United States may justly be attributed to the studies and exertions of enlightened members of the Prison Discipline Society. To their reports and publications, therefore, must we look for a correct synopsis of this system, so highly appreciated among ourselves, so much decried by the high-priest of British prejudice, captain Basil Hall.
The first annual meeting of the above-named society took place on the second of June, A. D. 1826, in Boston. The report declares that its object was the improvement of public prisons. It contained many lucid remarks on the existing state of these prisons, but, as it is with the present, rather than with the past, that we have to do, we shall pretermit these. It appears, however, that many of the jails of that time were very insecure—that solitary confinement gave the best promise of the desirable security, and prevented prisoners from corrupting each other—that frequent inspections were necessary, to prevent plans of escape—that prisons, from mere humanity, should be better ventilated, and so lighted as to enable the convicts at least to read the word of God—that cleanliness had, in many instances, been neglected—that amended means of instruction in the mechanic arts were highly desirable—that the condition of the sick was much neglected—and, in short, that the condition of the jails and penitentiaries of the United States was little better than that of European places of punishment. The improvements which have since been made will better appear from positive, authenticated facts, than from the idle speculations of theorists and travellers.
When the above society was formed, there were but two prisons on the principle of solitary confinement in the United States,—at Thomaston, Maine, and Auburn, New York, containing between three and four hundred night rooms, and four or five thousand convicts. Full six thousand solitary cells have since been built. The prisons now constructed on this principle are twenty-nine in number, and are all on the general plan of the Auburn prison, with some slight varieties of construction. As many of the prisons are nearly identical in construction with this last, a description of it will probably not be unacceptable.
The external wall of this establishment comprises an area of upwards of sixteen thousand feet, in which is contained the prisons, yards, lumber yard, (very large,) garden of about four thousand five hundred feet, keeper’s house, guard room, a great number of shops, bathing pools, and other offices. Two large buildings, on the old plan, and which were formerly used as night rooms, are no longer dedicated to that purpose. These, together with the keeper’s house and the prisons, form three sides of a square, which opens upon an area, surrounded, first by the shops, and then by the exterior wall.
The external wall of the principal prison, (that in the northern wing,) is thirty feet high, two hundred and six feet long, forty-six feet wide, and three feet thick. It incloses an area of five hundred feet. The long barrack, thus surrounded by this external wall, is divided from end to end by a solid and continuous wall of masonry, two feet thick. On each side of this, the cells designed for the prisoners are arranged. To explain this more fully; a long, narrow building, of solid granite and lime, is equally divided, from end to end, by a solid wall. On each side of this wall, and within the outer wall of the building, are a great number of cells, so arranged as to effect the greatest economy of room. Outside the exterior walls of these cells, is another wall, ten feet distant from them, and thirty feet high. Beyond this second wall are certain yards, surrounded by a third wall, and in the said wall, as well as in the ten-foot-wide gallery between the cells and the thirty-foot wall, keepers and sentinels are constantly moving. Thus, if a prisoner should break out of his cell, he must first pass or kill a sentinel, then force a second wall, then pass through a yard in which other sentinels are stationed, and then climb over another wall. So great is the security thus afforded, that during many years, it is believed that in prisons thus constructed, but one serious attempt at escape has occurred, and in that instance it was unsuccessful.
Prisons built on this plan are thought to combine the advantages of security, solitary confinement, inspection, ventilation, light, cleanliness, instruction, and proper attendance on the sick.