Two prisoners sleep in each cell on steel bunks, which can be raised up against the wall like the upper berths of a sleeping car. The entire cell block and all equipment in it are built entirely of steel. It is fireproof throughout, the only inflammable things in it being the hair mattresses used by the prisoners. “The White City” is modern and sanitary, with running water, electric lights and toilet facilities in each cell.
The prisoners in “the White City” are men of excellent behavior and “100 per cent.” men. This cell block is about the only part of the present penitentiary that will be used in the new prison farm. It was constructed in such a way that it can be moved to the prison farm in sections.
Another Item From Colorado.—“We have built between 1,200 and 1,500 miles of State highways under this system at a cost of about $389 per mile for labor,” says Warden Tynan. “These roads are built of disintegrated granite and are fine boulevards—not ordinary roads. We are now driving a road through solid granite, 16 feet wide and well surfaced, which costs us about $1,000 per mile for labor, and that is the hardest kind of construction. The roads are maintained in good condition by the use of drags. They cost about $4 each, and are effective in keeping the road well surfaced, if used after each heavy rain.
“The State does this work for the counties by furnishing a dollar in labor for each dollar that the county provides for road work. The money the State puts up is used to maintain the camps, an expense of 32 cents per day per man.”
Cleaning Out a Prison.—Governor Cole L. Blease expects to clear the South Carolina Penitentiary of about four hundred prisoners by next August, according to his statement during an inquiry into the conditions at the State Hospital for the Insane by a special legislative committee. The governor urged that the prison be converted into a tuberculosis hospital for negroes.
D. J. Griffith, Superintendent, said there were not enough convicts left to do even such work as waiting on the table. There were more than 1,300 prisoners in the penitentiary when Gov. Blease assumed office three years ago, but he has extended Executive clemency in more than a thousand cases. “In January sixty-four convicts had been the recipients of clemency and if the Governor continues at his usual rate it will not be long until the penitentiary will be cleaned out.”—So speaks the New York Evening Sun of February 5.
An Ex-Convict Running For Governor.—Al J. Jennings, ex-train robber and federal prisoner, who won the Democratic nomination for county attorney of Oklahoma county, Oklahoma, in 1912, has announced his candidacy for the governorship of the State of Oklahoma.