Honest man’s.
FRANCIES AND HIS FIVE THOUSAND ACRES
[At Bellefonte, Pa., the State of Pennsylvania has bought what is probably the most wonderful farm prison site in the world. The editor of the Delinquent made a recent visit to Warden Francies, and can enthuse over the site without any reservations. The following article, from the Pittsburg Gazette Times, tells of Francies and his farm.]
Prison reform is to be realized in the Western Penitentiary now in course of erection in the Nittany valley, Centre county, about five miles from Bellefonte, Pa.
One hundred and thirty convicts with terms ranging from 2 to 15 years, too busy with their day’s labor or their evening’s sports to think of evil, are building the new penitentiary or tilling the soil. Only nine hours a day, that time allotted for sleep, are the prisoners under lock and key. They go about their various duties under the direction of a guard or overseer, but the shotgun or rifle, usually accompanying such officer, is conspicuous by its absence.
The prison gives promise of being the ideal penal institution of the world.
The site is ideal for the work to be accomplished. It stretches from the Nittany Mountains across the valley, almost to the Muncey Mountains, being more than six miles long at its greatest length. In width, it reaches out in some places over three miles and covers an area of 5,250 acres.
Fertile farms in this vicinity have been combined into one magnificent estate. In a few years it will be one of the most beautiful parks found anywhere. Aside from the building to be erected for prison purposes, prisoners will build roads and bridges, remove unsightly objects from farms, trim out forests into sylvan retreats and in a thousand ways add to the work of nature.
How long it will take to complete the entire plan of Warden John Francies is even with him a matter of much conjecture. He does not believe the plant will be ready to transfer the entire prison body from the Woods Run institution to the Centre county farm for several years. While there are 130 men now employed at the work there, this number will be increased from time to time, but he believes it will be several years before the plans are worked out. Warden Francies hopes in the future to see the prisoners of the new penitentiary manufacturing such goods as are required in State institutions. He believes that it would be better for the State if furniture for use in State institutions were manufactured in the prison than to send to Michigan for such furniture, and that shoes for the State’s charges could also be made by prison labor instead of the money being sent to Massachusetts, the seat of the shoe industry.
Should he be able to work out his plans with the aid of the State governing bodies, he hopes to be able to pay each prisoner for labor, deduct the amount of the prisoner’s keep from his earnings and turn over to those dependent upon the prisoner the surplus, thus preventing the privation to families and saving the State and municipal governments money spent through charity departments for the maintenance of those families.