| Show THE PRISON GRAVEYARD SING SINGS BURYING GROUND FOR CONVICTS CON victa DEATH OF A on the tilde side of a steep hill bill whose peak is m many ny hundred feet high and whose b base at t the granite wals walls of slog sing stag sing are two graveyards divided by a ln g count country road the one nearer the prison is the t e old plot that was used for burying buryIn gd dead ad convicts until the small stretch ol of level ground was thickly mpr sprinkled with rough wooden crosses and small roughly carved stones a and d then a much larger place farther up me the hill was set apart lor for this use the die big prison has stood on its pres ent eat site for more norare than fifty years and although the number of convicts there oas bas increased proportionately with the growth of the population the average number of deaths within its walls has not increased humanity and science have cut cat down the death rate on an average ten persons a year die in the arison prison and nearly all those who have I 1 died led have been onried in the prison graveyard aveyard and left there undisturbed Y A few have died by accident in the work shops but bat the percentage of deaths by accident is so small as to be scarcely worthy of note A large majority of deaths has been caused by consumption which however is rarely contracted within the prison walls A prisoner suffering from t liobis a a a shown 0 u every consideration possible st le with prison rison discipline his work is ig made ads light and as soon as a he shows toe the symptoms of breaking down he be is sent to the hospital in the prison graveyards repose the bones of about convicts this maks makes the number of deaths average nearl nearly ten a year the old graveyard g on the slope nearest the river looks like a deserted gods acre of olden times A dozen years ago when the burying ground was moved farther up the slope the fence of the old place was left to take care of itself which it i has tailed failed to do the mounds h have ave basen beaten down until they are level with the ground the rough wooden crosses that bear a number corresponding to one in a big led ledger er in the prison in which a record of t the e dead is kept stand in straggling fashion these were originally unpainted pieces oil oft wood nailed together in the form of ef a cross and driven into the abe earth A few of them have been kicked ever but even on those that are still standing the numbers that were on them once nave have been so defacio defaced by the weather that they are scarcely legible the newer graveyard is in a much better condition the wooden crosses are comparatively new and the numbers that are on them can be plainly seen at atoe head of a few of ef the mounds stand rough stones crudely cut every one of these stones telha story more pathetic than do maby of the pretentious monuments in big and finely ke kept t cemeteries come teries these stones are all the ze work of prisoners who labor during hours of leisure as aa acts of friendship when a prisoner is very ill III and the there re seems to be danger that he be will die his bis friends are notified ind and the iron rule of et the prison is for tap time unnoticed he is allowed to settle up in the presence of his friends all of his bis worldly affairs and to have them about his hie bedside until the end comes there are occasions of course and aad many of them when the prisoner is either absolutely sol friendless or is only anxious to die without making his shame known to his bis friends when the end comes the bod to is then free and friends of man is ilven given the melancholy privilege of hearing bearing the body outside of the prison loon walls A prison lson funeral Is usually trl a solemn afir fair K the big bells that are used anth in abe e prison are always clanging out some kind of an order to the prisoners or a summons to the keepers and they always stir a world of echoes in me silent corridors when a prisoner is dead the fact to is generally well known knewt and an unusual silence is ie preserved i even lor for this dreary place then the whis whisper perls as the doad dead man js is to be buried inthe convict ground the coffin is brought forte tle te ably placed in tt it the cli chaplain readi read a ler j vice and then it is interred mew t york urk s ull t I 1 |
