[The Boston Globe has recently published the following
article. Warden Lovell of Windsor seems to be running
Sheriff Tracy a close second.]
Wilson S. Lovell, the superintendent of the Vermont State Prison at
Windsor, has advanced ideas concerning the management of convicts.
“When I can’t treat them like human beings,” he says, “I’ll give up the
job.”
Certainly his prisoners have privileges not generally accorded
elsewhere to offenders against the law who are serving sentences.
They are permitted to keep razors and to shave themselves.
If an occupant of the electrically lighted cells doesn’t like the
white-wash on the walls, he can replace it with a paint of cheerful red
or any other color which does not offend his artistic eye.
Many of the men, who have nearly served out their terms, work about the
town under a keeper and on the prison farm. For the work about town
they receive approximately 50 cents a day for their own personal use.
The prison cows are driven out to pasture, some distance from the
institution, but there is nothing in the garb or manner of the persons
who drive them to suggest that they are convicts, but nevertheless they
are. They are allowed to go unattended—in a word are trusted—put on
honor.
The women inmates, who do all the housework of the prison with the
exception of the cooking, which is done by the men, have unprecedented
liberties.
They are allowed all over the place.
One can see them of a morning carrying baskets of clothes to the
clothes-yard outside the walls.
They gather raspberries and strawberries in the prison garden, which is
unsurrounded by any barrier.
In the afternoon, when their work is done, they are at liberty to read,
crochet or sew in their rooms, which are all in a separate building,
and quite as airy and well furnished as those of the officials.
Supt. Lowell indulges them in automobiling, evenings, taking them
out three or four at a time, and when there is a band concert on the
village green they may be seen sitting on the benches of the lawn
facing the street, attended by the prison matron.
Either there is something in the old saying “honor among thieves,” or
else, being treated so well, the prisoners have no desire to try to
escape from their “happy home.” At any rate they seem well content,
look well fed and well kept and are a credit to the “humane treatment.”
Within the last two years there have been none on the sick list in the
prison hospital.
Before the advent of Mr. Lovell the prisoners filed in line to the
yard three times a day, summer and winter, and received their bowls of
soup or plates of hash through a slide which extended outside from the
kitchen. Each one would then go to his cell and eat his portion. They
now have a large dining room with long tables running the length of the
room. Here they are fed upon “the fat of the land.”
There is a splendid vegetable garden in the rear of the prison—the
pride of Supt. Lovell’s heart. Such large, juicy, red tomatoes, rows
of string beans, cucumbers, lettuce and watermelons, beets, squashes,
cabbages, and below a field of sweet corn! All of these vegetables are
used for the prisoners; nothing is sold outside.
They are allowed from three to four ounces of meat a day. They eat
molasses on their bread on week days, great glass jugs of it being
placed at intervals on the long tables; but on Sunday they are given
butter. On holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, etc., they have quite
as good a dinner as any one, a turkey and “all the fixings.”
The men of the prison are mostly engaged in making shirts. There is a
long, well-lighted workshop, two stories high. The shop is exceedingly
well equipped with electric lights, electric fans, electric flat-irons,
sewing machines and cutting machines.
At the rear of each man’s chair is a pail of water, a cake of soap, and
on the back of his chair a towel. Under the long work tables, suspended
by hooks, are small mirrors—the personal property of some of the vainer
fellows. So the toilet is not neglected, but scrupulously attended to
at the sound of the bell at noon, and at 5:30 in the afternoon.
The men have a ten-hour day, beginning at 7:30 in the morning, taking a
half-hour off at noon, and finishing at 5:30 P. M.
They seem interested in their work—looking up with good-natured smiles
at the curious visitor.
The men also make their own wearing apparel, everything but shoes and
stockings. This work is done in the State workroom. Here they also
repair their shoes and darn their socks. They also use the room as a
barber shop, but the old fashioned ideas of the shaven poll are done
away with and the prisoner has just an ordinary haircut.
An interesting feature is the store of the prison. In it are the
various specimens of the handiwork of the prisoners. These are for
sale, and comprise watch chains, charms, and hat pins in onyx, carved
wooden boxes, strange wooden birds with spotted wings, and worsted mats.
One of the prisoners, who never took a drawing or painting lesson in
his life, has painted a picture of the River Dorderecht, Holland. It is
well drawn, and the coloring is extremely good for an amateur.
There is a chapel in connection with the prison, and here, on Sunday
mornings at 9 o’clock, service is held, and visitors are welcome. The
choir is composed of some of the prisoners. The women are excluded from
the service, having one of their own in the afternoon, to which the
public is not invited.
Mr. Ford, the white-haired chaplain, calls the men “my boys,” and he
certainly seems to have a wonderful influence over them.
Evenings they sit in their cells reading by electric light, or engaged
in making various things to sell, for which, when sold, they receive
the money. At about 8 P. M. the guard, carrying a lighted torch,
proceeds along the tiers in the men’s section and stops at each cell
to give the occupant light. They are allowed to smoke a pipe, and the
tobacco is furnished by the prison authorities.
An unusual privilege is an opportunity to procure little outside
luxuries with any money which they may have earned. Every Wednesday the
warden or the chaplain makes the rounds of the cells and inquires of
each one what he would like to have purchased. In this way they acquire
many little comforts which they otherwise would not have.