STATE PRISON AT AUBURN. 243 



area round the cells, which is ten feet wide, is open from the 

 ground to the roof, in front of five stories of cells. Of this area, 

 three feet adjoining the cells are occupied by the galleries. 



The advantages of this description of building, are its security 

 and economy. 



The security is obvious. The prisoner must first escape from 

 his cell; then avoid the sentinel in the open area; then force the 

 external wall ; and after all, he is only in the yard, the wall of 

 which is 30 feet high. No escape has hitherto taken place from 

 this prison. 



The economy is great in respect to the space occupied, and in 

 heating, lighting, and guarding. Twelve small stoves, and twelve 

 small lamps, placed in the open area in front of the cells, afford 

 heat and light for 555 cells ; and one sentinel is found sufficient 

 to guard the prisoners. The space in front of the cells is a perfect 

 sounding gallery, so that a sentinel in the open area on the ground 

 can hear a whisper from a distant cell in the upper story. 



The shops, or working-rooms, are almost all attached to the 

 outer wall of the prison, — that wall being the outer wall of the 

 shops. They are, when completed, to be about 1600 feet long, 

 26 feet wide, and 7 feet high on the side towards the yard, and 16 

 feet on the external wall. The side of the shops on the yard is 

 lighted by a row of windows 4 feet by 3 feet 4 inches, and 2 feet 

 7 inches asunder. There is also a row of windows in the roof of 

 the shops, consisting of an unbroken line of 7 by 9. In the rear 

 of the shops is an avenue or passway, sufficiently lighted by nu- 

 merous small openings cut in the partition, which enables the 

 keepers to inspect the convicts without their knowledge, and vi- 

 sitors to pass through without going into the shops. 



All the filth is swept through a grated passage beneath the ex- 

 ternal wall, into the creek or river of Oswesco, which runs at the 

 foot of it. There are two reservoirs of water for bathing in the 

 prison yard, one fifteen feet by forty-three, and the other eighteen 

 feet in diameter. 



The prison is governed by a board of inspectors, residing in 

 the village, who are appointed every two years by the Governor 

 and Senators of New York State, and who make such regulations 

 as they think necessary, and appoint the keeper, deputy-keeper, 

 physician, chaplain, and all the subordinate officers. 



At the period when the prison was erected, the legislature of 

 the State, and the public, had become so dissatisfied with the 

 mode of penitentiary punishment without solitary confinement 



