The prison mirror. [volume], February 01, 1894, Image 2

About The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
i’hx prison plimrr.
Edited and Published by tl»e Inmates.
Entered at the Post Office at Stillwater, Miun~
as Second Class Mail Matter.
The Prison Mirror is issued every Thurs
day at the following rates:
One Year SI.OO
Six Months
Three Months [25
Address all communications,
Editor Prison Mirror,
Stillwater, Minn.
THE PRISON ITIIIIHOR is a weekly pa
per published in the Minnesota State Prison. It
was founded in 1887 by the convicts and is edited
and managed by them. Its objects are: to be a
home newspaper; to encourage moral and intel
lectual improvement among the prisoners: to
acquaint the public with the true status of the
prisoner; to disseminate penological informa
tion, and to aid in dispelling that prejudice
which has ever been the bar sinister to a fallen
man’s self-redemption. The paper is entirely
dependent on the public for its financial sup
port. If at any time there should accrue a sur
plus of funds the money would be expended in
the interests of the prison library.
Minneapolis has 220,000 population
and 225 police.
Cincinnati has 207,000 population and
482 police. In 1892 there were 15,545
arrests
St. Paul has 150,000 population and
181 police, who last year made 4,840
arrests.
Of the 1,233 prisoners in California
760 are American born and 464 are
foreigners.
Three tenths of the earnings of a
Belgian convict are set aside for his
benefit on release.
It is’rumored that smallpox has bro
ken out among the prisoners at the Jol
iet, 111., State Prison.
Sheriff James, of Atlantic, lowa, has
been appointed warden of the Fort
Madison, lowa State Prison.
In accordance with the latest census,
the criminal arrests in the United States
have increased five-fold since 1862.
Maine has 135 convicts who are em
ployed in the manufacture of carriages,
harness, brooms, furniture and clothing,
The City of Mexico has 451,000 people
and 2,302 police. The arrests last year
were 52,324, over one-half for intoxica
tion.
The regular employment of Hawaiian
prisoners for many years has been the
making of a road up the volcano
Kilauea.
Prize fighting m Montana is a peni
tentiary offense. The penalty for the
principals is from six months to two
years’ imprisonment.
W arden Madden, who has had charge
of the Anamosa, lowa State Prison for
the past two years, has again been
appointed to that position.
The Xew York State Prison at
Albany has 1,263 inmates. The ex
penditures of the institution exceed the
income over 8100.000 a vear.
A petition will soon be presented to
Gov. Peck, of Wisconsin, for the pardon
of Rose Zoldoski, the young girl who is
now serving a life sentence at Waupun.
So far as murder and robbery are con
cerned, Sicily and Corsica are the worst
countries on the globe. This will un
doubtedly be news to Chicago and
St. Paul.
The Free Raptist says: “A printing
office in Kentucky is opened every
morning with prayer. That is quite a
departure from the usual custom.
Establishments of that kind are usually
opened by the ‘devil,’ and not unfre
quently closed by the sheriff.”
The Mississippi legislature has appro
priated $25,000 for the purchase of a
State farm upon which to work State
prisoners. The old prison at Jackson
is to be sold.
Editor Frank Hoskins of the Henning
Advocate is again free, having been dis
charged from the Fergus Falls insane
asylum by order of Judge Elliott, Satur
day morning.
The Pilot, of Boston, Mass., one of the
oldest, best and most reliable journals
published; found its way to our editori-
al table last week and is now numbered
among our most valued exchanges.
E. L. Noland. ex-State Treasurer of
Missouri, was last week released from
the Jefferson City, Mo., State Prison,
after serving a two-year sentence for
embezzling $37,000 of the states funds.
President Cleveland recently par
doned J. E. Meredith who was confined
in the Wheeling, West Virginia jail.
When the pardon reached Wheeling it
was found that Meredith had been dead
two weeks.
Koetting, the cashier of the South
Side Savings Bank of Milwaukee, was
sentenced to five years imprisonment
at the Waupun, Wis., State Prison for
accepting deposits after the bank was
insolvent.
Col. W. H. H. Taylor, State Librarian,
died at his residence, No. 71 Iglehart St.,
Saint Paul, at 1:07 o’clock Tuesday
morning, of catarrh of the stomach.
Col. Taylor was the father of ex-officer
W. H. H. Taylor, Jr., of this institution.
No man has the right to wantonly
traduce the character of another, and
if done in court the guilty one should
be held to even stricter accountability
for his cowardice in shielding himself
behind his privileges—lndianapolis
Journal.
A Georgia bank embezzler has been
sentenced to six years in the Peniten
tiary for appropriating $103,000 to his
own use. How many among the teeming
millions would willingly serve at prison
labor for a similar financial return ?
Michigan City (Ind.) Dispatch.
County Attorney M. M. Madigan of
Xew Ulm, will, according to latest re
ports, serve the state for three years
and three months in a capacity which
he probably did not bargain for. He
has recently been found guilty of per
jury and received the above sentence.
Since the Maybrick trial, Great
Britain has not been so intensely in
terested in any criminal case as it has
been during the past month or so in the
“Ardlamont murder mystery,” which is
described at length by “Piccadilly” in
his letter to the San Francisco Argo
naut of January 22d.
Ferdinand Ward, who a few years ago
was the “Xapoleon of Finance,” is now
working in a little printing shop in Xew
York. His employer and associates
know his past, and he is said to be the
best workman in the establishment.
He learned his trade in the penitentiary.
—San Francisco Argonaut.
It is amusing to note the many large
papers which were most bitter in their
denunciation of the Corbett-Mitchell
fight previous to its taking place, after
ward devoting from two to four pages
of their precious space to giving full
illustrated details of the “scrap" and
eulogizing the American champion.
The largest petition ever gotten up is
that now in Chicago, in charge of Miss
Alice Briggs. It is addressed to the
governments of the world for the prohi
bition of the traffic in liquor and opium,
is signed by over four million people, is
estimated to be fifteen miles long, and
has circulated for eight years in more
than fifty countries.—Bolivar Co. (Miss.,)
Review.
Although cordially invited to attend
the Minnesota editorial association
meeting at Minneapolis, the editor of
The Prison Mirror declines in ad
vance. He has important engagements
on the dates of the meeting and it will
be impossible for him to get away. He
says so.—Stillwater Messenger.
A woman has been sentenced to a
year's imprisonment in the penitentiary
by a judge in Fond du Lac, Wis., for
the heinous crime of wearing masculine
apparel. If all women who wear the
breeches are to be treated thus harshly,
our prisons will soon lie full to the point
of bursting.—Perham Bulletin.
A member of the Ohio legislaturefias
proposed a bill to punish habitual drink
ers by a fine of not less than $25, nor
more than S2OO, or imprisonment not
less than five nor more than thirty days,
for buying a drink. It probably never
occurred to this reformer that his pro
posed law should have been aimed at
the seller, instead of laying a penalty in
the nature of a kick upon the unfortu
nate who has fallen down. —St. Paul
Daily News.
In the English compulsory labor pri
sons, the prisoners pass nine months in
solitary confinement, and are then as
signed to the public works prison for
hard labor. By good behavior they ex
perience a gradual amelioration in their
condition. At first they are not allowed
to write or receive letters and may see
no visitors. Then, upon advancement,
they may write and receive one letter
every six months and see one visitor;
then the privilege is extended to once
in four months, then once in three.
The grand jury of Kings county, New
York, is surprised and dismayed to
learn that the inmates of the county
jail are the “offscourings of society.”
This is indeed depressing. It shows
that the standard of Kings county
criminals is very low. Steps should be
taken to “pinch” a few doctors of
divinity, two or three judges, a bank
president or two and a sprinkling of
professional men to leaven the lump.
Ward McAllister might be inveigled
across the river and chucked in—Ex.
A singular penalty has just been in
flicted upon a Maine criminal, that of
perpetual banishment from the State.
He was convicted, a few days ago, of
assault and battery and kidnapping, and
Judge Bonney passed the sentence of
exile on him. Should he ever return to
the State, his fate will be ten years’ im
prisonment at Thomastown. Has any
other State in the Union a law like
this, which is not a bad law for Maine,
though a little rough on the neighbor-
ing Commonwealths that are likely to
be burdened with her exiles—Boston
Pilot.
The Chicago Inter Ocean, that great
Republican newspaper, has not suffered
by the recent era of financial depression
but has gone right along adding to its
foundation stones —a large and substan
tial circulation—with a stride that un
der the circumstances is truly wonder
ful. At one time additions to the sub
scription list were coming at the rate
of 800 to 1,100 per day for the daily is
sue, and as high as 1,500 per day for the
Weekly Inter Ocean. The result of
this is to place it easily at the head of
the list of great Chicago newspapers.
It is certainly a good, clean, family
newspaper of the highest order.
On January 18, there appeared in
The Prison Mirror, under the head
of “Fricasseed Jokelets,” three original
verses: “The boy stood on the burning
deck, etc.,” by our Shorn Poet; and, up
to January 29th. had been copied by
five different papers in Minnesota, Wis
consin, lowa and Louisiana, each giv
ing due credit. Xow, like an impetigi
nous old scrogle, comes the Marshall
Co. Democrat, published at Marysville,
Kan., and with much lippitude and
oblepsy carries its unglicity to the
bounds of agitating symposicaliy the
fecund words, which our polymathic
genius uses with liberty to obligate the
pen of the plagiarist. We will not
coascervate reproaches—we will not
obduce an invective veil over the atra
mental thievery—therefore, we tell you
Mr. Clark without supervacaneous
rhetoric, naught can render ignoseible,
that act of plagiarism. Hereafter you
will give due credit to what you extract
from our columns and save unneces
sary words.
The Prison Mirror, published and
edited by convicts at the Stillwater pen
itentiary. is a neat, bright and well edited
little journal—one that may be read
with profit *by young and old—Murray
Co. Journal.
The Prison Mirror is again a wel
come visitor to our exchange table, and
the Tribune will cheerfully comply
with its request for an exchange. The
Mirror, though published and edited
by inmates of the Stillwater prison, is
a sound, moral newspaper and one that
any family would welcome.—lnter-
Lake Tribune.
The Prison Mirror is the name
of a very neat and newsy little paper
published in the Minnesota State Pris
on at Stillwater. It is edited and man
aged entirely by the convicts, and de
pends for its support upon the general
public. The paper is full of sharp and
witty sayings, and it is wonderful how
much good, readable matter the “boys”
condense in so small a space.—Litch
field School Mirror.
The Stillwater Prison Mirror is a
very neat, well-conducted and entertain
ing publication for distribution among
the inmates of the Minnesota State
Prison. Pertinent motto: “It is never
too late to mend.” The prisoners have
a better newspaper than many outside
communities.—Troy (X. Y.) Press.
The Prison Mirror is for general
distribution to subscribers the world
over, and is not, like those who conduct
it, confined to prison as is implied in
the above article.
The Prison Mirror, a small four
page newspaper is published by the con
victs of the penitentiary at Stillwater,
Minn. * * * * No doubt the little
prison paper is a great solace to its read
ers, and as its exchanges are distributed
among them, they are still further bene
fitted. A paper in every prison in the
country might be a source of much
g
ood. A good paper might even do
more than a good chaplain to promote
right thinking. The press is a power
wherever it appears.—St. Louis Post-
Dispatch.
The Minnesota state prison has a well
edited and neatly gotten up little news
paper called The Prison Mirror. It
has a circulation of 1,700 copies. It was
founded in 1887 by the convicts and is
edited and managed by them. Its ob
jects are: to be a home newspaper; to
encourage moral and intellectual im
provement among the prisoners; to ac
quaint the public with the true status
of the prisoner; to disseminate penolog
ical information; and to aid in dispel
ling that prejudice which has ever been
the bar-sinister to a fallen man’s self
redemption. The editor of The Prison
Mirror distributes all his exchanges
among the inmates of the institution
and in this way. many who are without
means with which to subscribe for or
purchase newspapers or periodicals, are
thus given access to reading matter that
would otherwise be denied them
Cedar Rapids (la.) Saturday Record.