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[PRISON STRIKE] PRISON STRIKE.--As
rediculous as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that there was a strike last week
among the convicts in the penitentiary. The strike was not for more wages or less hours
work, as is the usual case, but for more potatoes, less potatoes, mor hominy, less hominy,
more codfish, less codfish, etc. One complained of too much of a certain kind of food, and
his next door neighbor complained of too little of the same food but the big cry was
"potatoes," which for the present the State Board has struck off from the bill
of fare on account of the price. Other things have been substituted in their place
however. Friday the first appearance of a disturbance was made. Men began to be passed
into the cell room on refusal to work. The first one who made his debut as a striker was
given a commanding position at once. He was made to stand with his face to the wall, with
his hands tied above his head and in such an uncomfortable way that he wilted before night
and gladly promised to go to work and give no further trouble. The first afternoon
eigeteen [sic] men struck and these were formed into a cable gang, (made by
winding a log chain around the neck of each and fastening with a padlock,) and made to
walk in lock step about the cell room all the afternoon. At night as the gangs were coming
from their workshops, this cable gang, (who after their number had been increased, called
themselves the noble twenty eight,) was marched out in the back yard at a distance from
the others but, within sight, so it would work what moral influence it might. Suddenly one
Brady who had always been a troublesome dog jumped from the ranks of the men going from
the workshops and tried to rally enough men around him to rescue the strikers and to make
a break for liberty. His attempt was entirely futile, whereupon he upbraided and cursed
the men and sitting down on a stone at one side refused to proceed another step. Warden
Carter having been apprised of the trouble appeared on the scene, and taking out a
revolver, made this man Brady think that he was in awful hurry to take himself to his
cell. The strikers were put into the north cell room, where the cells are entirely
unfurnished, and where they had to sleep, if they could sleep in the din and confusion on
a stone floor. They were kept in this place without food and drink and were told that they
could have neither until they submitted , and as soon as any one should signify his
willingness to go to work and to behave he would be released at once. Saturday the number
of strikers was increased to forty and they made a perfect bedlam by their hooting, and
howling, and scraping on the grates, etc. Decency would have justified the gagging of
every man, for such obscenity and profanity was never uttered from the mouth of man as was
continuously yelled from these forty throats. All officers and employees of the prison
were insulted and called foul and opprobrious names. The bill of fare which they got in
the north cell room was hardly the strawberries and cream that they had hoped to secure by
their strike, and they slowly succumbed, and yesterday every man except Brady, went back
to work feeling very cheap. Their complaints about the food are entirely groundless, for
it is a far famed fact that no other institution of the kind in this country feeds its
inmates better than the Wisconsin State Prison. Their meals are selected from the
following articles: beef, bacon, brawn eggs, corn-beef, pork, beans, peas, butter, tea,
coffee, codfish, hominy, flour, onions, syrup, sugar, turnips, and until very recently
potatoes, and enough of each kind is furnished. One half pound of solid meat is given to
each convict daily and they help themselves to bread, taking as much as much [sic]
as they wish. After all it does seem cruel that these innocent men cannot have the
delicaces [sic] of the season. |