and third. The entire body of convicts in the prison at the time of the adoption of these grades, and all new arrivals, were assigned to the second grade, with the possibility of falling by bad conduct to the third, or of rising by good conduct to the first. The prisoners of the first grade were clothed in a suit of mottled blue, those of the second in one of mottled gray. The third grade continued, as before, to wear striped clothing. In the first and second grades the lockstep was abolished. A system of promotion and degradation in the grades, such as had been in successful operation in the New York reformatory at Elmira, was established. Under this system, which is described as "simply a substitution of a task for a time sentence," the prisoner may, by good conduct, gain a monthly deduction. from the full period of his sentence, as follows: Five days during his first year, seven days during his second year, nine days during his third year, and ten days per month after he shall have passed, without fault, the first three years of his sentence. In apportioning credits, the prisoner is charged for each month nine marks; three of these he may earn by labor, three by behavior and three by study. To afford facilities for study a school was established, and during the first year of its operations five hundred illiterates then in the prison became " quite proficient in reading, writing and arithmetic." Each prisoner is furnished a conduct book in which he receives monthly credit for the number of marks gained, and is charged with all offenses reported against him.

The results of this system have been highly gratifying, and would doubtless be still more so if reinforced, encouraged and protected by such legislation as would contribute to the prison management of the State a corps of trained experts, wholly exempt from partisan or personal interference.

The socalled "piece or process plan" of prison labor was introduced in the Ohio Penitentiary by an act of February 27, 1885. The use of the "duckingtub " as a means of punishment was discontinued on January 1, 1889.

On April 29, 1885, an act was passed which provided that when any person shall be sentenced by any court of the State, having competent jurisdiction, to be hanged by the neck until dead, such punishment shall only be inflicted within the walls of the Ohio Penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio, within an inclosure to be pre pared for that purpose." In pursuance of this act "a suitable building and scaf fold" were erected, and all executions for capital offenses in Ohio have since taken place at the Penitentiary.

While the location of the State Prison at Columbus has undoubtedly benefited the city in some, though not all, material respects, it has also carried with it some moral disadvantages. One of these is the steady contribution by the prison of unregenerate lawbreakers to the population of the capital. This evil has frequently been a subject of legislative as well as local discussion, but no satisfactory remedy for it has yet been found. That the frequency of capital punishments, in any community, is promotive of refined tastes or delicate moral sensibilities, can scarcely be admitted. Familiarity with the operations of the gallows is neither a preventive of crime nor a refining influence.

The most important fact in the history of the Ohio Penitentiary is the effort. which has been and is still being made to convert it into a reformatory institution. Should this effort be successful to the full extent of its deservings or its possibilities, the prison may become an unqualified blessing both to the State and to its capital.

NOTES.

1. See Chapter XIII, Volume I.

2.

thicket.

3.

An old citizen informs the author that this ground was originally a dense pawpaw

The bricks of which the original Penitentiary was composed are said to have been made, in part, of clay taken from the ancient mound on South High Street.

4.

Western Intelligencer.

5. The convicts, it is said, were allowed to amuse themselves with ballplaying, and trained a dog to bring the ball back to them when it happened to fly over the walls. Another story of that period represents that a drunken convict, while roaming the streets, met Governor Lucas and implored his pardon, much to the Governor's disgust. During one of the numerous escapades, in 1830, a convict named Smith Maythe seized and held one of the guards while his confederates, about a dozen in number, made their escape. Pursued by guards, the fugitives betook themselves to the mound on South High Street, whence they retreated to Stewart's Woods, where they were retaken. Maythe, the leader in this adventure, was one of four brothers then confined in the prison. On being brought back, one of the brothers reproached him for his conduct, saying, "how could you so disgrace our family!" During the cholera epidemic of 1833 Maythe earned and obtained his pardon by faithful service in caring for the sick and dying on that occasion. He was subsequently returned to the prison on conviction of horsestealing, and was finally hung by a mob in Kentucky for attempted murder.

6. The author of this plan is said to have been Doctor J. P. Kirtland, of Trumbull County.

7. The Ohio State Journal of December 9, 1878, in discussing a change in the wardenship then pending, said editorially:

When the present bastile [State prison] opened, a prominent writer said that the failure of the old Penitentiary, both in a pecuniary and reformatory view, had generally been attributed to the insufficiency of the buildings and the lax government of the institution, and high expectations were entertained that under the new system a revenue would be produced and a moral reformation wrought upon the convicts. Were that man to write today he might have something to say about political influence and the division of spoils as well as lax government. The Columbus police might also give him some information as to the moral reformation wrought on convicts. It is a fact that imprisonment serves only as a punishment. Its reforming effects are all in the mind's eye. Those who have been reformed are very exceptional cases, though there are some good ones. But exconvicts, as a rule, are bad elements in society, and they are cited against the exercise of the pardoning power. Very many convicts who are discharged at the expiration of their terms are arrested again before they get out of the city, and on charges that send them back. There are a dozen, or more, of the hardest holes in this city kept by exconvicts.'

8. Ohio State Journal.

9. In April, 1851, this boy - James Murphy - was released on pardon and taken to the Clermont County farm of Mahlon Medary.

10. Ohio State Journal.

11. On recommendation of the Board of Pardons, Governor Foraker, on January 18, 1889, commuted Mrs. Garrett's sentence to imprisonment for life.

12. Manager's Report.

KEEPERS AND WARDENS FROM 1815 TO 1892.

Keepers. 1815-1822, James Kooken; 1822-1823, Barzilla Wright; 1823-30, Nathaniel McLean; 1830-1832, Byram Leonard; 1832-1834, William W. Gault.

Wardens: 1834-1838, Nathaniel Medbery; 1839-1841, W. B. VanHook; 1841-1843, Richard Stadden; 1843-1846, John Patterson; 1846-1850, Laurin Dewey; 1850 1852, D. W. Brown; 1852-1854, A. G. Dimmock; 1854-1855, Samuel Wilson; 1855-1856, J. B. Buttles; 1856-1858, John Ewing; 1858-1860, L. G. VanSlyke; 1860.1862, John A. Prentice; 1862 1864, Nathaniel Merion; 1864 1866, John A. Prentice; 1866-1869, Charles C. Walcutt; 1870-1872, Raymond Burr; 1873-1875, G. S. Innis; 1876-1878, John H. Grove; 1879, J. B. McWhorter; 1879-1880, B. F. Dyer; 1880-1884, Noah Thomas; 1884-1886, Isaac G. Peetry; 1886-1890, E. G. Coffin; 1890-1892, B. F. Dyer.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CENTRAL ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE.

No State Institution for the care of the insane existed in Ohio during the first thirtyfive years after her admission to the Union. The first action of the General Assembly having any important relation to the specific purposes of such an institution was taken in February, 1815, when an act was passed authorizing justices of the peace to summon a jury of seven men to make inquest as to the sanity of any person who might be brought before them "on the application of relations or by any overseer of the poor. Upon the unanimous finding of such jury that any person brought before it in the manner prescribed was an idiot, non compos, lunatic or insane," it was made the duty of the justice to issue a warrant for the commitment of the person so adjudged to enforced custody. Harmless lunatics were placed under the care of the overseers of the poor; dangerous ones were committed to the county jail. In January, 1821, the General Assembly appropriated $10,000 to establish a " Commercial Hospital and Lunatic. Asylum" to be located at and supported by "the town of Cincinnati." This institution, afterwards styled the "Ohio Medical College and Lunatic Asylum," was intended for the relief of "sick and destitute river traders.” For the insane generally throughout the State no refuge other than that of the jail or the poorhouse was provided, down to the opening of the institution the general history of which it is the purpose of this chapter to narrate.

The condition of the unfortunate persons of unsound mind who were committed to the crude and often heedless if not cruel guardianship which the earlier resources of the counties provided for their paupers and criminals, was truly pitiable. One of those who most fully appreciated it, and were most profoundly touched by it, was Doctor William Maclay Awl, M. D., of Columbus. Doctor Awl was a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, born May 24, 1799. After having studied medicine with Doctor Samuel Agnew at Harrisburg and received an honorary professional degree from Jefferson College, he shouldered his knapsack at the age of twentyseven, and set out on foot for Ohio. First settling at Lancaster, in 1826, he removed a year or two later to Somerset, Perry County, whence, in the spring of 1833, he transferred his residence and professional labors to Columbus. During the first year of his residence in the capital, says his biographer,'

He had an opportunity of proving his professional zeal and knowledge in combating an epidemic of cholera which raged during July, August and September. He, in common with the other physicians of the city, was kept busy night and day during this period of suffering and alarm; among other things he tried saline venous injections in one case, but relied mainly on calomel.

On January 5, 1835, a convention which Doctors Awl, Drake and others had invited "all the regular and scientific physicians of the State" to attend, met in the First Presbyterian Church. Its attendance numbered about seventy. Its president was Peter Allen, of Trumbull; its secretaries were M. Z. Kreider, of Fairfield, and William M. Awl, of Columbus. Among the subjects discussed were these: Erection of commercial hospitals by the National Government on the Mis sissippi, the Ohio and Lakes; propriety of petitioning the legislature to legalize the study of anatomy; vaccination; intemperance: medical ethics, and, as the event proved, most presageful of all, the establishment of a school for the blind and an asylum for the insane. Consideration of these two latter subjects was the principal purpose which Doctor Awl had in mind when he became the leading spirit among those who had summoned the convention and it was chiefly at his instance that the assembled physicians decided to memorialize the General Assembly to establish the two public charities in behalf of which he had taken such an active interest. The memorial, as it was afterward presented, was signed by Doctors R. Thompson, T. D. Mitchell, William M. Awl, John Eberle and E. Smith as members of a committee, and by Doctor Peter Allen as President and Doctor M. Z. Kreider as secretary of the State Medical Convention.

So strong was the argument made by the memorialists that, on March 7, 1835, the General Assembly passed "an act providing for the erection of a Lunatic Asylum," to be erected on a tract of not less than fifteen nor more than thirty acres of land, distant at least one mile and not more than four miles from the city of Columbus. For the purchase of the site the act authorized an expenditure of not more than two thousand dollars. The duty of acquiring the necessary grounds was lodged in a board of three directors, who were further required to obtain, by visiting the best institutions for the insane in other States, or otherwise, all needful information as to the best plan for equipping and organizing such an institution, and to report the results of their investigations, together with estimates of cost, to the next General Assembly. The directors appointed were General S. T. McCracken, of Lancaster, and Doctors William M. Awl and Samuel Parsons, of Columbus.

These gentlemen, after visiting Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other cities signed a report on December 10, 1835, recommending for the Ohio institution the general plan of " the Massachusetts Lunatic Hospital at Worcester." In setting forth the details of the plan proposed for adoption the report says:

The structure will consist of a centre building and two wings, all extended upon the front, and measuring 266 feet. The centre, or principal edifice, will be eightyone feet long by fortyfive feet in width, three stories and an attic in height, and ornamented in front with a plain portico supported by four Ionic columns. The wings will extend to the right and left of the centre building. They are each ninety feet six inches in front by one hundred feet in the rear, thirtynine feet wide and three stories high. They recede twentyfour feet from the front line, and are so united to the opposite ends of the centre structure, by onehalf their width, that the corresponding half, or nineteen feet six inches, will fall beyond its rear. This arrangement disconnects half the end of each wing from the rear of the centre of the building, entirely, permitting, by means of a large window, the free circulation of the exter. nal air throughout the long wings. . . . The centre edifice, together with the wings, is to be built of brick, upon a basement of stone work seven feet high.

The cooking and laundry departments and the workshops for patients were assigned to the basement, the offices, medical dispensary, library and reception rooms to the central building, the dining rooms to the rear part of each floor in the wings. Through the centre of each wing extended a corridor fourteen feet wide, with apartments for patients on each side. Heat was derived from furnaces in the basements. Arrangements for ventilation, including ready facilities for communication with the external atmosphere, were carefully planned. A separate