gains the prize; but this rarely happens at the first trial. The neck is too slippery, the animal sees and avoids the horseman's grasp, and the swaying branch aids its efforts. Besides, the exploit requires no little strength of arm, and is seldom accomplished without sundry falls and bruises; all of which are considered matter of merriment. The slaves of that section have little amusement, save what they derive from their constitutional good humor. Dances and corn huskings, or shuckings, are their chief pastimes. After laboring hard all day, the negro will cheerfully run to a dance, half a score of miles off, and get back to his toil before morning. A corn shucking is a matter of more importance. The sable helots sit in a circle round the heap of maize, keeping time with head and hand to some rude ditty like the following: 'OI wish that I had the wings of an eagle! Ho! ho! he-ho-ho! I'd fly away to a wild-goose country, This is sometimes accompanied by the banjoe, a kind of rude fiddle. 'Possum up a gum stump,' is a great favorite with these choristers. Buffalo hunting was once, as deer hunting is now, a favorite amusement of the backwoodsmen. The wild cattle have long since receded beyond the Mississippi, and now furnish sport only to the wandering Indians, their traders, and the no less hardy bands of trappers and hunters. Some account of the manner of taking this huge animal may not be out of place here. The scent of the buffalo, though otherwise it is a very stupid animal, is exceedingly acute. It will scent a man more than a league, and flee in alarm, though it is not terrified at the sight of the human race. Hence it is necessary for the pedestrian hunter to get to leeward of the object of his pursuit. Having approached the animal as nearly as he well may, he stoops, then gets upon all fours, and finally drags himself along prone, pushing his firelock before him. If there be long grass, or if, in winter, the snow be deep, the circumstance much facilitates his operations. If the animal ceases to feed to look at him, he stops and remains motionless till it begins to graze again. By observing these precautions, the buffalo may be approached to within a few yards. When the hunter is nigh enough, he directs his aim behind the beast's fore-shoulder, and inflicts a mortal wound. This, however, is but a slow and unsatisfactory mode of hunting, inasmuch as it consumes much time, and only one buffalo can be killed in many hours. The best and most experienced hunters follow the chase on horseback. The mounted sportsman dashes into the thick of the herd, and singles out the best and fattest. The buffalo, when frightened, runs fast, but awkwardly. His gait is that of a swine, and this peculiar gait the trained horse acquires, and assumes when beside the game, obeying the least pres sure of the rider's foot or knee. The hunter takes care to keep at least his horse's length from the buffalo, in order that, if the latter should turn upon him, which he will certainly do if wounded, he may have time and space to escape. All precautions being duly taken, the horseman throws the reins on his steed's neck, holds his gun stiffly with both hands, and fires. The horse swerves at the flash, and the rider directs him to new game, himself loading at full speed. An expert huntsman will kill as many as half a score of buffaloes at one race, and rarely misses the heart. When an Indian wounds a buffalo, he leaves it to die or separate from the herd, and his companions never interfere with what has thus become his property. Few of the skins of the animals so killed are taken, and the greater part of the flesh remains a prey to the wolves and ravens. When the cattle are in plenty, they are slain merely for their tongues, humps, and other delicate morsels. Vast havoc is made of them every year. The more remote Indians, not being provided with fire arms, use bows and arrows in the chase, and with great effect. A single arrow is often known to go through and through a buffalo, and it is seldom a shaft stops short of the feather. But whether it strike deep or not, if it does but stick, the animal's fate is sealed. It works inward as he runs, and eventually reaches the vitals. It is a cheering sight to see an Indian buffalo hunt. The tread of the herd shakes the solid earth; the hunters animate each other with loud shouts, and the guns flash incessantly. Here a rider is seen fleeing for life before some infuriated animal; there a buffalo stands at bay. Altogether, the scene produces an excitement which those only who have felt can conceive. The passion for this chase increases with time, and few professed buffalo hunters leave it before age disables them. There are many apparent dangers in buffalo hunting. The prairies are full of holes dug by badgers and other burrowing animals, in which the horse may stumble, and there is some risk from the horns of the chase. Nevertheless, it is seldom that any serious accident occurs. Another mode of taking the buffalo was formerly in use among the Indians of the Mississippi. Two rows of stakes were planted in the prairie, gradually converging, till at their extremity they barely left a passage into an inclosure of a few yards in area. These rows were a league or more in length, and on the top of each stake was placed a piece of turf, which frightened the cattle, and prevented them from attempting to escape in a lateral direction. The herd, being pursued by horsemen to the entrance of this artificial defile, were driven onward till they reached the pound, when the entrance was closed, and the work of destruction began. Few ever escaped, for the buffalo has little sagacity, and, being thus shut up, will run round and round, without attempting to break through the barriers which inclose them. This mode of hunting is still practised by some of the more remote tribes.* Deer are hunted on the Mississippi, both by whites and Indians, in a way unknown in the eastern states. In the hot nights of summer, the deer resort to streams and ponds, to escape from the myriads of mosquitoes with which the woods teem, and stand immersed in the water for hours. Sportsmen take advantage of this habit to destroy them. A board is placed in the front of a canoe, before which burns a torch. The board serves to deflect the light from the person of the hunter, who paddles as silently as possible along the margin. The devoted deer seems to be fascinated by the glare of the torch, and suffers the canoe to approach *For a full description, see Captain Franklin > Narrative. S within five yards of him. will scarce startle him. throw of each other. Nay, even the sound of a gun close at hand Two or three are often killed within a stone' We are not aware that, besides the particulars already noticed under this head, there are any occupations or amusements peculiar to the people of the west, of sufficient importance to require description. 466 CHAPTER XIV. PENITENTIARY SYSTEM. MOST of the improvements made in the manner of punishing and reforming persons convicted of enormous crimes in the United States may justly be attributed to the studies and exertions of enlightened members of the Prison Discipline Society. To their reports and publications, therefore, must we look for a correct synopsis of this system, so highly appreciated among ourselves, so much decried by the high-priest of British prejudice, captain Basil Hall. The first annual meeting of the above-named society took place on the second of June, A. D. 1826, in Boston. The report declares that its object was the improvement of public prisons. It contained many lucid remarks on the existing state of these prisons, but, as it is with the present, rather than with the past, that we have to do, we shall pretermit these. It appears, however, that many of the jails of that time were very insecurethat solitary confinement gave the best promise of the desirable security, and prevented prisoners from corrupting each other-that frequent inspections were necessary, to prevent plans of escape-that prisons, from mere humanity, should be better ventilated, and so lighted as to enable the convicts at least to read the word of God-that cleanliness had, in many instances, been neglected-that amended means of instruction in the mechanic arts were highly desirable-that the condition of the sick was much neglected-and, in short, that the condition of the jails and penitentiaries of the United States was little better than that of European places of punishment. The improvements which have since been made will better appear from positive, authenticated facts, than from the idle speculations of theorists and travellers. When the above society was formed, there were but two prisons on the principle of solitary confinement in the United States,-at Thomaston, Maine, and Auburn, New York, containing between three and four hundred night rooms, and four or five thousand convicts. Full six thousand solitary cells have since been built. The prisons now constructed on this principle are twenty-nine in number, and are all on the general plan of the Auburn prison, with some slight varieties of construction. As many of the prisons are nearly identical in construction with this last, a description of it will probably not be unacceptable. The external wall of this establishment comprises an area of upwards of sixteen thousand feet, in which is contained the prisons, yards, lumber yard, (very large,) garden of about four thousand five hundred feet, keeper's house, guard room, a great number of shops, bathing pools, and other offices. Two large buildings, on the old plan, and which were formerly used as night rooms, are no longer dedicated to that purpose. These, together with the keeper's house and the prisons, form three sides of a Square, which opens upon an area, surrounded, first by the shops, and then by the exterior wall. The external wall of the principal prison, (that in the northern wing,) is thirty feet high, two hundred and six feet long, forty-six feet wide, and three feet thick. It incloses an area of five hundred feet. The long barrack, thus surrounded by this external wall, is divided from end to end by a solid and continuous wall of masonry, two feet thick. On each side of this, the cells designed for the prisoners are arranged. To explain this more fully; a long, narrow building, of solid granite and lime, is equally divided, from end to end, by a solid wall. On each side of this wall, and within the outer wall of the building, are a great number of cells, so arranged as to effect the greatest economy of room. Outside the exterior walls of these cells, is another wall, ten feet distant from them, and thirty feet high. Beyond this second wall are certain yards, surrounded by a third wall, and in the said wall, as well as in the ten-foot-wide gallery between the cells and the thirty-foot wall, keepers and sentinels are constantly moving. Thus, if a prisoner should break out of his cell, he must first pass or kill a sentinel, then force a second wall, then pass through a yard in which other sentinels are stationed, and then climb over another wall. So great is the security thus afforded, that during many years, it is believed that in prisons thus constructed, but one serious attempt at escape has occurred, and in that instance it was unsuccessful. Prisons built on this plan are thought to combine the advantages of security, solitary confinement, inspection, ventilation, light, cleanliness, instruction, and proper attendance on the sick. The exterior wall of the cells, which looks upon the area ten feet wide, is two feet thick. The walls which separate the cells are one foot thick. Thus a recess is formed at each door, which deadens the sound, should one prisoner attempt to hold communication with another. The only opening from each cell is an open grate in the upper part of the door, twenty inches long by eighteen wide, and defended by thick iron bars. Through this glazed grate, light, air, and heat are admitted to the cell. The door is fastened by a strong latch, connected with a hook and a bar of iron. It is thus almost impossible for one prisoner to communicate with another, even if there were no sentinel present to listen.* * 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, then existing, which seemed rather to harden than to have a tendency to reform the delinquents, that it was generally believed, that, unless a severe system was adopted, the old sanguinary criminal code must be restored. The legisla ture of New York state, therefore, in the year 1821, directed a selection of the oldest and most heinous offenders to be made, who should be confined constantly in solitary ells. Eighty convicts were accordingly put into solitary cells, on the twenty-fifth of December, 1821. Five of those convicts died during the year preceding January, 1823. while only five died out of one hundred and forty convicts confined at the same time in prison, but who were kept to labor. The health of the solitary convicts was very soon seriously impaired. Some of them became insane; and the effect of this constant im prisonment was not more favorable to reformation than to mental and bodily health. Before the end of 1823, exclusive solitary confinement was entirely discontinued, and the present successful system, combining solitude and silence with labor, introduced; a majority of the commissioners, who examined the prison, having reported, that they were entirely averse to solitary confinement without labor, on the grounds of its being injurious to health, expensive, affording no means of reformation, and unnecessarily La Fayette, when he was lately in the United States, and heard of the experi ment of exclusive solitary confinement, said it was just a revival of the practice in the Bastile, which had so dreadful an effect on the poor prisoners. I repaired,' he said, severe. |