"The jail allows us a blanket-that's mine in the corner: I spread it
at night when I wants to go to bed," he answered, quite contentedly.
We left the poor wretch, for our feelings could withstand it no
longer. The state of society that would thus reduce a human being,
needed more pity than the calloused bones reduced to such a bed. His
name was Bergen.
The other was a young Irishman, who had been dragged to jail in his
shirt, pantaloons, and hat, on suspicion of having stolen seven
dollars from a comrade. He had been in jail very near four months,
and in regard to filth and vermin was a counterpart of the other. A
death-like smell, so offensive that we stopped upon the threshold,
escaped from the room as soon as the door opened, enough to destroy
a common constitution, which his emaciated limbs bore the strongest
evidence of.
The prisoners upon the second story were allowed the privilege of
the yard during certain hours in the day, and the debtors at all
hours in the day; yet, all were subjected to the same fare. In the
yard were a number of very close cells, which, as we have said
before, were kept for negroes, refractory criminals, and those
condemned to capital punishment. These cells seemed to be held as a
terror over the criminals, and well they might, for we never
witnessed any thing more dismal for the tenement of man.
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