If you are about to-morrow, do call upon me; for a more
dreary place, or one where less regard is paid to the calls of
humanity, cannot be found among the nations of the earth.
Such is the ordinary condition of suffering within this
establishment, that men, and even women, are forced to all kinds of
extremes to sustain life; and, to speak what experience has taught
me, crime is more increased than reduced by this wretched system.
There seems to be little distinction among the prisoners, and no
means to observe it, except in what is called Mount Rascal on the
third story. Pilfering is so common, that you cannot leave your room
without locking your door. The jailer is a good, kind-hearted old
man, very often giving from his own table to relieve the wants of
debtors, many of whom repay him with ingratitude. I have suffered
many privations from shipwreck and cold, but never until I came to
South Carolina was I compelled to endure imprisonment and subsist
several days upon bread and water.
Talk about chivalry and hospitality! How many men could join with me
and ask, "Where is it?" But why should I demur, when I see those
abroad who have been driven from this State to seek bread; when I
hear the many voices without tell of struggling to live, for want of
system in mechanical employment, and when I look upon several within
these sombre walls who are even worse than me.
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