Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/202

 and near it we met governour Greenup, who saluted us with much familiarity. He is a plain, respectable looking elderly man, much esteemed throughout the state.[132]

The penitentiary is contained within a square area of an acre, consequently each side is two hundred and eight feet long. The work shops and store houses occupy the front and the other three sides are enclosed by a stone wall sixteen feet high, surmounted by a sort of entablature of brick about three feet high, rounded on the top and projecting about a foot from the wall on each side to prevent any attempts of the convicts to scale the wall. There are now twenty-four miserable wretches confined here for various limitations of time, in proportion to the enormity of their crimes, but none exceeding ten years, the longest period limited by law. The cells of the criminals are in a two story building with a gallery on the inside of the area, extending the length of one of the sides. Some of the convicts were playing fives, and the rest amusing themselves otherwise in the yard. It was Sunday, a day always devoted to amusement by those outcasts of society, who have their daily task exacted from them with rigour during the rest of the week. They are taught, and work at every trade for which they have a taste, and of which they are capable, so that some who were useless burthens on society previous to their confinement, carry with them, on their return to the world, the means of earning a decent subsistence; though at {173} the same time, perhaps the majority, instead of being reformed, become more prone to vice, through despair of ever gaining their lost reputation. The institution had like to have failed about two years ago, through the insufficiency of the superintendants, when a