NOTED CONVICTS
At the present time there are fifty-six females who find homes in this living tomb. Two-thirds of them are colored. The greater portion are kept busy making underclothing for the prisoners. They are detained, during working hours, in a room, seated at tables, with a lady guard watching them. They are not allowed to converse with each other, only as they get permission from this officer. They are not permitted to see the male prisoners. In fact there is no way of entering the female prison from the male department. The dormitory is on the third floor. The female convicts wear striped calico dresses, the stripes running lengthwise. The female prison is kept scrupulously clean, which reflects great credit upon those having the management of this department.
In company with Doctor Lewellyn, the prison physician, I passed through the dormitory. Here I found a great curiosity. It was a baby prisoner, six months old. The little convict was born in the penitentiary. It is a colored child--its mother being a mulatto, who was sent to prison for fifteen years for murdering two of her children. When on the outside, she lived with her paramour, a white man, and, as fast as children were born to them, she would murder them in cold blood. The white man was tried also as accessory to the murder, but, owing to her refusal to testify against him, there was not sufficient evidence to convict him, and he was set at liberty. He often visits her at the prison, bringing her eatables, which are very much relished in the penitentiary. I saw also the notorious Sadie Hayes, who was sent up from St. Louis for killing a policeman. She was under the influence of strong drink, and, thus crazed with whisky, the officer tried to arrest her. She drew a razor, and began to slash away at the officer, and, in spite of his club and large, muscular frame, she soon cut him to pieces. He expired on the sidewalk, where the engagement took place. She was sent up for ninety-nine years, and has now been in prison about three years. She is one of the most desperate looking women I ever saw, and, when crazed with drink, becomes an infuriated demon. She is an adept in the use of the razor.
The oldest female prisoner is an aged German woman by the name of Oldstein, from Gasconade County. She has been in the penitentiary thirteen years, and, doubtless, would get a pardon if she had any place where she could make her home after securing her liberty. The old woman is entirely broken down and is a physical wreck. She spends the most of her time knitting. Aside from keeping her own bedding clean she is not required to perform any labor. She was charged with a cold-blooded murder. She, her husband and daughter murdered her daughter's husband. The old man was hung, the daughter was sent up for life, and died in a few months after entering prison. The old woman was sentenced to be hung also with her husband, but the governor commuted her sentence to that of life imprisonment. For thirteen long, dreary years she has lived behind these prison walls. She longs for death, but death refuses, as yet, to claim her as his own. Broken in health, friendless, penniless, this poor old woman is but another proof that "the way of the transgressor is hard." I also saw Anna Brown, another female prisoner, who, with her step-brother, planned and carried into execution a terrible cold-blooded murder. It was none other than the killing of her aged father. The boy was sent to prison for life and the woman received a sentence of forty-nine years. Her sentence might just as well have read "life imprisonment" as forty-nine years, for she cannot live but a few years longer in confinement. Nannie Stair is another interesting prisoner. She came from Vernon County. An old and crippled man was driving through the country. Night coming on found him near the house of the Stair family. He stopped and asked for a night's lodging. His request was granted. That was the old man's last night of earth. During the hours of the night Stair and his wife made their way into the bed-chamber where the helpless traveler lay asleep unconscious of his doom. It was not long until the husband sent an axe crushing through his brain, his wife standing by, a witness to the fearful deed. During the same night they dug his grave in the garden back of the house, and buried him. Next day the husband drove the murdered man's team to a town not far distant, and sold it. In a couple of weeks friends began to institute search for the missing man. He was traced to the home of the Stair family. The husband and wife being separated, and the officers telling the wife that shewould be let out of the scrape without much punishment in case she would tell all she knew, she informed them of all the details of the bloody deed, where the victim lay buried, and what disposition was made of the murdered man's team and money. The two were arrested, tried and convicted. The husband was hung, and the wife sent to the penitentiary for six years. Her time will now soon be served out, and she will once more be a free woman. The desire of this family to obtain filthy lucre was too great. Of the fifty-six female inmates of of the Missouri penitentiary, fifteen of them were sent for murder. Kansas City has several female representatives. It is stated, on good authority, that the sentences imposed by the judges of the Kansas City district are far more excessive than in any other portion of the State. I was told that a number of these female convicts were very desperate characters, while others of them, driven to deeds of desperation on account of poverty, committed acts that for a time placed them behind prison bolts and bars. Something should be done to aid these poor women, when their terms expire, to get a start in life. If something is not done for them, it will be but a short time when they will drift back again into crime and prison.
