Behind the prison bars

Chapter 11: BUCK-AND-GAGGED.

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About This Book

The author examines conditions and practices inside American prisons around the turn of the twentieth century, surveying punishment types (including corporal and capital punishment), life sentences, dungeons, lock-step and chain gangs, and the daily work and treatment of inmates. Chapters address literary and religious privileges, tobacco and labor regimes, and proposals for reform, interspersed with a history of a state penitentiary and numerous letters and testimonies from prisoners and officials. The tone urges compassion and moral outreach, arguing that kindness, religious instruction, and access to literature can aid rehabilitation.

BUCK-AND-GAGGED.

This is another dreadful punishment which is still in vogue in some places. The prisoner is taken and handcuffed, his hands slipped over in front of his knees and sometimes a stick passed through just under his knees and over his wrists, his mouth opened ofttimes by force, and filled with a large cork or piece of wood, and left in this condition until life is almost extinct. This punishment is serious and is apt to make the prisoner revengeful instead of making him feel that he has been justly punished.