FAMOUS SING SING PRISON.

Evening Star, Issue 18093, 7 October 1922, Page 12

FAMOUS SING SING PRISON.

GREAT CRIMINALS IN ITS CELLS. SOMETHING ABOUT THE DEATH HOUSE. [By E. T. Kavanaugh, in the Sydney • ‘ Sun.’] Over 70,000 criminals have been confined and just 200 executed in Sing Sing, the world-famed prison- on the bank of the Hudson River, since it was built there ninety-seven years ago. While it has always been owned by tho New York State, for many years it was used) by the United States to keep military and civil prisoners who transgressed Federal laws.

Many fascinating stories are told about tho achievements of famous criminate impounded there, about the escape of daredevils who got out by ingenious plotting, and about the harrowing experiences of murderers who faced the electric chair.

Sing Sing is the oldest and moat famous prison in Ar»erica. It has long been tho bane of crooks and international swindlers and confidence men. Its death house and execution chamber are its most gruesome features. These are located in a. small, one-story building inside the walls. _ There are now thirty murderers, incl'uding Luther Boddy, who shot two New York City detectives, .waiting their turn to go to the electric chair.

John Hulbert, the executioner who manipulates the death switch, receives £SO for every life ho takes. He has a busy season ahead. Since the death house was opened in 1889, except for ono month, there was never a time when someone was not under sentence of death in Sing Sing. There have been as many as thirty-four slayers in solitary confinement at one time.

A prisoner awaiting appeal to tho higher court is kept in the death house as" a rule on an average of six months. Albert T. Patrick, the most -famous prisoner ever there, was shut up in the condemned ceils over three years. He was convicted of the murder of William Harsh Rice, a millionaire, in New’ York City. Tho States alleged Patrick, lawyer for Rice, had him chloroformed in order to get his estate. Tho Governor commuted Patrick’s sentence to life imprisonment, and he was released on a pardon in 1912, after spending twelve years behind the bars. Some of the famous slayers executed were Carlisle Harris, wealthy dental student, who murdered his sweetheart, Helen Potts; Dr Robert Buchanan, who chloroformed his second wife; Dr Arthur Waite, who murdered his parents-m-law; and Charles Becker, police lieutenant, who directed the murder of Herman Rosenthal. 1 the gambler, to protect his graft, All four crimes for which these notorious prisoners paid tho penalty occurred in New York City. Mra Martha Place, of Brooklyn, was tho only woman ever put to death in the electric chair. She killed her stepdaughter with an axe. 1,200 LIVING TOMBS. Tho prisoners sent to Sing Sing for assault, robbery, manslaugl#sr, forgery, embezzlement, arson, and other crimes sleep in the ancient stone cell block. Their cells are encased in stone, 6ft 6in long, 6ft wide, and 7ft high. Tho only opening is through a latticed grate in the steel door. This affords the only ventilation. There arc 1,200 of these living tombs in the six-tier cell block, Tho criminals are employed in prison factories. Brooms, brushes, shoes, underwear, tin cans, clothing, and other useful articles are made. They have until now received tho paltry sum of ono and a-half cents ft day for wages. Under » new law they are to be paid, hereafter, a fair wage for a day’s work. There is a prison school. Those who cannot read or write must attend. The prisoners are well treated. Warden Lewis. E. Lawes, forty years old, is a humanitarian. He allows the inmates baseball games, moving pictures, 'jtnnis, and occasionally a road show. Thcje is a prisoners’ band. Urey are fed with coarse, but nutritious, food. Beef, roast pork, potatoes, fish, apple sauce, primes, bread, and coffee without milk are among tho eatables.

There is no longer any brutality, or severity. Thomas Mott Osborne, multimillionaire philanthropist, who rulcdi Sing Sing as warden in 1915 and ISI6, broke the back-bone of the so-called “old system” of harshness. In years gone by various methods were used to break the spirit of a fractious prisoner'. Offenders were starved, paddled with a board, drenched with a hose, hung up by their wrists, and lashed with a whip. Now all that is done to an unruly inmate is to incarcerate him. by himself in his cell in Sing Sing until he is willing to behave. He is,' therefore, his own judge as to how long he is to be punished. CELEBRATED CONVICTS. Many well-known prisoners have served time there. General D’Utaasy, a Union Army commander, was court mardialled during tho Civil War. He was cashiered and given a year for* forgery and swindling tho Government. lie was taken to the prison from tho front in full uniform.

Ferdinand Ward, partner of General U. S. Grant, former Union -Army commander and ex-President, was given ten years in Sing Sing. His brokerage firm failed with £3,500,000 losses, and convulsed Wall street. General Grant was exonerated, but Ward’s rascality left him penniless. Johhy Hope, famous bank robber who tunnelled under tho Manhattan Hank in New York and stele over £200,000 from the vault, served ten years. David Sullivan, who wrecked twoBrooklyn banks ;_W. J. Cummins, who ruined the Carnegie Trust Company; Cornelius Alvord, who embezzled £140,000 from a bank; and Joe Coburn, a famous prize-fighter convicted of attempting to kill, were other notables sent to Sing Sing. Fred Mark, a shrewd forger, who was extradited from an Australian prison to New York, has just been released after serving eix years. There are now 1,200 criminals locked in 'Sing Sing, but at times there have been 2,000 or more kept there.