A ball vigorously struck by a batter either goes over this
parapet into the swamp ground beyond, or sails away toward the
Tuberculosis Camp, to be retrieved from the weeds and rubbish in that
vicinity.
There are some forty score men behind the bars who would rejoice to be
allowed to put these grounds in order, and who, under proper guidance,
could do the job in a month. It would be a useful work, it would benefit
the men both in the doing and in the accomplishment, and it would be an
excellent advertisement of the penitentiary for the visitors who daily
stroll about the enclosure; yet months and years go by and nothing
whatever is changed.
One day, in midsummer, I saw a gang of negroes digging a trench in front
of the southern gate, and cutting out a heavy growth of weeds and
underbrush on the slope above. Drain pipes were carted out and dumped in
the vicinity of the trench, and three or four of them were laid down in
it. This went on for three or four days, the whole gang of ten or a
dozen men not achieving in that period more than one or two capable
Irish or Italian navvies would have done in the same time. Then the gang
disappeared; the open trench and the pipes remained in statu quo, and
the weeds gradually resumed their ancient sway. So far as I know, work
has not been resumed there since.
It is a typical example; even such work as is done, is done in such a
discontinuous and futile way that it is impossible for any one doing it
to feel any interest in it, or stimulus to do it well.
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