deceive the
physician and thus get into the hospital, simply to avoid work. But
the shirkers are pretty well known, and have to be very sick and give
unmistakable symptoms of their illness before they can get excused. It
is very difficult to deceive Dr. Nealley. He has been with the prisoners
so long, nearly six years, that he knows them and can tell without much
effort when one of them is sick or is not in condition to work. At these
morning examinations, sometimes there are nearly one hundred who report
as being sick. Most of them, instead of being excused, get a dose of
medicine and are sent to work. When a prisoner takes sick during the day
while at work, he is excused by his officer, and permitted to go to the
hospital to see the physician. Fully nine-tenths of the sickness of
the prison is contracted in the coal mines. The principal physical
disabilities are prison fever, colds, pneumonia, lung diseases and
rheumatism. Very few contagious diseases ever find their way into the
prison, and those that do are quickly discovered and checked by the
prison physician. When a convict is unable to work he is sent to the
hospital. This department contains two wards, in the first of which
those remain who are not sick enough to be confined to their beds, while
the very sick are kept in the second ward. Convicts, detailed for that
purpose, are the hospital nurses. It is gratifying to know that these
convict nurses have a sympathy for their sick comrades truly admirable.

Many of these sick men die. It is sad to die in the State's Prison! I
recollect one case that came under my own observation which was indeed
pathetic. A man had been sentenced for five years, and had served out
his time save one week, when, taken suddenly ill, he was sent to the
hospital and died the day before his term would have expired. This poor
fellow piteously begged of the doctor to try and extend his life so that
he could die a free man; but all in vain! On the day which would have
brought liberty he was borne through the large gate and buried in the
prison graveyard. It is heartrending to hear those men dying in the
hospital, call for their mothers, wives or sisters! The convict nurses
are as kind and sympathetic as possible, but in sickness and death there
is no one that can take the place of mother, wife or sister.

There was one man who died a few days before my term expired, for whom I
felt the greatest sympathy. His name was Frank Rhodes. He was