bor. It is wash, patch and sew from one year's end to the
other. The Sabbath is spent in reading and religious exercises. In the
afternoon the chaplain visits them and preaches a discourse. Several
of these women are here for murder. When a woman falls she generally
descends to the lowest plane.

A few days before I was discharged, there came to the prison a little
old grandmother, seventy years of age. She had lived with her husband
fifty-two years, was the mother of ten children, and had fifteen
grand-children. She and her aged husband owned a very beautiful farm
and were in good circumstances, probably worth $50,000. Her husband
died very suddenly. She was accused of administering poison. After the
funeral, she went over into Missouri to make her home with one of her
married daughters. She had not been there but a short time when her
eldest son secured a requisition, and had his aged mother brought
back to Kansas and placed on trial for murder. She was convicted. The
sentence imposed, was one year in the penitentiary, and at the end of
which time she was to be hung by the neck until dead, which in Kansas is
equivalent to a life sentence. The old woman will do well if she lives
out one year in prison. She claims that her eldest son desires her
property, and that was the motive which induced him to drag her before
the tribunal of justice to swear her life away, During her long life
of three score and ten years, this was the only charge against her
character for anything whatever. She always bore a good name and was
highly esteemed in the neighborhood in which she lived.

Another important female prisoner is Mary J. Scales. She is sixty-five
years of age, and is called Aunt Mary in the prison. She is also a
murderess. She took the life of her husband, and was sentenced to be
hung April 16, 1871. Her sentence was commuted to a life imprisonment.
For eighteen years this old woman has been an inmate of the Kansas
penitentiary. While she is very popular inside the prison, as all the
officers and their families are very fond of Aunt Mary, it seems that
she has but few, if any, friends on the outside. Several old men have
been pardoned since this old woman was put into prison, and if any more
murderers are to be set at liberty, it is my opinion that it will soon
be Aunt Mary's turn to go out into the world to be free once more.

MRS. HENRIETTA COOK

This woman was twenty-five years of age when she came to the Kansas
pen