Saturday, March 19, 2011

Water Torture


The 1858 Harper's Weekly article reads: We need no longer, it seems, travel to China or Japan for illustrations of torture. A visit to our own penitentiaries and prisons will furnish all the horrors that the curious appetite can desire.
A year ago we published an account of the poor-houses of this State. Our account was derived from the Report of a Legislative Committee. It showed, in brief, that, as a general rule, paupers and other inmates of the State benevolent institutions were not adequately protected against the cold; that the sexes herded together promiscuously at night; and that, in many instance, poor wretched idiots, half-starved and ill-clad, had actually frozen to death in their cells in State institutions.
We now present a far more fearful picture of the mismanagement of our public institutions for the confinement and correction of criminals. On 21 inst. a convict named More, imprisoned in the State Prison at Auburn, was showered to death by the prison officials. The circumstances of the case are simply as follows:
1858 Harper's Weekly
The convict, More, was a negro. He is certified to have been a man of naturally pleasant temper, but violent when crossed. On 1st inst. he was said to have been in a bad humor; he was seen, or is said to have been seen, to sharpen a knife, and mutter threats against someone; on the strength of which he was, on 24 inst., seized by several keepers or deputy-keepers of the State Prison, and by them dragged toward the shower-bath for punishment. It seems he stood in dire dread of the the shower-baths. Like most negros, he entertained a lively fear of cold. He knew that the water of the shower bath would be very cold indeed; and after vainly appealing to the feelings of his captors to release him, he broke away from and and fled -- be it remarked -- to the shop where he was in the habit of working. At the door of the shop a convict arrested him; a keeper and his assistants swiftly followed; he was dragged by main force, and after many violent struggles, to the shower-bath; all the water that was in the tank -- amounting to from three to five barrels, the quantity is uncertain -- was showered upon him in spite of his piteous cries; a few minutes after his release from the bath he fell prostrate, was carried to his cell, and died in five minutes."
It is this homicide that we this week illustrate.
The use of the shower-bath as a means of coercing criminals into submission to the orders of prison authorities began to be general about the year 1845. In that year a convict at the Auburn State Prison was whipped by order of competent authority, and died under the lash. The public indignation which was aroused by the even led to the abolishment of whipping as a punishment in the prisons of State of New York. It was preserved in other States. [Illegible] instance, in Connecticut, in [illegible] State Prison wardens are authorized to this to administer [illegible]..

20 comments:

  1. Now I know why ,apart from a few other factors , I'm not into 'THE ICE BUCKET CHALENGE'!!!

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    Replies
    1. The ALS ice bucket challenge has absolutely nothing to do with this, idiot!

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    2. You have to call someone an idiot just be of their right to believe something.

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    3. Im with u anonymous....wat does ice water have to do with ALS. im not sayin not to donate but somethin just aint right bout it.

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    4. It was they way to distract blacks from the killings. Shit crazy af.

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    5. cristal kilgore you need to sit your ass down. it has everything to do with it. i have sit and watch some of you white take heat of the harsh reality of what your races did to the blacks just to make you guys look good you guys teach other that you guys did good by them just to hide the cold hard truth. this ice bucket challenge is one of these cases.

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    6. White people these days...

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    7. Cristal Kilgore WTF why would you try to Moralize this man. Who the fuck are you?

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  2. History repeats itself period point blank!!

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  3. Oh wow.....symbolic

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  4. Nothing is coincidental

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  5. Replies
    1. Must be white ancestors must have been slave owners!!!!

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  6. This shit crazy but like you said history repeating itself and everybody doing this and don't know what the fuck it mean..... dumb ass humans

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  7. People are just trying to fit in. I put this pic on instagram and I bet nobody will even bother to ask/comment or even look it up. Smh

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  8. I'm not surprised by this revelation at all. As the late Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing has told us, as well as Dr. Neely Fuller, Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Marimba Ani, Malcolm X, as well as Tim Wise, Jane Elliot, Count Constantine de Volney, and many others, we live in a global system of white supremacy racism. Knowing that insures that 2 things are guaranteed: 1)the truth about said system will continue to be hidden by those who BENEFIT from and created said system (those classified as white), and they will go to great lengths to hide it, and convince everybody else of the lies they tell to hide the truth;2)That many on the receiving end of said untruths (classified as non-white), will just go along to "get along" and will attack those who try to wake them up to the truth, much like those who created and benefit from said system.

    Even those damn date auctions where you can be auctioned off (for charity) point back to the slave auction block.

    While ALS is a horrible disease, it IS NOT THE ONLY ONE deserving of funding to stop it. The gatekeepers of this society (and their devotees) always have a blatant way of tying charity and religion to heinous phenomenons-in an effort to calm the cognitive dissonance that goes along with not possessing a conscience. I'll just make a donation, call it a day, and then will take whatever proactive steps I can to improve my health (i.e. investigating natural herbal foods and the like) and will share that with those receptive to it. And those who get upset with me not going along with the ice bucket or those damn auctions for charity, can miss me with their ignorant, disguided guilt trips.

    C.E. aka Critical Eye

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