fiction, and under supervision of a life time inmate. A large
steel door leads from the chapel into the west cell house, which
is large and spacious. Here sleep those men who work in the contract
shops. There are cells to accommodate over, four hundred. Following
the outbreak Warden Melick set about to find an experienced prison
man to take charge of this building. He went looking for a man
who would treat the prisoners with. kindness arid yet be firm
enough to keep the place quiet, in good order and also in good
sanitary condition; such a man he found at Fort Madison, Iowa,
penitentiary, in the person of Mr. John L. Hesse, an experienced
prison man, who has kept the big building in first class condition
ever since. There is also another and smaller cell building in
which sleep all the trusties and those prisoners not working
on contract labor. This room also serves as practice room for
the band and orchestra. From there we pass into the guards' dining
room
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and kitchens. There is not much to see in this
department, for it looks more like an old barn than a place for
state officials to eat, however, it is going to be remodeled.
Passing out into the yard, we see another building under construction,
the first floor of which will serve as the inmates' dining room
and kitchen, and I doubt if there is a better or more modern
dining room in any prison in the country than this will be when
completed. The second story will be used for a hospital, and
will be as modern as any hospital anywhere. The floors throughout
are to. be of white marble; there will be a perfectly equipped
operating room, twelve large rooms for the sick boys, a place
for the insane and a separate ward for consumptives. There will
also be a dark room, a special diet kitchen, a dispensary and
a private consultation room.
This building is being erected by superintendent
of construction, Mr. W. B. Hester, who with the exception of
two mechanics,
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