M&fsxzto® Feature §>®citi©ini PASSING OF SOUTHERN CONVICT CAMPS | Nature, in Running Out of Great Pine For ests for the Pro duction of Turpen tine, Seems to Be Aiding Legislation in Doing Away with the Old System. BY MARC N. GOODNOW. IT was a typically beautiful midwinter Sunday In Central Florida. A tramp of several miles through the whis pering pines of a turpentine forest had brought a party of tourists to a clump i f rough, whitewashed, board buildings B<,uatted in the white sand close to u rrliroad. From a distance the largest tullding had the appearance of a ware house ot a stable surrounded by a hign board fence or stockade. It was a story and a half high, thrice as long as width, with windows along the sides, heavily barred. At diagonally opposite corners of the high stockade were rudely constructed pintle rms, each sheltered by as rude a ro;f of pine boards. Beneath each shel ter sat a young man, lazily smoking a cigarette, with ominous, long-barreled pistols beside htm. Near the railroad stood another low white building. Inside another inclosuro was a small, one-story shack, from on.i ghte; 1 . Then followed a series o' r : an:- tlor. and camp-meeting songs and hymns b; another set of singers—curl • ousty tncugh, the most vicious men 'n tho camp, it wss said. "Almost every nignt it's Just like this, 1 s:iid a guard. "They go uver this stuff time and again They gave a minstrel show last Christmas and made quite a lot of money from the visitors.'' "Don't they do It largely to forget they are here?" "All their singing and dancing wouldn t make them fcrget that. ' answered t':e guaid. with a significant glance. "Il.it alter the first three or four months the tragedy wears off and they get to be like ihi> fellows whe have been here for year>> It'i the man who first comes to one of tl tsw ramps ihai blood* and gets sullen and is always thinking of 'getting away. That's the dangerous time, when he has to bo watched, and about the only time when he tries to break camp. I could ainost tell you how loner every man has teen In this stockade simply by the look on his face." All the men were In their bare feet; feet, too, that were swelled and mis shapen almost beyond recognition. They were spread out, broken down, cut, gcuged, blistered and scratched; and the rails of many of their toes were gone. tt is hard to imagine what comfort sucli feet will over find in the shoes of civi hi.ed society when release from prisou conditions finally comes. "Nlggah's dat fust comes heah," said Charlie's mate at the grindstone, "whit ain't use" to bein' on dey feet, gits fagged easy an' hit mek dey feet swell up sump tir. awful, boss. Dat's why dey all goes barefoot in de stockade an' round' camp. Dey shoes ain't big enough foh dey feet. Mine doan pwell no mo'." The "Captain" had neglected to men tier. that while his visitors were being shown through the camp, a negro convict was being chased through the woods sev. era' miles away in the regular Sunday r.iorning rehearsal. This was a weekly practice for the purpose of keeping (lis dt.gs sense ol smell keenly whetted to a po:nt of infant usefulness In case of an attempted escape. When the visitors emerged from the raess and bunk rooms into the stockadd they were amused by the sight of a shin ing black figure devouring with profound relish a huge "sliver" of possum, but had no idea that the fellow had worked and dodged his way for an hour ahead of the dogs in order to acquire it. The work is so arranged that the squads arrive at a certain stage of their rounds on certain days of the week. The entire territory is covered between early Mtnday morning and Friday night or Saturday noon. But it is constant and heavy work. A soft pitch is gathered from the open face of the blazed tree from March to October. From Octoher to March the gum must be scraped or pulled frpm the tree. The still. In which the gum and pitch are t.ansformed into spirits of turpentine, is located near tha Ci.mp, and Is kept supplied by teamsters and their wagons. A barrel of soft pitch pioduces approximately ten gallons of spirits of turpentine. In a single charfo of ten barrels of scrapings, or gum, there are about six barrels of resin and two .year trees, and another "back-box" older fees that are sufficiently large to yield still more resin. Work of the Convicts. These convicts are worked in three o r fcur squads, each In charge of one or two guards and severul cur dog 3. One •quad may "box" virgin trees, another dip fresh pine pitch, another scrape third-yo.ar trees, another "pull*' fourth bc.rrels of spirits. The stills run two charges a day ordinarily, and produce fiom 100 to li.o gallons of turpentine in one charge. July and August, the rainy season In Ficrlda, are the worst months of the year for ague, chills, fever, pneumonia and tin like. Then it rains almost every day and the water floods the country. "Dat's de time when it gits you," said a convict In a whisper. "Mah Gawd, man, hit's sho' awful, standin' in watali an runnin' all day long in the wet grass u\i to yo' waist. Why. man, ah's got a lump in mah chist right now as big as yo' fist. Every man in this heah camp has got sumptn" the matter of him." In 1310, Gov. Gilchrist considered twen ty deaths among 1781 prisoners a low rate, because "so many are diseased be fore entering the camps." Reward for Industry. All prisoners are worked on. the task system, and if they finish their work on Friday evening or early Saturday morn ing. they have the balance of the week In v.hich to rest. This system. Inspectors say. has been the means of getting good work out of the men without punishment. Put there are many camps where thero Is entirely too much punishment, where the wardens and guards are not at all suited to tholr positions. When you cut or burn your finger and run to the medicine cabinet for a bottle of spirits of turpentine, you seldom stop to think of the way in which this medi cine is gathered; how much more of pain It involves than the pain you seek to al lay by its use, what bodily and mental travail, what cost In human life. At the time of my visit to this Florida ccmp, 1800 or more convicts were leased by the state to one company—the Florida Pine Company—for the sum of $323.84 per ccnvict annually, and In turn subleased to individual turpentine distillers operat ine the thirty-one convict camps of the state, for the sum of S4OO a year apiece. Thus the Florida Pine Company was col lecting the tidy little sum of about $76 per annum upon the labor of between 1400 and 1800 ccnvlcts—a total of perhaps $12£,000 a year. This company paid to tha state one year for the use of convicts $207,116.48. The arrangement was so satisfactory and profitable to both parties that the lease was renewed In 1909 for a period of four more years; and on Janu ary 1, 1914, a number of leases were re newed for two years. All the convict got out of this sum was a whitewashed stockade, work the year round in all kinds of fever and weather, punishment with a leather strap for in fraction of rules or lagging at work, no er.ergy left for overtime work, even if ha were paid for It, and no money for thoss whe might be dependent upon him. And then, as If the system were In compatible with nature herself, the mil lions of pine trees began each year to lose their productiveness so it was no longer profitable to operate the camps, a number of which went out of existence when the four-year lease expired In 1914, an.-; others followed, so that the state, both from necessity and policy, provided by statute for the care of Its convicts on a state prison farm in Bradford County. The bill provided tnat after January 1, 1914, all new prisoners should be placed on the state farm, except that able bodied tfnes could be delivered to private lesfees or to counties, to replace those whose sentences might have expired or who might have become hospital sub jects. As time goes on, the solution. If it car be called that, of the state convict from the turpentine camp to the prison farm becomes a gradual and much-de elred process