The Cheyenne Daily Leader

Awful Condition of the Tennessee Penitentiary.

Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 13.-Warden Percy of the state penitentiary at Nashville stated under oath to the senatorial investigating committee that the prison cells are only three feet wide and seven feet high, and two prisoners are confined in each. There is no ventilation to these cells except what comes through three or four small holes in the grate.

"It would be inhuman," he says, "to lock one living creature in them, let alone two, especially in summer. I have often found them at night during the heated term lying on the stone floor with their noses to the grate holes, with their mouths wide open, panting for breath. Many times, though against the rule, I have flung open the doors and left them open all night. At other times I have dragged them out of their cells, limping and gasping for breath from the smothering heat, and left them out in the corridors until morning. At no season of the year is it fit to confine human beings. They are cold and damp in winter, and smothering with hot air in the summer, and the rain pours through the roof at every shower."