Yesterday's Goodwill book selection was notably poor. The title of Moderate Drinking did catch my eye, but the only book I actually pulled off the shelf was The Jails of Lincoln County [Maine], 1761-1913. It's a local historical society publication, somberly bound in gray paper and composed by an author named Prescott Currier, which sounds like the name of an earnest small-town lawyer in a historical novel set in 1780s seaside New England. Be that as it may, The Jails of Lincoln County is dry, typo-laden reading, but it does have some amusing aspects--for instance, the table listing the categories of criminals by year of incarceration. Casting an eye down the lefthand column, this is what I read:

Tramps

Drunks

Felons

Debtors

Tramps

Drunks

Felons

Tramps

Drunks

Felons

Tramps

Drunks

Felons

[etcetera]

Saying it aloud is like chanting an alternate version of "Duck, duck, goose"--"Tramp, drunk, felon, DEBTOR!"

There's also some intriguing information about accommodations ("Sheets were not provided until 1838 and pillows didn't replace bolsters until a short time later"), personal hygiene ("A straight razor would have been a formidable weapon. . . . It is probable, however, that at the time shaving was [an] infrequent happening so that the jailer didn't have to be too concerned about arranging for his prisoners to shave"), and clothing ("Pantaloons were usually made of 'sattinet.'") My previous image of 1830s Maine prison conditions may have included shivering sheetless nights and heavy beards, but I can tell you right now that I never imagined that the felons were also wearing shiny short pants.

I also learned something about the women prisoners:

Women's crimes with one obvious exception were little different from men's, with the women committing their share of the murders, assaults, larcenies, house-burnings, even drunken[n]ess and selling liquor without a license. Even adultery and keeping a house of ill-fame were shared equally among men and women, and the punishment awarded for each was equally severe for both men and women. The only crimes which women seem not [to] have committed were counterfeiting and forgery. And of course there were few women debtors since in those days women did not usually exercise control over their financial assets. Of the some 1,800 persons committed for debt from 1811 to 1835 only ten were women, and three of those were committed with their husbands.

Now, if women didn't have control over their money, wouldn't they generally be in need of money? And wouldn't that need make counterfeiting and forgery attractive options? So why weren't any women convicted for those offenses? I find this puzzling.