Journal Author:California. Legislature. Assembly Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: P P E 1ST D I CORRESPONDENCE IN REGARD TO STATE PRISON. MEMORIAL FROM STATE PRISON GUARDS. Point San Quentin, May 14, 1855. To his Excellency, John B... more »i6ler, Governor of the State of California: "We, the nndersigned Memorialists, wonld respectfnlly represent to yoar Excellency, that the majority of ns have been employed as Gnards at the State Prison for the last eight months, and some even for a longer period, at the inadeqnate salary of $50 per month;—that none of ns have received even the half of onr wages dnring onr employment, and qnite a nnmber have never obtained the least compensation. This fact is at present adverted to, simply to convince yonr Excellency that we have religionsly discharged onr painfnl and onerons dnties, nnder circnmstances ot personal inconvenience and narewarded peril, which wonld have fnlly jnstified ns at any time of resigning in a body, and thns from the embarrassed pecnniary sitnation of the Lessee, rendered it ntterly impossible on his part to snpply onr place. For months anterior to the assembling of the Legislatnre, we were indnced to contian in onr present position, by the freqoent and reiterated promises on the part of the Lessee, that onr past arrears shonld be paid; and nnder this delnsion we have lingered, or rather have been forced to remain, nntil Jannary last, when believing that by the transfer of the Penitentiary to the State, the Lessee wonld be able to compensate ns for past services, we have continned in his employment np to the present moment. None of these promises have been realized, and some of ns now find onrselves at the expiration of from three-fonrths to a year's laborions service, withont a dollar in compensation, or the remotect hope of procnring it. We have introdnced these pnrely personal facts to y...« less