Orthosphere on Prison

Since it was a topic so recently, this is an amusing additional note:

In his 1896 biennial report to the Texas Legislature, the Superintendent of the State Penitentiary detailed the previous employment of the 4,446 convicts under his care.*  I was interested to note that 9 of these jailbirds had been “ministers of the gospel,” which placed them on par with “barkeepers” (also 9), but well below “cigar makers” (3), “cowboys” (1), “prostitutes” (1), and even “journalists” (2).

I would guess that Texas was then home to roughly the same number of barkeepers and ministers of the gospel, so we may suppose that the average moral quality of the men in these two professions was about the same.  I can report, however, that the category “ministers of the gospel” came off better than that sump of turpitude and iniquity, the category of “school teachers.”  Although statewide roughly equal in number to the ministers of the Gospel, pedagogues were incarcerated at nearly double their rate (17 total).

"Firefighters" wasn't a profession then, but it's pretty analogous to cowboying in many respects -- at least wildland firefighting like what is being discussed below, which has a lot of being outside, clearing land, and cutting fire breaks. Good for the soul, partly because it's real work for the body.