The brochure for the Ohio Penitentiary’s Grand Christmas Entertainment of Dec. 26, 1898, bragged that it would be “the finest produced in any penal institution in the world.”

But as new prisoners talked excitedly about the festivities, some of the old ones must have fondly recalled some merciful gifts Warden Elijah J. Coffin had unwrapped for them 10 Christmases earlier.

The Clark County native, who oversaw the penitentiary in what the Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website refers to as its “golden age” on Christmas Day 1888, banished two forms of corporal punishment from the prison.

One was the ducking tub, one of the distant relatives of waterboarding once used to get ill-behaving prisoners’ attention. A second was the use of the “bull rings,” two metal rings attached to a wall that were used in tandem with ropes or chains to hang prisoners by their wrists for hours in dark, solitary confinement.

Coffin had good reason to decide the bull rings weren’t fit for those who were naughty or nice.

As Hampton’s magazine, a muck-raking journal of the time reported, “Sufferers of this device and other witnesses have declared that the chains are sometimes so adjusted that the delinquent’s feet barely touch the floor … At night the victim is usually lowered and allowed to sleep on the floor, usually, not always.”

When he announced his ban on these tortures to Columbus newspapers, Coffin said: “A hard box to sleep on and bread and water to eat will cause them to behave themselves. It may not be so speedy, but it is more humane.”

Although compassion may have moved Coffin to provide these stocking-stuffers, prison reform was driven nationwide by exposés in which national magazines including Hampton’s described such inhumane and intolerable conditions.

Coffin, whom the website reports served as superintendent from 1886-1900, rode the wave of reform that followed.

“As a penal institution the Ohio Penitentiary is at present the undisputed Model Prison of the United States,” said an official 1888 prison history.

“Many flattering books were written about the institution during this era, and visitors behind the walls could buy picture souvenir books showing convicts in military formation smartly crossing the lushly landscaped prison yard,” the corrections website notes.

Said the souvenir book mentioned above: “It is to Mr. Coffin’s revolutionary methods of inaugurating, perfecting and successfully establishing humane (in place of) repressive methods … that the Ohio Penitentiary owes its world-wide celebrity.”

Even with an era of prison reform at hand, one wonders whether Coffin and Ohio politicians were criticized for coddling criminals after citizens read the program for the 1898 Christmas gala, an event with the kind of top-flight entertainment some who hadn’t been convicted could ill afford.

The show managers, Professor Dan J. Morgan and Robert L. Bruce, promised “three hours of solid fun,” including a minstrel show starring Bruce as the interlocutor.

The acts followed one another like prisoners lined up for chow.

After the grand introduction overture, comedian F.W. “Fred” Roth launched into his side-splitting routine,“If they only fought with razors in the war.”

Three light vocal numbers were sandwiched between Douglas Ball’s “Because I’m Old and Gray” and W.M. Hayden’s heartrending ballad “Only a Fallen Angel.”

Miss Nora Johnson livened things up with “Baby Let Me Bring My Clothes Back Home” and George Smith kept things going with “I’m a Bad, Bad Man From Bad, Bad Lands” before a vocal quartet brought the first act to a close.

Professor Frank Haley and his educated dog Rosa O’Grady got act two off with a bang, then gave way to the prison’s own Coffin Brass Band.

Little Nellie Williams, “the beautiful child vocalist,” poured out her heart before the ethnic acts began.

For prisoners of German heritage, there were the antics of Roth. Irish inmates no doubt clapped a little louder for “rough Irish comedian” W.M.Hayden, setting up the return of George “Bad Land” Smith and some of the black face comedy of the day.

The grand finale was the sketch “On the Bowery” or “How Grousemeyer Met the Sports.”

It featured a German conman named “Anheiser Busch;” fellow con Mike Shultz; and Jake Grousemeyer, “fresh from the Klondike.”

The plot unfolded with the help of other characters the prisoners might have related to: Bill the Slugger, “a dead tough bartender;” Tired Tommy, who was described as “always seeking work” (not!); the “hard nut” that was Willie Humber; and Hungry Hank, a character that was “fully of straw” and played by “A. Dummy.”

The brochure of the grand event is in the collection of the Clark County Historical Society, which has another rather bizarre holiday artifact from the late Charles “Tom” Stevens.

The Korean War veteran’s family donated a 1951 propaganda Christmas Card sent to American soldiers.

The card offered “Greetings from the Chinese People’s Volunteers” (that is, the Chinese soldiers who had been shooting at them) with this seemingly humanitarian verse:

“Whatever the colour (note the British spelling), race or creed, all plain folks are brothers indeed. Both you and we want life and peace, if you go home the war will cease.”

A more sincere message shows up in a card given to the Historical Society by the family of Jan and David Miller.

On the front is a picture of the Sioux Chief Ben American Horse. Inside is the message “Jesus Ton’pi Anepetu Na O’makateca Cante Waste.”

That translates to “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”