More, there was at least one man among my companions there who contrived,
by devices which I never sought to fathom, to pass the immitigable outer
gates themselves every day, attend to his business in the outer world for
as many hours as might serve, returning quietly in time for last
roll-call. He took a keeper with him, of course, but only in order to
assuage possible anxiety on the part of those responsible for his
security; and one cannot help suspecting that as soon as the two found
themselves under the free sky, the keeper betook himself to some friendly
saloon, moving-picture palace, or other inviting retreat, and only saw the
other again when they met by appointment in their trysting place.
It was safe enough no doubt; the prisoner would hardly think it worth his
while to attempt actual disimprisonment; he was content to sleep at night
in his cosy and comfortable cell. But the Moral Powers who live in white
waistcoats and saintly collars might have been restless in their innocent
sleep, had they known what things are practicable under the austere name
of incarceration in the City Prison.
Revolving these matters, I could only come to the conclusion that they
pointed in one direction, namely, toward the anachronism and absurdity of
our whole theory of punishment by imprisonment. As I shall have plenty of
cause to give full discussion to this subject later on, I will only touch
it here; but the fact is that we imprison malefactors or law-breakers (not
always synonymous by any means, since there are a score of artificial
crimes for one real one) not because we believe that to be the right thing
for them, but simply by reason of our inability to imagine anything more
suitable and sane.
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