The "lesson" (word which our shallow
and officious moralists roll so sweetly under their tongues) would have
been taught him to the last tittle, and withal enough of the man remain
to profit by it. Whereas, under the existing conditions, no more than
four or five years in jail destroy any possibility of future usefulness
in most men; they have been hammered into something helpless, dazed, or
monstrous; and even if they have courage to attempt to take hold of life
again, they are defeated by the unremitting pursuit of our spy system,
which depends for the main part of its livelihood upon getting
ex-convicts back to jail--whether on sound or on perjured evidence is
all one to the spies. So, as I said some time ago, most prison sentences
are life sentences, to all practical intents. To the manhood of the man,
prison means death.
Do some of the above statements appear extreme? Read on, and decide.
Meanwhile I will observe that so long as prisons endure, such abuses as
have been hinted at must persist. Whatever reforms have in special
instances ameliorated them, have in so far only gone to show that the
whole system is vicious and irrational.
My friend and I looked at our new masters with curiosity; they looked at
us with what might be termed arch amusement. With such a look do small
boys regard the beetles, kittens, or other animals, power to torment
whom has been given them.
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