At Atlanta, in his cell, he was a center of
good influence on his fellow convicts; truthful, hearty, faithful,
manly, cheerful; his preaching was by personal example, and by support
and help given at need to the weak and despairing. He was promised
freedom on parole; the promise was not kept; but even this last betrayal
failed to break his staunch heart. He died like a man, with composure
and dignity.
With a few such exceptions, prisoners are unrepentant except for
business reasons--that is, either because they recognize that crime does
not pay, or in order to influence in their favor the pardoning power.
Many of them, of course, employ their prison opportunities to devise new
crimes and to train fresh recruits from the younger convicts. Men who
have been imprisoned more than once lose hope of anything better than
transient freedom; they know they will be prevented by the police from
earning an honest livelihood, and that they must either starve or steal.
They become in the end mere prison creatures, destitute of evil or of
good, active or passive.
I repeat that the experience of associating with men without disguises
is novel and refreshing. A tedious burden is lifted from the shoulders;
the bones in the sepulcher are less revolting than the whitewash
outside; it is pleasanter to know what a man is than to suspect him.
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