And the superior, I may almost say, never believes the
prisoner against a guard, or rather, never acts upon such belief. That
is the settled policy of the penitentiary; the warden himself has placed
himself on record numerous times to the effect that under no
circumstances would he take the word of a prisoner over that of a guard.
To be reported means to be punished, be the report baseless or not. It
follows naturally that guards never scruple to give full rein to any
animosity they may privately feel against a man, knowing that they will
be able to "put it across" with the higher official to whom complaint
may be made.
I happened to be in the corridor one day when one of the guards, a tall,
strapping fellow, was bringing downstairs a convict of stature much less
than his own, a poor half demented youth, whose dementia was
unfortunately wont to express itself in foul or abusive language, which
came from him almost involuntarily, without any particular personal
application. The two men were half way down the final flight of steps,
when, without any visible pretext, but, I presume, on account of some
unlucky epithet or utterance let fall by the convict, the guard suddenly
seized the youth violently by the throat, hammered his head against the
wall, and dragged him headlong down the rest of the descent. They were
now in the corridor; the man, bewildered and giddy, was whirled round
and shoved to the head of another short flight of steps leading out to
the yard; the door was open.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131