But the men to whose hands the "lifer" is entrusted found in it a
means of making him more readily amenable to discipline by holding over
him the threat of an adverse report should he prove intractable. They
could keep him indefinitely in that state of torturing suspense as to
his fate, which is perhaps the worst of all tortures, by withholding
from him all information as to whether or not his appeal was likely to
succeed.
Several cases of this kind came under my observation. In one, the
release came before the man had collapsed; in others, too late. In only
one or two that I know of was there any pretext that his conduct during
imprisonment had been unsatisfactory. The delay was never explained; it
was due to wilful or careless neglect. Two men were carried out feet
foremost in a deal box after they had endured suspense up to the extreme
limit of mortal capacity. They died of broken hearts--gradually broken
through long months of hope slowly fading into despair.
The warden sat serene in his office, attending to business as a good
official should, writing reports to the Department which testified to
his efficiency and economy, welcoming visitors with his genial smile,
occasionally reading encomiums upon himself in a local newspaper,
written and inserted there by somebody; the guards sauntered jauntily
about, cocking their caps and making their clubs dance at the end of the
cords; eight hundred unsightly felons, who had once been men like you
and me, filed drearily in to their meals, and out again, the worse for
the experience; and all the while, from morning till night, Dennis sat
on the corner of his cot in the hospital room, waiting for the news of
his release.
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