This happened before the
date of Attorney-General Wickersham's visit to the prison, and therefore
before the change in Warden Moyer's ideas as to the expediency of severe
measures in the handling of convicts. Were the thing to be done again
to-day, it would probably not occur out in the open air and sunshine,
with persons looking on, but under circumstances of decent seclusion.
The outside public is becoming a little squeamish about prison killing.
But in Russia there is no public opinion, or none that is audible, and
the prison guards there are not hampered in their work by the necessity
of doing it under cover, as they are here. It is a question which method
is preferable. I believe some of our prisoners would vote for the open
way of killing and torturing. It is exasperating to be "done up" in
secret, in the dark, stifled and gagged, with no chance to die fighting.
I have no comparative statistics as between us and Russia, but it would
not be surprising if our record of men beaten, starved, poisoned, hung
up in chains in dark cells, and killed by neglect and cruelties, were to
size up fairly well against what Russia has to show. Considering the
restrictions put upon them, our prison autocrats certainly do well.
Some doubt has been created in the public mind as to whether there
really are dark cells in the Atlanta Penitentiary, or, if there be,
whether their use has not been long discontinued.
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