"Crooked or straight, I'll end in jail," he
said to me, with that strange convict smile which means such unspeakable
things. "I've got two years more here; if I last it out, they'll get me
again."
I firmly believe that he would have been an honest and successful man if
he had been let alone.
It sometimes happens that the manhood of a convict is so sapped by long
sufferings that even his desire for freedom is lost. He is afraid to be
free; he cannot live at ease outside of his cell walls. Perhaps you will
say that goes to prove the gentleness and humanity of prison discipline.
To me it seems a thing so appalling that I must be content with the bare
statement of the fact. A man is afraid to be free, afraid of the great
wonderful world, and of his fellow creatures, and can endure what he
supposes to be life only in his steel cell. What has put that fear in
him? But our laws provide no penalty for dehumanizing a fellow creature
under the forms of law. If it be legal, it must be right.
I knew a man in our prison who had been thirty-five years in
confinement, with short intervals of liberty. The best favor he could
ask was to be allowed to stay all day and all night in his cell, doing
nothing. Year after year, nothing else than this appeared to him worth
while. He was well educated, as prisoners go, quiet and inoffensive.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219