But, remembering that he was on parole, and
therefore liable, on the least infringement of discipline, to be thrust
back in his cell, none of us expected that he would venture to denounce
the wrongs and expose the miseries of the imprisoned; we were glad to
learn that he had secured a position paying him twenty or thirty dollars
a month, with a chance of better things later, and that he had announced
his purpose of running down the real perpetrator of the crime for which
he had suffered, and forcing him to confess. For a few days, one or two
local papers gave him half a column, and then there was silence.
I had been denied parole, and the restrictions thereof did not apply to
me when my own day of freedom arrived; and I gave a short interview to a
reporter, in which I said that the warden was unfit for his position,
that the food was abominable, and that punishment in dark cells and
otherwise was still practised, though under cover.
The next day the newspapers printed an interview with my late friend, in
which he was quoted as declaring that every statement I had made was a
malicious lie, that the warden was in all respects the best, kindest and
most lovable man he had ever met, and that the men in confinement had
all the food they asked for, of the best quality, and that all tales of
hardships and cruel punishments were false and wicked.
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