But it was plain that the
officials took interest in the prison paper as a medium for advertising
and gaining credit for the penitentiary; and that when I began to write
for it, newspapers all over the country quoted the articles and
commented kindly on them. My name was given a prominence, unwelcome,
though well meant; accounts of my doings and condition, entirely
apocryphal (for I never saw a newspaper man during my stay, or gave out
any form of interview), were published and featured from time to time; I
was kept more or less in the public eye. If, now, I were to be starved
and clubbed, dungeoned and otherwise maltreated, not only would I be
incapacitated from contributing to the paper, but some hint of the facts
might leak out and impair the reputation of Atlanta Penitentiary as a
Gentleman's Club and Humane Paradise. Accordingly, if I were found
smoking out of hours, or were missing from count,--"Never mind--it's
only Hawthorne!" It may be, of course, that my personal charm was so
irresistible that every official from the warden down fell victim to it,
and would rather prove recreant to their oath of office than interfere
with me; my vanity craves to believe so, yet I hesitate. At any rate,
with whatever sugar the gag was sweetened, or whether the suggestion of
it was inadvertent, I did not feel justified in accepting it; and when I
got out, the waiting reporters at last obtained what they had so long
awaited.
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