After my release I visited the Missouri penitentiary, and verified the statements of those criminals, and gathered additional material from the prison records and the officials. I have written chiefly for the youth of the country, but all ages will be deeply interested in the following pages. A large majority of the convicts are young men from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. They had no idea of the terrible sufferings of a convict life, or they surely would have resisted temptation and kept out of crime. The following pages will impart to the reader some idea of what he may expect to endure in case he becomes entangled in the meshes of the law, and is compelled to do service for the State without any remuneration.
Every penitentiary is a veritable hell.
I think, when the reader has perused the following pages, he will agree with me, that the book has the proper title. The situation had not changed by 1908, when an investigation of the Kansas Penitentiary described by John Reynolds revealed ghastly practices, including torture and medical alterations. This was perhaps in part because even those closest to the prisons remained blissfully unaware of the conditions inside. This part of the country is prettier than that farther west. It is more broken and has more trees.