Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 186?-1872, 1872-10-05

| tnat the man am telllnS YOU dDOut,
has not been sentenced to receive any
punishment at all, and is so punished,
whilst in the eye of the law he is in
noccnt. II believe, says Mr.. Dick
ems, that very few men arc capable
of estimating the immense amount of
torture and agony, which this dreadful
punishment, prolonged for years, in
flicts upon the sufferer; and in gues-
sing at it myself, and in reasoning from
what | have seen written upon their
faces, and what to my certain
knowledge they feel within, ] am only
the more convinced that there is a
depth of endurance in it, which none
but the sufferers themselves can faith
ON, and which no man has a right to
inflict upon hls fellow creature. |
hold this slow and daily tampering
with the mysteries of the brain to be
immcasurably worse than any torture
of the body; and because its CHASTITY
signs aud tokens aronot so palpable to
the eye and sense of touch as scars
upon the flesh; because its wounds
are not upon the surface, and it extorts
few cries that human ears can hear,
therefore | the more denounce it as
secret punishment, which slumbering
humanity is not reused up to stay, and
| solmenly declare that with no re-
wards or honors could | walk happy
man beneath the open sky by day, or
lay me down upon my bed at night,
with the consciousness that one hu-
man creature for any length of time,
no matter what, lay suffering in his
silent cell, and the cause, or | con-
senting to it in the least degree" "
Now those are my sentiments dear
brethren, and therefore, enter here
my solemn protest against the inhu-
manity that inficts this most horrible
of all known punishments upon one
whom the law has not sentenced to
receive any punishment at all. But
take another case in this same precious
Jail of ours. That Of a poor insane
white man, shut up for nine months
in one of the dens | have described.
Not even charged with crime at all,
not vicious, only occasionally insane,
shut up for nine long months in that
dark cell with crowd of naked ne
groes, his own clothes had rotted and
dropped off by piece meal, till he was
naked too, and there he wallowed in
darkness, stencil and vermin, with
those naked negroes. A gentle, pale
and mild eyed man as | ever saw
This is pretty hard place" said
to him. yes" said he, "a pretty
hard place for christian people to keep
man in who has never done harm to
any one in his life. Where did you
stay before you came here" II lived
with my brother, and | loved to play
with his little children" and the mild
eyes filled with tears as he thought Of
the little children that he loved to play
with And as he leaned against the
iron bars of his cell door, had just
light enough to read his pale sad face,
and as through binding tears, | gazcd
upon him there, these low whispered
words fell on my ear, as if voice was
speaking from the depths of that dark
cell. Il am stranger, sick, naked,
and in prison, and no man ministereth
unto me" Strange words to hear in
such place. Strange thought and
yet fearful fact, the Lord Christ, in
the person of his suffering servant has
been living in that dark den for nine
long months. Now let me ask you
brethren, is there anything in such a
prison that is calculated to humanize,
elevate and improve the prisoners. Is
this all that christianity can do for
them? Has the Church of Christ
been loving mother to these poor
outcasts? What has she done to keep
them out of prison, what is she doing
for them there? Has she taken any
pains to teach them right from wrong,
has she ever taught them to read God S
Holy Word? Is she not allowing
scores of children in this county and
in this town to grow up as they have,
in that brutal ignorance, which pre-
pares the man for the commission of
every crime, and does she not in this
way, become responsible for the crimes
they commit. But some one may say,
I've been through the Jail, and |
don't think it is quite so bad as you
represent. But let me tell you breth-
ren, that person casually visiting the
Jail, will get but slight glimpse of its
horrors. lie would say, as every one
who has ever been in it has said, that
it is vile place, a reproach TO christi
anity, and disgrace to humanity; but
unless he has studied the subject, he
would be very apt to fall into the error
of supposing that our Jail is no worse
than such institutions generally arc
but so far from this being the case,
am quite sure that if the newspapers
should take hold of this institution,
they might win for the Clarksville Jail
, an infamous reputation, second only
to that of the black hole of Calcutta
: have spoken of the darkness, the
stencil, the vermin; but there arc
other things which common dccency
forbids that | should mention here
but common decency does not prevent
, the existence of those things, aud It is
necessary that one should be familiar
with all the disgusting details of the
, case, before he can fully realize the
effects of long Imprisonment in that
! place of torture, Compare Il with
the penitentiary, which is place ol
, Ipunishmcnt, whilst this is not. There
, the vilest criminal has occupation, all
t and exercise through the day, and a
r clean we'll ventilated cell to himself
/ at night here the innocent and the
5 guilty, the young offender and the
: hardened criminal are crowded togeth'
! er and kept in darkness day and night
= 1t is very true that one man in oul
I jail has a cell to himself but is there
penitentiary IN any civilized country
! in the world that has a cell like that
e 1t is very true that in one penitentiary
4 the experiment of solitary conhnc'
= ment as punishment for crime war
= tried, and to that experiment the ex;
D tract from Dickens refers. But whai
+ was the result Of that experiment,
why it had to be abandoned, because