The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1889-03-28

1t has it's day. lives its life. does its work
and passes away forever. Oftener. many
cells are united: so we have onecelled and
many ceIled plants and animals.
Cells were discovered more than two
hundred years ago by an English botanist.
who noticed that the bark of certain trees
was made up of little boxes. For more than
hundred years. until we received the
present cell theory. botanists regarded the
cell wall as the only. and therefore the eS
sential part.
Men too often see only the outside and
satisfy themselves with the shell or husk.
as it were, and lose sight of all essence and
worth.
There is another kind of cell. The cell
walls are made of bars of iron. the cell sub
stance is the prisoner and the nucleus is the
soul. Unlike other cells. these were not
discovered but invented Again; the cell
wall was the first part recognized. and for
centuries. nothing was thought of. save the
wall be strong enough to hold the substance.
In some of these cells are beautiful crystals
and in some also small Quantity of air.
Sometimes single cell constitutes prison;
Oftener. however. many are united. SOwe
have one cell and many-celled prisons.
Men early became acquainted with crime.
At first they resented wrong by striking
down the wrong dOer, as an animal strikes
down it's foe. Later they thought of pun
ishment. and set their minds to inventing
such means of torture that the most intense
pain might be inflicted without destroying
life Because of the idea of punishment.
darkness has fingered in prisons for centu-
ries after the world at large emerged from
the Dark Ages. and the light that shines
into the cells to day is but the glimmering
of early dawn.
There we're prisons in China, twenty-siX
hundred years before the Christian era:
there were cruel prisons in Persia. Egypt
and PhGnicia. In Athens, DracO wrote
the laws in blood. Every crime was capi-
tai. He reasoned that the least Otfense was
worthy of death and he knew of no severer
punishment for the greatest. In Rome.
having been stripped of his clothes and the
executiOner having torn the flesh of his ears
in his haste to remove the pendants. Jur
gurtha descended into All underground dun
geOn with a smile, saying: What a cold
bath is here!''
The old prisons were underground. with
out light or change of air and filthy to the
last degree. In these men pined their lives
away! But we need not 90 to the Manner
tine of Rome, the Tower of London. or the
mines of Siberia to find inhuman cruelty.
Seventy years ago Connecticut had all I'M
dergrOund prison where men with chains
about their neck and their limbs tied to bars
of iron. suffered in horror and hideOusness.
In Boston. men, women. boys, idiots, luna
tics and drunkardS were prOmiscuOusIy
mingled. In the early history of New York.
negroes were burned alive. and sometimes
with green wood to prolong the torture.
Stocks and whipping posts were common in
all the states.
Such were affairs from the origin OF civil
society to the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Imprisonment may have three objects:
punishment. the protection of society by
shutting up the criminal and deterring 9th
erS, and the reformation of the prisoner.
The first prevailed for ages; it kept back
prison reform until so late day; it has been
the cause of unSpeakable suffering; it has
never accomplished any good: it is wrong
in principle and. happily. is passing away.
Protection of society must always be the
supreme object of Imprisonment To this
all men agree; but how it protects most eff
fectually is a question of wide difference.
1t was thought that the severest punish
ment protects most effectually This view
is held no longer. A number of our states
have put away capital punishment without
any evil results. In the warfare against
crime the odds have, from the beginning,
been against society, and men have learned
by sad experience that it is better to empty
prisons than to build them; better not to
strike crime but dry up its sources.
Imprisonment has never been a good pro-
lection. Men are worse when they 60 out
of prison than when they go in. In our
country, sixty per cent ri of the liberated
return to prison. No doubt the remaining
forty per cent. become so expert as to avoid
a second arrest.