The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-04-24
PRISON DEVELOPMEN
How Shall the Prisoners i'm Our Penal
Institutions BE Treated?


Institutions BE Treated?
Is it generally known that crime has in
creased in America to an alarming extent
in sixty years? In our race for wealth, in
our great rush for development, in our
anxiety to see the shining steel band OF the
mountain, to hear the whirr of factory
wheels. and to see the flames rolling at
night from the chimneys of the furnace
have we failed to note that while crime was
decreasing in Great Britain, it was, and l
think is. increasing in the United States? l
believe statistics show that in our country
crime has doubled every ten years, and
shows no tendency to cease. Still we 20
on receiving. without any real attempt to
control it, the poison blood of the lowest
stratum of Europe; indeed in many in
stances the criminal and pauper blood
seems to be shipped to US that the home
comfy may be purified While that stream
rolls in at the present rate without super
vision, while avarice brings contract labor
to this land under thin disguise, we shall
go on sowing the wind with the certain as
surance that the red tide of discomfort and
brutality will continue to rise until at last
we shall reap the whirlwind. This is in
the very nature of the conditions, and his
tory bears out every word 1 state. The
first thing we need. then. is prevention on
this and many other lines that cannot here
be indicated.
We should not expect to cleanse the river
then while a hundred sewers are discharg-
ing their contents into it. .
But the main question is the treatment
of the prisoner who has been condemned.
Our fundamental ideas are changed when
we come to this by our enlarged knowledge
of mankind. Our whole action in this mat
ter will depend most largely on our theory
concerning the criminal himself, and be-
yOnd that our opinion of the duty and pre-
rOgative of the state. Do we believe all
men are to be judged in the same way? Do
we scout the idea of heredty as one that is
fit only for theorists? DO we believe that
in making terrible example of men we
shall accomplish our purpose by deterring
crime? And do you believe that brutality
will trghten men into obedience? If we
tend to this line of conviction we shall have
no patience with the men who come asking
for change. 1t was this feeling that
caused the re- establishment of the gallOws
in Maine. The good people argued that
crime was increasing. Ignorance said, our
beautiful villages will be ravaged by the
destroyer unless we make punishment ter
rible; SO they built the gallOws to find they
had made brutal mistake; that crime was
not lessened a particle. l am glad to say
that good sense abolished that law. And
for the benefit of those who believe that
cruelty in punishment will deter from
crime. the history of the world has a most
i,,,Y> o,,f fho rriv,of
of Poe construct more terrible method
than to make room five feet square, with
no means of escape, and perfectly smooth
walls, to place prisoner within, and have
bushel of poisonous snakes turned in from
an upper window to sting him to death?
Yet the ancient world did this for the crim-
inal. Could the ingenuity of Rider Hag-
gard go farther than to take woman. sew
her up in sack with half dozen cats, and
then torment the cats into frenzy, that they
might poison her with their fangs? This
was actually done. Those who have read
Never Too Late to Mend' have been in
troduced to the crank, the shot drill and the
tread mill. In some places you may still
see the dungeon and underground apart
ment. without ray of natural light from
the walls the oozing brings disease. and all
around the rusting iron rings to which pris-
Oners were chained in many instances to
moan away the days without help until
death mercifully gave relief. Under the
bluff King Hal. sometimes called ''de-
fender of the faith," we have the statement:
s'This year was man boiled in caldron
of boiling oil in Smithfield and
he was locked in chain and pulled up and
down on gibbet divers times until he was
dead" No, no. my friend, if severity
would deter from crime, long ago the world
box hoo rofo fOrT r Ixy
fill two columns of this paper with the de-
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