Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1896-09-24
POLITICAL PRISONERS. NOW AND
THEN.

Dickens, an Englishman, and one
of the kindliest souls ever known
on earth, wrote as follows of the
silent system of penal servitude
observed by him in the Eastern
Penitentia1y at Philadelphia
l hold this slow and daily tam
pering with the mysteries of the
brain to be UNNECESSARILY worse
than any torture Of the body; and
because it's CHASTITY signs and to-
kens are not so palpable to the
V and sense of touch as sears
upon the flesh; because its wounds
are not upon the surface, and 1t
EFFORTS few cries that human ears
can hear; therefore, l the more
denounce it, as a secret punish
ishment which slumbering human
ity is not reused up to stay. l
hesitated once, debating with my
self whether, if l had the power
of saying eyes or "No,' |
would allow it to be tried IN Ger
tain cases, where the terms OF I'M
prisonment were short; but now,
l solemnIy declare, that with no
rewards or honors could l walk a
Lappy man beneath the open sky
by day, or lay me down upon my
bed at night, with the conscious
ness that one human creature, for
any length of time, no matter
what, lay suffering this unknown
punishment in his silent cell, and
l the cause, or | consenting to 1t
in the least degree.
The great English novelist was
writing of a foreign country and
it's penal institutions: but he would
have been equally outspoken IN
condemnation of similar barbara
ties in his own country. Charles
Reade, Marcus Clarke, and the
author of E'Valentine Nox' have
shown how some managers OF
penal institutions and asylums for
the insane can Guido the ingenuity
of Satan himself in devising tor.
lures for the hapless wretches un-
der their control; but it remained
for plain facts to excel the wild
est imaginings of the romancer,
as it has done in the cases of the
s~o-called ''dynamiters' Gala
CHER, DAILY, Whitehead and others
lately released from British dun
geons, physically or mentally
wrecked by the atrocious treat
ment accorded to them while in
prison,
Those men, condemned to penal
servitude for alleged crimes,
which, at worst, did not involve
any destruction of life, have been
released after years of torture be-
cause, for very shame, their jail
ers could no longer hold them IN
durance after having allowed &C
tual murderers like DR.. jameson
and his fellow-criminals to escape
with a nominal punishment of
temporary seclusion for a few
months.
Jameson and his titled pals"
will be relieved from even that
slight deprivation of liberty in
a short time, and il will not be
the fault Of the government if
they do not come forth as we'll in
body and mindas when they con-
scented to suffer a vicarious but
not severe punishment on behalf
of Messrs. Rhodes, Chamberlain
&Co.
But how about the Irish "dyn~
amiters" condemned, as one of
their prosecutors admits in the
London Sun, on the evidence Of
government agents paid from the
secret service fund to fomert an
artificial dynamite conspiracy,
simply for the money that was
in it" for the fabricatnrs of the
imaginary plot? Those agents
provocateurs. as they r called
in France, where the breed orr
ginated, are alive and at large
to>day, as James Carey would be
if wild Justice had not sent an
agent to punish his crimes. aud
as Pigott would be if he had not
forestalled justice by taking his
own miserable life. But the vic
tins of governmental conspiracy,
in the dynamite cases" are
barely alive, and nothing more.
Temporizing with the devil, in
queer way which marks the
modern Pharisee, the British
Government tortures it's victim
to the last extremity of physical
and mental endurance and then
magnanimously sets him free,
Ioc% ~ no cold thot Thr;c4ian