The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-01
Testified TO s
Yesterday 5


kill me?"
| These were the cries that rang out
one night, not on the hog-back pass at
Lambert's lake, away from human hab-
itation, but in the penal institution
which the people of the state of Min
nesota have prided themselves was be-
ing used for the reformation and not
the terrorizing and abuse of malefac-
| tors.
The frightened convict who made
night hideous with his shrieks, accord
ing to the story of another convict
who was locked up three cells from
him in the dismal solitary that night,
was Davis, who has been known to
previous and recent prison investiga-
t1ons alike as sufferer from severe
prison punishments
The narrator Of the incidents Of this
frightful night to the prison investigat-
ors told his story to them yesterday
under the assurance that his name was
not going to be given to the press 1t
was blood-curdling recital,
and few there were who
listened to 1t but paused to
reflect on the reformatory influence
which must be impaired, not only by
these cries, but by the curses with
which the perpetrators of the midnight
outrage replied to the pleadings
In the old prison, the dungeons, as
the solitary cells were then known,
were painted black inside, and the cell
doors were of iron, double thickness,
an inch or two apart, with little dia-
monds at the top of one sheet and the
bottom of the other, so as to let in
air, but not sunshine. The new soli-
tary cells are architecturally light, and
through the day the grated window lets
in some part of the glories of the lib
erty that exists outside.
Yet, if the story of this convict is
true, and he told his experiences yes
terday with a straightforwardness that
spoke we'll for his truthfulness, it has
remained for some Of the attaches of
this prison, equipped as it is with the
best modern arrangements for the hu-
name care of convicts, to invent night
ly brutalities that might have pleased
the Duke of Gloster himself.
This was but one Of the sensational
incidents told by the witnesses yester-
day on the stand, and the second was
told by a citizen, not a convict, a young
man who was formerly employed In
the prison shoe factory, but who now
works for Foot, Schulze & Co., in this
city.
Two convicts in that shop engaged in
a fight one day, one of them cutting the
other badly with the short, sharp knife
which is used for cutting the leather
in the shops into shapes convenient for
the putting together of the shoes. Af-
ter the belligerents had been parted
this citizen workman left his bench
and taking a bandana handkerchief
helped the injured man to tie up the
wounds on his head. 1t was simple
thing. He might have stopped, may
hap, on the street one day to bandage
the injured paw of a friendless cur.
This was human being at least, and
in his heart to be treated at least not
worse than the dog. Yet after these
prisoners had been dragged away,
probably to the same dungeon where
the shrieks and means of bruised and
beaten creatures make the night bed
lam and the day a desert as for kind
ness-when these men had been drag
ged away, the deputy warden of the
prison, according to the samaritan's
own story, said with some expletives
that were not pleasant at all:
Don't you NEEDLE with these con-
vfcts again. want you to distinctly
understand that. Under any circum-
stances. If you see a convicts head
being severed from his body, don't you
interfere"
Eighteen centuries have praised the
spirit which animated the traveller
from Samaria, who bound up the
wounds of the wayfarer who had fall
len amoug thieves. In many house
holds his story is taught as model Of
Christian fellowship. But in the state
prison at Saltwater, it seems, an eX-
purgated Christianity prevails. Phari-
saical rather the spirit there which
grinds under foot forever the unfortu-
nate who has fallen by the wayside,
subjecting him not only to physical
abuse. but to moral and mental tor
lures. damnable in their persistent in
genuity.
Unless yesterdays testimony is re-
futed, the humanitarianism Of the sys-
TEN of discipline in vogue at the Still
water prison must remain under
cloud.
These two incidents were the most
sensational that developed in the testi-
noiny of yesterday. There were
others, along the general lines of the
testimony which has gone in before,
repetitions of DID, and addition of new,
testimony concerning the beating and
kicking and choking of convicts by
Lemon and Colligan and other en-
ployes.
Testimony was also adduced to the
effect that guards had failed to sub
nit to the higher officials requests to
see the warden, the only recourse an
unjustly treated convict has to the pro-
lection of the society at large through
its recognized humanitarian guardian.
The last day of the Introduction of
the accusative testimony, except for
the examination of few witnesses
who will be examined at Saltwater
when the commission sits again, was
terrible in its realistic revelations of !
prison horrors.
The defense began by presenting |
some paroled convicts. who invariably
testified that thew had not seen anv |