Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-07-28

of Torquemada and making real the
grewsome imaginings OF Poe.
Yet here, in the metropolis of the en-
pire state of this most virtuous and en-
iightened Union, the government has de-
liberately gone into the business OF man.
ufacturing madmen. Ii Is driving pris-
oners insane through systematic refine
ments of cruelty rivalling any that have
been told in history or devised in morbid
fiction. The Chinese have horrible hab-
it of torturing men to death ny depriving
them OF sleep. But they are half civilized
Mongolians. In the inquisition men weres
driven TO madness and then to death
through being deprived of drink. while
cool water and sparkling wines were tor
mentingly displayed just OF of reach.
But that was in the Dark Ages, 1t was
reserved for highly cultivated Americans
in the closing years of the nineteenth
century to inflict more agoniZing fortunes
and more surely to destroy both mind
and body by deprivlng their victims of ali
employment with which to exercise the
muscles or engage the brain.
That is the appalling indictment
against which no pleading can avail.
Months ago 1t was officially reported
that. owing to enforced idleness, the in
mates of Sing Sing prison We're being
hurried wholesale to the discipline rooms.
the hospital and the madhouse. Now
comes like report from the Kings coun-
ty penitentiary. Seven of its inmates
nave been officially declared insane and
1t least two more will probably thus be
declared before the week is out Their
madness is of most agonizing kind,
marked with horrors too great to be de-
sCrihed in public print. And of the cause
of ii there is no shadow of a doubt The
prisoners have for months been pleading
Psufully to be allowed to work as starry
ing men might pray for food. Their petit
tons have been. perforce. denied They
have been doomed to utter idleness and
ISOLATION from their kind. In some cases
death has mercifully come to their relief:
but in many dissolution of the mind has
preceded that of the body. The prison
has become feeder to the asylum for
the insane
II is a hideous reproach to our pen
oioSy There are those who think il
strange that better disposition cannot
be made OF murderers than killing them
and that simple shutting up in prison is
not the best use to make of ordinary
criminals. There can be no possible dis
sent from the opinion that systematically
70 drive prisoners insane is a blot upon
civilization. Revolutions have hitherto
been provoked by showing to the pcople
the suffering victims of a despots cruel
ty. The public knowledge of the exist
enee OF this increasing number of vic
Tins of an evil system ought to provoke
legal revolution that will sweep that
system out of existence and make it's re-
consideration forever impossible The
commissioners of charities and correc-
tions appear to be not at fault The war
zen Is not to be blamed. They have been
doing their best to give the prisoners en-
pioyment. 1t is the system which impos
es idieness upon the prisoners. the system
Whlch forbids them reasonable occupa-
tlon--that is the enemy. That is tho
manufacturer of madmen That is the
tning TO be abolished. A a~turn to the
contract labor system would probably be
seslsted as abhorent to the sense of in
austrian justice. But that is not needed
~ Is possible without 1t to give all the
convlcts healthful and profitable employ
m menu. 10 say that cannot be done Is n
III 1,pel upon intelligence and enterprise.
fanny. ~