The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-12-29
REVOLT AGAINST SILENCE.
How Solitary Confinement Prisoners
Rest Themselves.

How Solitary Confinement Prisoners
Rest Themselves.
When the presumptive system of segre-
| gate confinement enforced at the Eastern
penitentiary aroused the Indignation of
Charles Dickens and his trenchant pen
gave expression to his horror of such pun
ishment, the institution on Paramount
avenue was given sinister reputation be-
yond its deserts. Since the great novelist
wrote in terms SO severe of solitary i'm
prisonment the results obtained by the
management of the prison here have re-
futed in the main the structures passed
upon the Eastern penitentiary Penolo-
gists have given their testimony in favor
of the system which Dickens condemned,
and solitary confinement is In vogue in
many of the penitentiaries of the country.
II enforced to the letter and a man was
compelled to sit within a narrow cell day
after day with nothing but his own
thoughts to occupy his mind, then indeed
solitary confinement would be barbarity
that would shame civilization and hui
manity. Madness and death could only
result in the majority of cases.
But when the convicted man stands be-
fore his judge to receive his punishment
and listens to the words SOLITARY confine-
ment' their terror is lightened by the
merciful provision that his loneliness shall
be relieved by thard labor, Then, too.
the crowded condition of the Eastern PEN
itentiary requires that two and frequently
three convicts shall be confined in the
same cell. and the solitary confinement
part of the sentence is more or less a legal
fiction.
While man has the company of his
fellows and the boon Of work in the prison
there is imposed upon him punishment
the severity and irksomeness of which can
only be apprehended in it's full force by
one who has undergone it. The punish
ment is silence. Throughout the day no
man dare speak to his fellow save of me-
cessity or by stealth To a man who has
yielded to temptation and fallen from an
honorable place in society the need OF hui
man sympathy, the sound of kindly
voice, a friendly ear into which to pour
the torturing surgings of his mind, is most
necessary and must make this imposed ST.
lence terrible to bear
The prison authorities recognize the se-
verify of the punishment of these long
broodipg hours and the mental strain i'm
posed Oh the convict Many in passing
the peEitentiary in the early hours of the
evening must have been startled by the
cries and tumult echoing from behind its
stone walls and wondered as they hurried
by if bloody revolt was going on within
A revolt it u.s. indeed, that nightly takes
| place, but it is the revolt of overburdened
hearts, of anguished souls, and black, evil
ciinds against the silence they have with
ed under during the day From O'Clock
until 9 each night the ban of silence is
| raised and the inmates OF the prison are
free to give vent to the tumult of their
| minds
Locked there in their cells, the great ma
| jority of the prisoners await eagerly the
hour of At the given time pandemoni-
uIn breaks loose The corridors echo and
re-echo to the yells, shrieks and songs of
the miserable Gagged men Many of them
have musical instruments, and these add
| their volume to the general disoord For
| three hours the din continues, but on the
| stroke of 8 the electric lights in the cells
| go out, silence once more broods over the
| gloomy place and fortunate the man who
| finds freedom in sleep. philadelphia Tele-
| graph