Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-02
What Pauline Pry Saw on a Visit to
the District Jail.
SEEN IN MURDERERS' ROW
Good Work Done by Charitable
Visitors to the Jail.
IN THE WORK II o L S F.

embrace of the law. are assembled thieves,
murderers, fiends of every sort in human
form incarnate; criminals awaiting trial,
criminals working out their sentences for
wrongdoing, criminals waiting in the shad-
ow of the scaffod the day of their execu-
tion criminals-men, women, little chill
dren. Close neighbor to these are hun
dreds of poor souls whose misfortune is so
akin to crime in the sight of the world the
law huddles them in the same inclosure
subject to the same justice-justice for the
friendless homeless. pennless, sick. justice
for pauper old age that past the recoIec-
ton of joy, past the recollection of pity
or any hope of it, sits housed and fed, I'M
loved, alone, looking forward to-a grave
in potter's field
l spent !ast Sunday morning visiting the
Washington Jail, workhouse, hospital. aims
house, and ever since my understanding is
befogged with the mystery of niquity.''
From WOman's Point of View.
To certain extent | enjoy those minds
that can reduce the problems of crime and
of charity to a mathematical equation of
sociological units determined by the laws
of sciences taught in schools I've differ
ent sort of mind myself-granting, of
course which is open to dispute, that a
woman has mind at all. To me. however
studies in crime and studies in pauperism
seen a criminal or pauper that seems to
me anything but the very thing I'm likely
to become myself, but for the accident of
circumstances, wholly beyond my control.
St. Augustine said that to the day of his
death he never felt sure any moment what
sin he might not commit the next. If the
tenure of office of the saint is mcer-
tain i'll the opinion of one possessing emf
nent experience in virtue and wisdom.
surely /, mere woman of the world-yea,
now much worse, a mere newspaper wo-
man of the world am not without rea-
son in my point of view. l did not go to
Jail or poor house therefore to be shocked.
but to shudder-not seeking data for the
support of theories of reform, but fear
fully to confront conditions common to my
own human nature. When the great iron
door of the Jail changed behind and the
lock clicked in its hold, l stood in awe and
trembling, myself in a criminals boots.
In the Hideous Human 700"
L was in az immense court, rooted over
high above, the surrounding walls white
washed till IN contrast with The character
| of life within they were as CHASTITY white
as tombstones seen by the moon at mid
night. On either side were two enormous
cages. each three stories high the separate
stories terminating in balconies, from which
stairWays lead. just back of the steel bars
IN front. Passing up and down the stairs
moving around the balconies and standing
peering through the bars outside was a
shifting body Of men that seen at a glance
IN these huge cages. made the jail first
look 10 me q hideous human ZOO"
And l was to go in among these mon
sters,
l tell you frankly, l was afraid-not with
the historical fear perhaps natural to a
woman That these l&Wbreakers might sud
denly spring at me in their cage and hurt
me: / was afraid to see in their faces the
clear-Written final equation of tendencies
unknown and uncontrolled in my own ma
tuIe. was afraid, too. TO have them look
INTO my face, lest, seeing there my knowI-
edge Of them. it should define their in
iquity to themselves and make nv HELPLESS
bind judgment responsible for their de-
Spair
| have never had the whole mystery of
ihlIuty reduced to a single Interrogation
point as once by a SeVen-Vcar-old boy
Sitting with me in the freight one even
ing, he hethought him to ask what had be-
come OF some tramp eats that had been
annoying us | told him | had sent tban1
off to be drowned.
He studied d moment, and then asked
Does God like 10 have US kill cats?"
MY conscience having naturally a Hindu
strain in it, | repied-praying heaven the
C4ild would not judge me by my precepts-
II really think, nay SOB, that God doesn't
like to have us kill any living thing
Again the child studied a while, and
asked:
Then why does God give us the power
to kill?'
Precisely that question in my mind is
what made me a coward among rniIrdarers
and thieves in Jail. While | might answer
the child that We have the power to do
eVli IN conjunction with "a power of self
control, thus making possible for us the
glory OF directing all our powers TO the
highest good, as a matter of daily expert
ence, the vengeance of God upon the third
ana fourth generation of evil-tlOers
brings constantly into the world a class of
men and women cursed with tendencies
ana hemmed in by associations that brand
them In the cradle with the mark of Cain
Such criminals as these I dreaded to have
NV Foe fp
them mirror in which thew shonl5 see a
reflection of their doom.
In Murderers' Row.
Still, | found myself among them. with
the door Of the cage locked behind me
mad penetrated the second circle of the law
breakers Inferno" l was elbow to elbow
with the black and white criminals NOV
Ing in the corridors between two long lines
of cells and now l was face TO face with
the most hateful monsters of earth-mur-
derers and worse. l was passing along
murderers' row"-a succession of collie io
which, locked behind another set of bars
were the criminals not to be trusted with
the liberty of the corridors. AS l saw these
men, their faces in every instance STAMPED
with a record of their crime, their liberty
restrained by the four walls of a cell "a
long as their coffin and not much wider, /
mad vision of hell which mere reason in
dependent of revelation, must sustain
Conceive the mind pursued by the mem
DRY OF revolving deed; live over and over
in thought every loathsome detail and.
coupled with this, strive franticalIy and
purposelessy to answer the question of
moral accountability which in the nature
OF the human mind persists with the con-
seriousness of evil committed under some
form of terror or another; with mind so
harassed, conceive, too, heart the prey of
every appetite and passion, a body phys
lcaily dsordered by Indulgence in evil until
vice and immortality have become its food
ana drink; then conceive with such a mind
and heart and body to be deprived of all
liberty of action, and fancy the currents of
desperation, despair, remorse impotent
rage that would start from you, beat
against the four walls of your cell turn
back upon yourself consuming you only
to belch you forth again. new subject for
fresh fury-in word, fancy the torment
the hell, known to a human being thus con-
ditioned!
In such Limbo 1 saw score and more
of men and one small boy.
Among the murderers awaiting trial in
jail IS a colored boy taken into custody
with ten men for fearful crime. He has
spent four months in jail-"four months
and seven days today" he told me with
pathetic misunderstanding action in his