The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1900-10-18
SALTWATER, MINNESOTA THURSDAY OCTOBER 49, 1900

ory, in defense of which have been un-
able to discover any appreciable exam
pies among my wards, that crime, on the
part of the great majority of prisoners
can be satisfactorily accounted for by
the existence of certain traits of breed
ing and ancestry. Here at least, the
great majority have led reasonably
upright lives as the world goes, until
the moment when they fell. Sudden
passion, intemperance, sometimes press
ing want has driven many a man to
the commission of crime, repented of
almost as soon as committed.
No one denies for moment. the
absolute necessity of discipline. No
prison serves its purpose where prompt
obedience is not the first requisite.
There can be no more deplorable in.
stance of mistaken kindness than of
the officer who temporizes with a re-
fractory prisoner. To enforce instant
compliance may not be in all cases
possible, but in all such cases without
resorting to the brutalizing expedient
of flogging, the separate confinement
of the offender will be found far more
efffcacious in a majority of instances,
than any other punishment which can
be meted out to him. To the man
whose offence is the result of accident
rather than of design, and whose con-
duct is apt to be controlled by reason,
this method of discipline will at once
commend itself as being both intelli-
gent and humane: while the habitual
criminal will soon recognize that in his
attempted defiance of constituted pris-
on authority, he accomplishes nothing
more than his own personal incon-
venience together with the loss of such
privileges as the prison rules allow to
those whose conduct is of the best.
No matter how great the provocation
which leads to the infliction of cor
poral punishment, the sympathies of
the great majority of the offenders
companions is sure to be with him in
his suffering, and any incident which
tends to create feeling of hostility
towards officials is always fraught with
more or less danger. On the other
hand, the man whose misbehavior re-
suits in his isolation from the great
body of prisoners, is looked upon by
his fellows with feeling akin to con-
tempt, as bringing the good name of
all into disgrace without even the poor
compensation of creating either dis
turbance or alarm among those in au-
thority over him. There is a certain
satisfaction to some depraved natures
in being considered bad man, whose
every move is regarded with suspicion
and even fear; but this poor notoriety
is largely destroyed where the offender
is at once removed from his fellows
and all opportunity for posing as a
martyr to brutal punishment cruelty
administered is denied him. L believe
the purpose of the state prison to be
the reformation of the prisoner, not
his punishment; and to accomplish this
he should be we'll fed, we'll clothed,
and we'll treated. The argument that
prisoners have no reason to expect
more of temporal blessings than they
had enjoyed before incarceration, is
utterly unworthy of Christianity and
modern civilization A sane mind can
not exist in an insane body; and that
the body may be well cared for should
be the first endeavor of the prison
officials.
The mere fact that the men have
never known cleanliness, which is next
to godliness, that they have been hun
CRY and lily clad, may in many in
stances account in part for their GRIM
inal tendencies. Show me the prison
where the proper care of the person
and the cell is rigidly insisted on;
where the food is we'll cooked, abun-
dant, and of healthful variety; where
guards and keepers are never per-
mitted to allow their passions and
prejudices to dominate them in their
treatment of those under them, and
will show you a prison where obedi-
ence to rule is cheerful; where labor is
well performed and where the vast