Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-19

automatic obedience, which. under the
rules, makes good prisoner, goes far to
unfit him on release after a long term
to take responsible place in this strug-
Cling self-assertive world. In all save
those who have cultivated a spirit of
resistance however unexpressedD the
will becomes utterly paralyzed, and every
initiative dies of sef-distrust. Shall
l." May 1" Ought 1" to do this, that
or the other thing are questions that ever
haunt the mind, and resolution after
resolution dies still-born. Yet society
makes little or no provision for those who
after long years of automatic existence
are finally restored to freedom. Mere
grown-up infants now in the most
strenuous of worlds, with regulations
shattered, and hardly anyone to say a
good word for them or kindly word to
them, they are yet expected from the
start to make their way against what
would be nearly insurmountable obstacles
under the most favorable conditions.
And then when failure ensues in spite of
the best intentions las is almost inevitable
except some friendly hand tides them over
the breakers into what is at best
troubled haven), society visits their
mora! shipwreck with added penalties.
How much we are creatures of habit,
or rather of successive and of repeated
experiences, is well illustrated by my
inability compared with ante-prison
days. to remember details such as names
and dates. In all prisons to degree,
but in English institutions above most,
the individual wholly loses his identity;
nor is there aught within his ken by which
to identify or remember the passing days,
weeks or months. No newspapers are
permitted, and even the innocuous
almanac is credited with revolutionary
influences. The only chronological break
in an English prisoners existence IS
marked by the bimonthly letter that one
is permitted to receive, provided he
has not infringed some rule and SO
forfeited this most highly priced privilege.
Hence all those minute subdivisions of
time by which one regulates existence
in the outside world-such as stated
household dates and visits-are repre-
scented under confinement by an absolute
blank Every minute detail of this
existence in bondage is arranged, and as
thought, for your very rising in the
morning and lying down again at night,
as well as every other act of the day
routine, is regulated by the ringing of
a bell. 1t has, therefore, been by no
means an easy matter to take up the old
life wherein l must attend to my doings
and goings myself.
Much of 1ifes daily routine is accom-
p1ished almost automatically or sub
consciously, because of frequent reiter-
ations But when one has no kind of
time-cxperiences as background, one IS
wholly dependent on memoranda and
the clock. Accordingly, it is not strange
that |, in these circumstances, am often
late in keeping appointments, or seem
careless about this or that, when l am
really not, or at any rate not through
needless inattention.
Shopping, which is commonly supposed
to be woman's delight, was to me at first
the cause of such bewildering perplexity
as to fill me with dread During my long
seclusion from the seductions of fashion,
so many new ideas had come in vogue
that it seemed to me the world of fabrics