The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-24
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 self strapped in the torture jacket in pri- vate. He had not been in it ten minutes before he felt that he must cry out to be released; but he forced himself to sti1e his groans and waited till half an hour had elapsed, when he permitted himself to be liberated, aching frightfully all over, his neck bleeding from the collar and his lungs so compressed that he could hardly regain breath
 He hid his pain by a great effort and offered the jaler, Evans, a sovereign to undergo the torture That worthy person hesitated a little and then assented. MT. | Eden made him fast with much pleasure. Eight minutes before the stipulated half hour was ended Mir. Evans begged pit
 eously to be released, declaring that for no amount of sovereigns would he bear the torture a moment longer.
 After that day there were two men in the prison to work for humane treatment.
 Mir. Eden had himself locked in the dark cell, a black hole with no ray of light After an hour in it he feared that his
 reason would suffer, fortified though he was by both his purpose and his accumu- lation of learning which gave him sub jects to occupy his mind that are denied to the poor, ignorant felon. He emerged
 with the knowledge gained by experi- ence that of all human punishments tue black hole was among the worst i He confronted Hawes with the prison ] hot Io;l in, data ba 1 ind of punishment a governor was allowed to inflict. He warned him in the presence ! of the turnkeys that they were all violat- ing the law. Hawes, made furious, re- sponded by increased seventies.
 He swore that as soon as the three visiting justices arrived on their regu- lar inspection he would have the med of their aid with good reason. They were typical Dogberries of the kind that made English justices of the peace notorious the world over in their time. They inspected the prison through lis eyes, they had not even mastered the prison rules, and the convicts knew from bitter experience that any com
 plaint made to them meant only that Hawes would repay them with some torture after their departure.
 The greatest of his wrath fell on the thief Robinson, man of keen in- tellect and high nervous organization who thus furnished an admirable sub
 ject. III with fever, he was sent to turn the crank He fainted at it and was locked in the jacket for six hours till his face turned black from sudden
 suffocation. To revive him they
 scrubbed him with brushes till the blood started from his 1ayed body.
 That night they drew half of his allowance of food. His allotted work amounted to fully a quarter of what
 well-fed horse would be expected to do. Starved and further weakened by
 torment, he failed, and each failure
 brought the jacket or the black hole Slowly, but surely, Robinson began to go mad In his suffering the daily visit
 of the chaplain became his only refuge from utter despair
 Another victim whom the governor singled out for unusual punishment was a lad of 15, named Joseph, who was serving a sentence for stealing a piece of meat. He was kept at the crank till he fell helpless over the handle. Then he was slapped in the jacket and kept there till he begged his jailer to kill him. So tightly was he strapped that the skin rose in ridges around each pinion.
 Yet this governor of the English jail
 of the middle of the 18th century
 would have been honestly indignant had he been compared with a torturer of the time of Queen Elizabeth. He
 was earnestness itself and felt him. self doing his duty-this black ray. projected into modern days, of the nar- row, earnest, self -deceiving, stupid, bloody past.
 Despite his earnestness, he could not help feeling perturbed about the chap lain. Heretofore the prison chaplain had been, like tn prison surgeon, mil l and submissive, walking in the nar- row path of theological duty and ''minding his own business" which really meant not to mind 1t.
 The new chaplain was most emphati- , cally doing otherwise. Through his ally,
 Evans. he obtained copy of private record of punishments kept by one of
 the jailers compared it with the of | ficial book, found that the latter was 1 falsified and sent attested copies of
 both to the home secretary.
 Scarcely had the accusations been | mailed before MT. Eden became dan
 gerously i'll, and the prison had q
 breathing space which was used with
 such good effect that bread and water,
 the jacket and the dark cell becams