Alaska sentinel., 1908-06-25

Ciprlani, flor solitary confinement Is thousand times more cruel than blow from an ax and leap into eternity.
 Solitary confinement in a cell Is a lingering agony, after two or three years of which the strongest man must die or must go mad. He is literally buried alive His food is just enough to keep life in him. He may neither read nor write and gets no news from outside, even of his family He may re celve no visits and have no intercourse with anybody. He may not talk, and If he does ask a question of one of his jailers the jailer does not answer or answers by sign. He never leaves hi5 cell except for the madhouse or the cemetery. He sees nobody and hears no human voice. He does not even see a doctor If he Is i'll. If he breaks into open revolt his jailers may do what they like with him. They may kill him If they wish; and In Italy they often do so No one has ever yet lived and remained sane for ten whole years of this terrific punishment.
 No one except myself has ever, as 1 did, remained sane after eight of them. shall never forget it. was in mental and physical anguish day and night for eight years, during which time was chained by one leg to the wall. The worst of my torture was the feeling that brain, will. strength and health were disappearing. I felt death creep Ing on me and had no power to strug- gle. There was not human being wno would help me with a smile or with a friendly word. and death or madness seemed inevitable.
 The worst feeling of all Is the feel ing that one has not friend In the world q was elected to parliament four times without knowing 1t during my eight years imprlsonment) and that, on the contrary, everybody Is an enemy, coldly watching the wreck of the priI- oner's health and brain. I remember vvidly even now-I shall never forg"t 1.-the terrible depth of my hatred for Nould lNtl o"u running off the track. and could not stem the madness which I felt grow ing on me, or thought I could not I remember the terror with which I found myself beginning to talk to my self aloud. l knew that this spelled madness. And yet I was afraid of sleeping, as could have slept. through most of the day and most of the night, for I knew that that way lay idlocy. and when solitary prisoners legs be- gin swelling then death is not far off.
 II often wonder how I came to be spared death or madness. The happiest prisoners are certainly those who do go mad. Passanante, who attempted to murder King Humbert of Italy, has been in a madhouse for twenty-seyen years. I am the only man who has re- sisted solitary confinement, the only man who has not died or gone mad in 1t after few years. My method was | a constant mental struggle. sort of in- | tellectual gymnastics, by means of which kept my thoughts of by abomi- nable solitude. I lost all notion Of time of course, and remember asking my jailer one day what the year was. He would not tell me, but next day as he was putting down my jug of water he muttered 1SS6' I had been In prls- on five years and believed had twenty more to serve.
 "I think I have told you enough said NJ. Cipriani, ito show you how much more terrible solitary confinement Is than one short unpleasant moment on the gulllotine. Solitary confinement, the torture of utter silence, is tor ment worse than any Chinese torturers have ever thought of and Is unworthy of any civilized nation"
 M. Amilcare Cipriani ought to know.