The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-01
SOME PHASES
OF PRISON LIFE
Comforts and Congenial Work
Are Possible
FOR GOOD CONDUCT
social Distinctions Even In Penitentiary,
Cell May BE Furnished ms Inmate
Pleases-Artist's Pictures
Are often sold
FOR GOOD CONDUCT
FROM the Philadelphia Bulletin.

FROM the Philadelphia Bulletin.
. 10 the average man unacquainted with
the actual conditions under which pris-
oners In the Eastern penitentiary live, a
visit to the penal institution on Fairmont
aVenue would be something of a revela-
uoh. Inc investigator, If permitted to do
20, would see that the stern sentence Of
the court, there to undergo solitary con-
nnement at hard labor Is not as terri
Die In some cases as 1t sounds, and that
1avors can be gained in prison either by
personal qualities or in other ways, even
as they are in the free world.
The mental pictures that most persons
have of penitentiaries is that of a place
of gloomy punishment, with men ruled by
terror and kept In subsection with an iron
hand. The cropped headed convict with
haggard, desperate face, and with his
narrowing tale of brutal injustice and
oppression by warden and keepers, who
has done faithful duty on the state for
many years than 1t Is needful to esti-
mate. probably represents the type that
the man-on- the-outside imagines inhab-
Its cells. Like most fancy pictures there
is enough truth In the one created by the
dramatist to Justify exaggerating for
tbreatrical effect, but prisons, at least the
Eastern penitentiary, are not all shadow,
despair and bread and water rigidity.
To convict with those engaging traits
of character that attract people and Sc
cure for their possessor liking nd serv-
Ice the earth over, or to one able to
make himself useful in some work high
er than manual labor and with the sense
to obey the rules of the institution-the
possession of rich and influential friends
probably does convict no harm-the
Eastern pententiary can be made an en-
durable place of detention as endurable,
at least, as Imprisonment ever can be.
man can furnish his cell pretty much
after his fancy. Little comforts can be
his, such as toilet appliances to which
he has been accustomed, and which mean
a great deal to a person who has always
given care to his body. Even the aethtic
enjoyment of art is not denied him, al
though it must be admitted that in most
cases the pictures adjoining the walls of
Cherry Hill cells would hardly be de-
scribed as art They belong to the
near art" school achieved by the IL
Illustrated periodicals, although there have
been artists in the Eastern penitentiary
who have hung their work in oils and
water colors about their prison home.
The better class of convicts-even in
prisons there seem to be social distinc-
tions-are given as pleasant work as pos
sible, and some of them carry on in their
cells the occupations they followed in
the outside world.
1t is not to be supposed that the East
ern penitentiary is anything like a sani-
tarium where an embezzling bank officer
or a recreant to a trust retires for a few
years and takes the rest cure" Favors
which help man to preserve his self
respect and which do not impair the dis
ciplire of the prison are bestowed but the
Eastern penitentary is a place of pun
ishment, and all who are sent there are
made to feel that in the personal identity
lost in a number and in the calling re-
striction of personal liberty. ''Obey'' is
the rule at Cherry Hill and the man who
ignores 1t probably does not have a cell
with clean comfortable bed and toilet
table In 1t and pictures on the wall and
hooks from the library to read. 1t Is even
possible that an incorrigble and defiant
offender might leave berry Hill with
tale to tell that persons of every acute
sensibilties would be shocked to hear.