The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-02
MRS. MAVERICK OR
 HER LIFE IN PRISON
Has Something to Say of Bir-
 mingham Conditions
IS WORKING FOR REFORM
-ompnrAon of Criminal Court Pro- eedure in America and England Is Very Favorable to Americn.
 Iectured nt High School

| The lecture of Mrs. Florence D. May
 rick at the Birmingham High schoo
 auditorium last night under the man lgement of the lyceum bureau Wa! | leard by a good crowd Her talk wa: instructive and full of meaning to those vho had come to hear her because oi heir interest in the improvement oi )rison conditions, and it also con aimed much interest for those who were attracted merely out of curiosity she was introduced by Mrs. George c Ban
 Mrs Maybrick first explained that she had become engaged in her pres snt work because of her own suffer
 ng in prison. After her return to America she had been flooded with thousands of letters asking her to in- Aastigate, conditions in the prisons Of this country. She said that her first experience in charitable work was be- gun at a Bowery mission in New York city, where she told her experiences and sufferings to the vagabonds and castaways whom she said could not be touched through the heart of n woman but only through some higher power.
 On being cast Into prison," said Mrs. Maybrick, II resolved to come out of iafl without a sense of degradation, the same as when 1 had first been con- fined. The struggle was something g terrible. Hour by hour, day by day | had to fight back the most evil temp ations. There was something in the atmosphere of the prison redolent with the most evil suggestions of anger, hatred and venom
 She went on to enlighten her hear CTS as to the conditions in the United states, which, she said, were without any central control, as each institu- tion had it's singular routine in which each warden carries out his own the ories Tt is the only institution" she said, where the keepers are not quail flied for the work by special train Ing It is politics that controls the conditions at present In our prisons, and a warden or keeper is not qualified as regards his knowledge of criminol- ogy and psychology, but according to his political standing. When you pit humanity against dollars, dollars win. And so it is that we have just so many medieval prisons today.
 Until we train the criminal to the level of his manhood we have not done our duty and We will never accom- plish this until we have placed him in charge of men who have been trained for the work"
 Speaking of conditions in Birming- ham, Mrs. Maybrick said: Even in this city I know as much about the rotten ness in the places of confinement as probably you will never hear of" She told of the case of a young girl who had been placed In prison here for safe keeping from a white slave traffick CT who was trying to use $500 to secure her for the place from which she had been rescued and she exhorted the audience not to be dominated by moneyed interests in a case where pub
 ic sentiment was so strongly against such domination.
 The speaker made a very interesting 2 outline of the difference between Eng fish and American procedure in the criminal courts and said that in Amer lea a trial was made generally with decency and fairness, while In England the trial of a criminal Is surrounded with pomp and ceremony and finally It is the judge who shapes the mind of the jury according to his own opin- ion.
 In her lecture Mrs. Maybrick took occasion to pay tribute to southern womanh ood and to her native soil. The response from the audience was rath CT that of Sympathetic interest in her message than curiosity, and her effort will likely arouse enthusiasm in the betterment of local prison conditions.