The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1913-11-06
SOME THINGS He
DID NOT LEARN
There are Several Things About Prison Life
That Thomas Mott Osborne did not
Learn. The Sing Sing Star Of Hope
Names a Few Of Them.

WQW0S q ! OW VI uWV"s
Mr.. Thomas Mott Osborne has
been serving a self-imposed term of
one weeks imprisonment in Auburn
Prison. Mr.. Osborne, the papers
say, entered Auburn Prison on the
29th ult. under the name of Thomas
Brown. He was received and in all
respects treated the same as he
would have been if he were a pris-
oner-bathed, shaved and clothed
in prison uniform and shown to a
cell. At first he was a member OF
the idle company and then he was
transferred to the basket shop and
taught how to make baskets. On
Saturday, the 4th inst, he refused
to work and was put into punish
ment cell, from which he was taken
on Sunday to attend chapel, and
from chapel he passed out OF the big
front door to liberty.
Mr.. Osborne is chairman OF the
New York State Commission on
Prison Reform, and entered Auburn
on his own initiative. for the pur-
pose. it is said, of getting a practical
idea of prison life and learning by
experience something of the mental
and physical effects of Imprisonment
on man. The motives that promp-
ted the act were admirable and much
good will undoubtedly result from
it.
There can be no doubt of the
value of the experience both to him
aud to us--to him in broadening his
knowledge and sympathy, to us in
that it has made one long the pris-
oners' friend still more their friend.
Mr.. Osborne now knows more
about prison life than the average
man, but there are some things be-
meath the surface of a prison expert
ence that q man who has never been
convicted of crime cannot know. Let
us enumerate few of them:
No man, who has not experienced
it, can conceive of the feeling of
desolation and despair that crushes
one when a Judge pronounces the
sentence that banishes him from So
ciety and brands him with disgrace
that makes pariah of him.
No one who has not served term
in prison. can realize the sense of
aloneness that chill ones soul as
friend after friend and even those
near akin desert one and constancy
and loyalty become words that have
lost their meaning.
No one whose soul has not been
scared and SCARED by the contempt
of those who are, morally and men,
tally, in no way his superiors, can
feel the degradation that is insepara-
BILE from Imprisonment.
No enc can really apprehend the
injustice inseparable from all human
judgments who has not felt the i'm
potent rage that fills one when he
faces term of ten or twenty years
in prison while his neighbor for an
even greater offense, or. perhaps. his
partner in the same crime-the ex-
perience is not uncommon-is con-
demned to one or two years impris-
onment or given his freedom under
suspended sentence.
No one can feel how truly long the
time may be, unless he has looked,
not rem:niscently at the past, not
wearily at few Gays of present dis
comfort, but longingly into the dis
tant future and seen day after day
stretching in dull monotony through
FIVE or ten or twenty years, each
hopelessly like the other. and all TO
be spent in the grey tomb OF prison
walls.
No one appreciates how imprison-
ment robs one of life who has not
seen the years stealing his youth.
age sappine his strength and the
routine of prison existence depriv-
ing him of initiative and force.
No one who has not been forced
to plan with fear and trembling for
new life in an alien world, knows
the struggle heart breaking