The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1913-06-21
SCRUPLES
OF LAWMAKERS"
Hawthorne Says They Bring
About Many Changes.
NEW ORDER OF PRISONERS.

Son of Novelist Discusses Legal Pun
ishment In Article In Prison News
paper and Points Out That Tendency
Is Toward Leniency In Treatment of
Prisoners-Paroled Soon.
On the eve of his release on parole
Julian Hawthorne, son of the noted
author, reveals in a fine analysis Of
present day legal punishment the re-
suit of his observations after two
months Imprisonment in the Atlanta
federal prison. Mr.. Hawthorne's opin-
ions on prisoners and prison usages
appear in the June number of the fed
eral institutions monthly periodical,
Good Words, under his prison register
number, 4,435.
Though prisons remain, an altera-
ton has come to pass in prisoners"
| the editorial reads. ct is obvious
| that modern industrial development
has generated many new laws and has
brought under the scrutiny of the law
whole classes of people who had been
/ hitherto fearless of it These men in
| clude many persons of good education,
gentle breeding and high intelligence,
and hundreds of this type are now go
| ing to Jail for offenses which have
/ been in a manner created by the new
| born scruples of lawmakers and the
subtle determinations of public prose
| cutors.
New Order of Prisoners.
ga new order of prisoners has conse-
quentIy come into existence. They are
criminals not by innate tendency. but
| by accident and stress of circum-
| stances; by novel conditions, not as
yet fully digested into the moral sense,
and such an Eruption to our jails of an
| unprecedented element could not fail
to bring about notifications in the
handling of prisoners of all kinds.
IAN ignorant and brutal thug or a
depraved and hopeless degenerate
needs one sort of handling and men of
brains and refinement another, for
though men of education who commit
crime merit more severe punishment
than do men who never had a chance
to know better, yet their skin is far
more sensitive, and a tap of the finger
hurts them more than a blow of the
paddle does the hardened malefactor
But the tendency seems to be to lear
to the former principle in the treat
ment of all.
1T is judged more expedient for the
common good to be Ienient to a savage
than savage to the man who respond.
to leniency.
} Meanwhile our jails are becoming
more instead of less populous. The no
table increase Of federal courts and tn,
tendency to concentration of power il
| the national government over th
states enable &C +"tions to be NOR
/ easily obtained.
Salaries Must Be justified.
whether or not this increased ia
. cility keeps even pace with impartia
justice is a question to be solved b
experience.
! "A great body of inspectors and otf
y er officials of courts has been created
;, and they are naturally eager to justif
. their salaries. A system of espionag
has been established so widespread g
L to breed uneasiness in all walks of ci'
e ic life. But all evils are accompanie
by compensations, and if the processC
-, used to obtain convictions occasional
remind us of Russia, yet unexpected
prove the means of admitting the ang
of reform into prisons, they may
worth the price"
Julian Hawthorne was convicted
misuse of the mails in exploiting c
madam mining companies.