The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-01
THE PRISON LIFE STORY
 OF CANADIAN BLACKIE"
SOCIAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT
 By MRS. SIDNEY .. LILLIAN

thing for him to give the warden Blackie took down a tin box of talcum powder, and from 1t ex- tracted a small object tightly bound in cotton rag. unwinding this. he pro- duced key that unlocked his own ell door. He had made it himself intending to use 1t to escape From another hiding place he produced an ugly knife, also his own make. Handing both to his friend, he said.
 '.I want you to give those to the war den and tell him that l appreciate sn deeply what he and you are trying to do for the men here that he need have no further anxiety about me, for Pm going straight
 The Mutual Welfare league for the self government of prisoners had already been established in Auburn with splendid C. suits. Now Blackie was released from solitary confinement and allowed for the first time in five years to go into the yard. He saw 1400 men playing among the flower beds like innocent boys and to him it seemed the most beautiful sight he had ever looked upon. After that his whole strength, which had formerly made him dangerous, was thrown into the cause of helping his fellow prisoners
 But the deepest glimpse into his heart came through a chance meeting with a woman who looked so much like his own dead mother that he begged the privilege of calling her by that sacred name. This woman evidently was Mrs. Field and though many of the letters he wrote to her are too private for publication, the few that she prints reveal the big, tender heart of the man. As she says:
 The foodgates of an intense nature were flung wide, and the rush of long pent up emotions swept away the years of reserve, and brought to light all the con- cealed treasures of a deeply sensitive, poetic soul.
 It was at Dannemora that guard tore to shreds before his eyes the only photo graph that Blackie had of his own mother. It was at Auburn, under Warden Ratt gan. that he first found the help and sym pathy which changed his whole view of life. It was at Sing Sing last February, a month before his death, that he received his pardon from Governor Whitman and refused to open the envelope until Mir. Osborne could be present to rejoice with him.
 When friend at Auburn asked him for suggestions for speech on prison re- form he said:
 Just talk like the warden does. Tc'l them of the misery it brings the man in side when he knows his kiddies and wife are perhaps without a fire on cold nights, and with perhaps not even bread in the larQer TOT breakfast Tn the morning. Tell them that the state is making criminals and anarchists out of the children street walkers out of the poor wives, who are forced to do it rather than see their little brood starve. Tell them of the hardened criminals you have seen, who, under the old system of cruelty. could not even be forced into a moan by all the torture, hut whose eyes now light with love and rev erence when the warden speaks to them. Tell them of the trust placed in the man whom the old administration called 'the bad man. Tell them that that same brand of men is now being trusted, and up to date not one has betrayed the trust.'
 It is impossible to read this mans let ters and the simple story of his life with out feeling, as he did, that wiser prison methods have come to stay-that the old dark days of stupid brutality are past.