The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1917-02-16
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
Men In Dungeons Resort to Odd he
vices to- Pass Time.

We believe IL was the prisoner of
Chiffon" Francois Downward, who
saved himself from going insane In
| his long and solitary confinement In
! dungeon by repeatedly throwing
| ND a pin In the darkness, and letting
( IL fall where il would and then
/ searching in the straw until he
! found il. Even il weary days and
nights were passed before the little
bit of metal was recovered, the mans
mind vas occupied with his quest
and by that means taken from his
plight John Boyle O'Rciily once
! told the writer OF these words that
when ne was in solitary confinement
I ia a prison in Dublin, where he spent
q year before he was finally sent TO
the conyic. camp In West Australia
for seditious acts Will. d British SOL
der, he accomplished his own re-
demption from madness in this way:
With his eyes he worked out geome-
tricai demonstrations by following
the lines Of the square filings on tn
floor of his cell Seated on his
bench, he would gaze for hours at
these tiles, obliterating with his mind
all but the lines that he needed for
the purpose. aud would find as many
solutions az possible for problems
Il,
ry, for he was but youth lately from
school. In tho next cell to O'Roilly
there languishcG a man who had
gone insane and whose wild cries
served TO stimulate the attention
OF the greatly scditious boy To his
mathematical diversion. But the
taller. seeing him with eyes long and
long upon the floor. supposed that he
had already gone mad, but gently
mad. and took pity upon him. grant
ing him such favOrs as he could.
At the end OF his lonely captivity
O'Reiily's mental powers were un-
impaired perhaps Increased.
The torment Of man or woman
in solitary confinement is no doubt
generally In proportion to the fine
ness, the constituencies of the mental
organization. We have a vivid pic
ture of the sufferings of Benvenuto
Ccliini in the dungeon into which he
was thrown by the Pope. But Ben
! en-
next dungeon there may have lain
some gross malefactor who waE in
capable of such torments, and to
whom the imprisonment may have
represented only period of mental
Nervousness. We know that men of
this dulleT type have sometimes so
well accustomed 10 this form of iso-
lation, this epoch OF nothingness,that
they have come TO prefer it to any
contact with their fellows. There
are reports that the poor wretch,
Jesse Pomeroy, whose restoration to
some form of human companionship
has been mercirully decreed by Gov
ernor Mccall, has his doubts wheth
or ne wants this degree of liberation
or not. But i'm all likelihood he Will
soon be glad of it. Impulses which
are natural may be stilled to rest by
long disuse, but they quickly revive
ii once more given an opportunity
for their exercise.
Pomeroy has been more than 40
years In his cell. The long period
has evidently replaced with q better
understanding, Il higher faculty the
fiend who must once have dwelt IN
his soul. But still he must, no doubt,
20 to his death in the prison. So
. ciety will hardly reopen its arms to
the perpetrator of his terrible crimes.
But il will do society no harm to al
low him now. in his pitiful old age,
10 look once more on his fellows, and
let them look on him. In a sense,
all men suffer with the criminal HIS
disgrace, his punishment, are pen
atty which the race imposes on it.
self for it's darker iapses. They
must go on. But in getting rid of
the old penalty OF solitary confine-
meut. which WAS often inflicted In
the past merely because man had
thought. society may bo said 70 re-
move an incubus from It's own
breast. Boston Transcript.