The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-13
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

or sympathizer, knows it. Public opin- ion alone stands up for the old sys- ten, and, as public opinion rules the world, there will be no great change
 in prison conditions until the public
 conscience is aroused and demands
 justice for the half million unfortu-
 rate creatures whose white, pinched
 faces and wide, staring eyes loc1
 through the bars of dark, gloomy cells
 to the cold gray wall that separates
 them from all the joys of life.'
 1T'Hls' in a nutshell is the opinion ,n
 mania, who is making a world voyage on the English prison ship Sue cess" and is the honored guest of Bir- mingham during the sociological con gress now in session here.
 Professor Heery is one of the most in- teresting men I have ever met; quiet and with a modesty out of all bounds con sidering the tremendous amount of good he has done in his chosen work, he re- lates his various experiences in the most lucid and appealing manner, and verifies IHe apHOIlSIn ullSTeu py tHS ulslilS uisiiSu MT. Emerson, when he said that 'the greatest enterprise in the world for splen- dor, for extent, is the upbulding of man."
 My york; said Prof. Heery, Fin the interest of prison reform is not pro- fession, but hobby; perhaps if I had stuck more closely to my chosen profess sion l might have been more fortunate in the worlds goods, but that is neither here nor there; the opportunity came to me two years ago to make a trip on the English prison ship, Success, and took advantage of it. My home is in one of the most southerly inhabited of all the islands about Australia, and there occupy an important chair in the Uni versity of Tasmania; so while not an Englis ishman, I am British. It was to Tas- mania that the English took their hun dreds and thousands of prisoners after the loss of their colonies and the break with America. Few know the exact standing of conditions affecting such things after the Declaration of Indepen- dence, but the English, having no place for their prisoners, equipped great num- bers of ships and sent them to Tasma- na'
 "The prison ship, Success is the only one left continued Prof. Heery, and being bought and owned by an American who made a great deal of money, 1t has served the purpose of showing people just what penal conditions existed in the long ago. In the first place, wherever the prison ship, Success, stops, the people of the community are invited to inspect it and with my corps of lecturers we show them the cells with many of the old modes of punishments, the Haunting frames the branding irons, and many other horrible devices that existed then. In New Orleans 5000 people daily visited the ship and revelations little dreamed of were disclosed to those who were in- terested enough to come to us.'
 During my visits in Europe and Aus tralia I have been in a position to know a great deal about prison life" said Professor Heery, but when I came to America to tell the people here about what I know of the history of penal con- ditions I find them very skeptical. It is no uncommon occurrence to have some one say when I tell them of the horrors and awful conditions of prison life in years gone by: Thank God, didn't live in those times But I say you are liv- ing in those times now; prison conditions in America are as bad as they were in Tasmania 100 years ago; perhaps more refined cruelty, I might say, exists, but nevertheless so gruesome and frightful that 1t Is unbelievable. American people can't understand how man would travel as I am doing without pay in the in- terest of humanity; they look back of the project to see what there is in it for me; but there is nothing in it for me, except the hope of improvement in con- ditions for those who must suffer the present prison horrors and cruelties.
 Tn order to acquaint myself with the prison system in America, said Profes- sor Heery, q went into the state peni- tentiary at Lansing, Kan, and served as a convict seven days and what I learned there, opened my eyes to the horrors of prisons in America. The cells are like those I saw at your penitentiary at We tumpka Sunday; the old ones which have been abolished since 1890, the new ones having taken their place. I saw in the Kansas prison men strIlng un handclffed