The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-11

of conditions In the mine that may lead to delinquencies or can they un- derstand the motives of the delin- quent?
 Method Of Punishment.
 The lash, we are glad to say, is no longer used as a method of punish ment. In its place confinement in punishment cells known as dog houses has been substituted. The dog houses are coffin-like boxes standing on end, dark, narrow and ventilated only by air holes at the top. Some of them are worse than others. The worst ones we saw were ventilated by a small hole in the top of the door not more than two inches square. Members of the com mittee tried squeezing into the cell. It was like stepping into the half compartment of an old fashioned wardrobe, only the cell was consider ably narrower In fact, it was so narrow that 1t seemed a large man could only get In at all by holding his arms over his head. In some places we were glad to see that slated door had taken the place of the solid boards. In some of the dog cells we saw the handcuffs which confinement In the punishment cells even more galling. The time of pun ishment, according to the statement of the various wardens, varied from 40 minutes to AS hours. In showing one of these cells one warden told us that a man could live there only eight hours. Another warden told us that the state physician had ap- proved of the ventilation. In spite of this, this form of discipline seemed to us worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta. At River Falls, where the same kind of punishment cell is used, the deputy warden said when asked how long 1t took to sup due a man by this form of punish ment that usually one night was enough. He then mentioned the fact that one of his prisoners had been repeatedly punished in the dos-ceus only to repeat his offenses the next day. Finally, at his request, the prisoner was transferred to kilby and shortly after sent to the hospital for the insane at Iuscaloosa; Whether he was unbalanced Tn mino before his punishment or whether such punishment contributed to ms condition, he was unable to say.
 Should Be Employed.
 Let us not forget that prisoners should be employed continuously to the limit of their reasonable capacity and that to secure this and discipline demands some sort of punishment The wardens add that prisoners were punished for refusing to work, TOT fighting and for breaking rules' Prisoners told us that they were pun ished for failure to get out the re ouired number of tons a day or TOT refusing to work overtime. our most severe criticism of the punlshment system Is CD that the warden wno administers the punishment does no go into the mine, and tZ) that the dog-cells permit of form or toItuIe being administered wnlch eeiniov couiI mU fail to injure the physical e1llcloioy of any prisoner and which we cannot he1Ieve would help him morally
 we visited the hospitals at each rrison They were clean and in order, though the rough floors ana the character of the plumDliis would make 1t difficult to believe they could be kept exceptionally clean. At Banner mine, we round three occupants of the hospital, a man with a broken skull recelVeu in a personnal fight in the mine' fever patient and negro With d broken leg caused by falling rock This negro only two weeks before had suffered a minor accident, neces- sitating amputation of the upper mart of a finger At Belle Ellen, we found three men crippled rom mine accidents, two of them With bhoken legs, beside patient wlt1 fearfully burned hands and several cases of sickness. At Aldricn, the day we were there, the hospltal sheet showed eleven cases treated eight of them results of accidents in the mine,-burns, broken iess' bruised backs. etc. With such proportion of accidents sho"n III one day. it would seem that the em- ployment given our prisoners IS extra hazardous Some of these men never completely recover. When we asked what was done with the men hurt too badly to work longer Tn the mine, we were told that they were sent to Killy prison. Almost at the same time oeputy warden told us that the men in the mine must work hard for long hours pe- cause there were so many ln1lrm prisoners at Killy to be taken care of. Does it seem a reasonable ana wise policy of the state to make cripples of strong men to be cared for by the state or by society.
 Record Of Deaths.
 we examined the record of deaths at the Aldrich mine as given by the warden's office. Beside a few deaths from disease, three men in this mine have lost their lives by accident since December 31. 1922. We did not ask to see the record in other places, In fact that method Of procedure did not occur to us until after we had left the other mines. It may be their record is not so bad; we hope it is not. Had men under sentence of Imprisonment for ten years been hanged by the sheriff, there would have been an over whelming protest of indignation against so brutal a disregard of justice. Yet these men through the indifference of all of us have lost their lives for crimes which in the judgment of the courts merited only imprisonment at hard labor
 Payment is In addition to the CTS for coal dug in addition to the task Of course we approve this