Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/157

 The "Solitary"

(From "My Life in Prison")

(The writer of this picture of prison life, after serving a sentence of fifteen years in San Quentin, has become one of the leaders in the prison reform movement in California)

He was a thin young man of medium height, with long, straggly blonde hair and beard. He was garbed in a ragged suit of dirty stripes. His steel-gray eyes blinked as though the light hurt them, and yet they were very alert, and there was a defiance, an indomitableness in their depths. They protruded slightly, as the eyes of persons who have suffered so frequently do. The lines radiating from the corners bespoke mental as well as physical distress, as did the spasmodic twitching of his mouth. His skin was akin to the color of a thirsty road and his garments looked as though he had not had them off for months—the knees and elbows bulged and the frayed edges of the coat curled under. I was conscious of a warring within me. I had not yet learned who he was, and still I knew I was gazing at a human creature who had been through hell

"Treat Morrell right," admonished the lieutenant as he withdrew from the room and left us together.

Morrell! The notorious "Ed" Morrell, about whom I had heard so much, and who had been confined in the "incorrigibles" for five years!

The majority of the prisoners, as well as the freemen, believed him innocent of the offence with which he had been charged and for which he had been subjected to