Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/90



ONSENSE. A penitentiary is not intended to be a place for coddling and pampering those who have broken the law."

Stevenson, chairman of the Prison Commission, waved a fat hand in the direction of the convict standing at the foot of the table.

"This man," he went on, "has learned in some way that the newspapers are 'gunning' for the warden and he is seizing the opportunity to make a play for sympathy in his own behalf. I'll admit that these tales he tells of brutality toward the prisoners are well told, but I believe that he is stretching the facts. They can't be true. Discipline must be maintained in a place like this even if it requires harsh measure to do it at times."

"There is no call for brutality, however," exclaimed the convict, breaking the rule that prisoners must not speak unless they are spoken to.

Then, ignoring the chairman's upraised hand, he went on: "We were treated like beasts here! If a man so much as opens his mouth to ask a civil and necessary question, the reply is a blow. Dropping a knife or fork or a spoon at the table is punished by going without the next meal. Men too ill to work are driven to the shops with the butts of guns. Petty infractions of the most trivial rules mean the dark cell and a diet of bread and water.

"Do you know what the dark cell is? 'Solitary' they call it here. 'Hell' would be a better name. Steel all around you, steel walls, steel door, steel ceiling, steel floor. Not a cot to lie upon, not even a stool to sit upon. Nothing but the bare floor. And darkness! Not a ray of light ever penetrates the dark cell once the door is closed upon you. No air comes to you except through a small ventilator in the roof. And even that has an elbow to keep the light away from you.

"Is it any wonder that even the most refractory prisoner comes out of there broken—broken in mind, in body, in spirit? And some of them go insane—stark, staring mad—after only a few hours of it. And for what? I spent two days in 'solitary' because I collapsed from weakness at my bench in the shoe factory.

"See this scar?" He pointed to a livid mark over one eye. "A guard did that with the barrel of his rifle because I was unable to get up and go back to work when he told me. He knocked me senseless, and when I came to I was in 'solitary.' Insubordination, they called it. Two days they kept me in there when I ought to have been in a hospital. Two days of hell and torture because I was ill. People prate of reforming men in prison. It's the other way around. It makes confirmed criminals of them—if they don't go mad first."

The chairman wriggled in his seat and cleared his throat impatiently.

"We have listened to you for quite a while, my man," he said pompously,