I appreciate the spirit of chivalry, of the _ésprit de corps_, that prompts Warden Zerbst to rush to the rescue of Deputy Warden Girardeau and his assistants, against whom my indictment is chiefly directed. I have emphasized in my previous statement that Warden Zerbst is more humane and intelligent than the Deputy Warden. I may now add that he is also generous, all too generous, to his official subordinates. But chivalry may be misplaced—it _is_ misplaced in the present case. It will not do for Mr. Zerbst to barrage the outrages committed within the prison walls with his loyalty to his official family. He owes a duty, a prior duty, to the public, to the taxpayers that support the institution over which he presides. Besides, he also owes a duty to the men in his keeping, the inmates—about 1,500 helpless unfortunates—a duty he owes in the interests of justice and humanity. To my specific charge that Deputy Warden Girardeau is brutal and of low moral and mental calibre, the Warden replies that Mr. Girardeau is a well-known citizen of Atlanta. ’Tis a rather lame and unconvincing refutation of my charge. To my indictment of the majority of the guards as vulgar, brutal and dissipated men, the Warden replies that they have satisfactorily filled out certain civil service blanks, or passed some other perfunctory examination. Yet in the very next breath he admits that “the work is performed by these men at a compensation hardly sufficient to live decently.” In other words, the guards are paid $76.00 per month, and I leave it to the readers to judge what “high degree of qualification” $76.00-dollar-a-month men possess, in these days of high cost of living. I emphatically challenge the Warden’s statement that visitors are admitted to the punishment cells I described as filthy. There are in the Atlanta Federal Prison _two kinds_ of punishment cells, known respectively as the “dark hole” and the “light hole.” The difference between the two is extreme. The “light hole” is a comparatively large cell with a window admitting some light and air. The “dark hole” is a veritable kennel, wedge-shaped, about 2½ feet wide at the entrance, 4½ feet at the back, and 6 feet long. The prisoner is forced to sleep in this dark hole on the floor, on a filthy mattress, with a bit of rag for covering even in the coldest winter. Its only toilet facilities is an iron pail, sharp-edged, without any lid, the pail remaining in the cell 24 hours daily. It is emptied but once a day in the early morning. That’s the filthy dungeon referred to in my first statement in the “Constitution,” and I challenge the authorities of the prison to deny its existence, to deny that men are kept there for thirty days consecutively and sometimes longer, on an insufficient bread and water diet. No visitors, except government officials, or personal friends of the prison authorities, are ever permitted even a glance into this dark dungeon.