the oversight of responsible work. He won the confidence of all who
knew him in the town where he settled. They backed him in starting in
business for himself and he is now married and happily settled in life.
The prison experience is six years away in the shadow of the sad almost
forgotten past.
Not long since, the chaplain of Charlestown, Massachusetts, wrote me
of a man whom he very much wanted me to help. He said he believed the
authorities would give this man a chance in liberty, if there was some
one to vouch for him. He believed that the man was sincere and earnest
in his desire to do right. He further stated that the Board whose
duty it was to look into the cases of men who might be paroled had
expressed their willingness to turn him over to me, if I were disposed
to try him and give him a chance. Though only forty-six years of age,
this man had spent thirty-one years in prison, counting a juvenile
reformatory as the first place of incarceration. The last sentence was
for thirty years under the Habitual Criminal Act. We wrote at once
offering to take him to Hope Hall and the authorities gave him over to
us, thus saving him twelve weary years he would otherwise have had to
serve. He was unnerved and strangely restless when he first arrived.
The hammock in the sunshine seemed the best place to put him that first
day. In six weeks he was a new man, physically and mentally; he had
gained fifteen pounds in weight and when I came across him down on his
knees weeding the flower-beds, the face that looked up into mine was
brown with summer tan and bright with new hope and courage. It could
be truly said of this man that he had never had a chance. When his
mother died, he told the chaplain he wished he could weep. He wished
there was one thing in her life that could be a sweet memory, something
he could think of as done for his good, but there was not one bright
spot. Mother, father, sister and brother are buried in drunkards'
graves and the same curse so wrecked and ruined his life that in the
past he thought there was never to be any escape for him. How much
Hope Hall with its fresh air, quiet surroundings, good food and cheery
companionship mean to such a man only the men themselves can understand.
It is difficult in a work of this kind to chronicle its growth. To us
who have been in the midst of it, the development and improvement,
advance and victory are very evident, but it would need a carefully-kept
journal of many volumes to impart its history to others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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