"The real punishment of the prisoner commences after the liberty he has so longed for comes. The day he looked forward to arrives, he steps out into the world a man, alone in the crowd, marked, branded, not entirely alone for he has chained to him a corpse, his dead past. At the time that success seems almost in his grasp his past arises, like an evil spirit and drags him down in the mire again. So he drifts back to his only home, the prison. The glamour of his life of crime, the follies of youth, give way to cynicism, a feeling of kismet arises that excuses his failures as being part of a fate that could not be evaded. Gladly would the man escape the wretched past and the inevitable future. Sometimes he tries, every time with less success. The past always arises. Then his physical condition is gradually changed, in many cases the habit of drugs, of opium especially has been acquired. It makes a man forget--he needs to forget by now! Again so-called liberty comes. Where can he go? A few dollars in his pocket, a cheap suit of clothes on his back, every one seems to point the finger at him. The saloon is always open, the woman with the painted face meets him, a few old chums are there, and he is welcomed back to Hell. Perhaps he is successful, turns a few good 'tricks,' puts his 'fall money' away (money to defend him in case he is arrested and also to square himself with the police) but sooner or later it is the old story,--back again to prison, a matter of course by now--but he will be more careful next time. Sometimes he thinks of the better days of long ago--it won't do, he closes the door with a snap--he hates himself, he hates the world, and if you were on the inside in the dead of night, you too would sometimes hear that awful cry of the tortured soul--that involuntary wail that makes even the night watch shrink--the soul crying against its murder while the body sleeps. Underneath all is that yearning for a better life. We get sometimes almost on the edge of the pit only to slip back farther into the abyss than before. "You, who have lived in the beautiful country of home and loved ones, have never heard that awful cry and you never want to, for, if you did, you could never forget it.