And imprisonment then was a different affair from what it is now. The prisons of that day were often horrible dens, noisome, filthy, swarming with vermin, their best rooms unfit for human residence, their worst dungeons a hell upon earth. This not only in the less advanced nations, but even in enlightened England. Newgate Prison, in London, for instance, was a sink of iniquity, its inmates given over to the cruel hands of ruthless gaolers, forced to pay a high price for the least privilege, and treated worse than brute cattle if destitute of money and friends. And these were not alone felons who had broken some of the many criminal laws, but men whose guilt was not yet proved, and poor debtors whose only crime was their misfortune. And all this in England, with its boast of high civilization. The people were not ignorant of the condition of the prisons; Parliament was appealed to a dozen times to remedy the horrors of the jails; yet many years passed before it could be induced to act. [=Prisons and Punishment in 1900=] Compare this state of criminal law and prison discipline with that of the present day. Then cruel punishments were inflicted for small offences; now the lightest punishments compatible with the well-being of the community are the rule. The sentiment of human compassion has become strong and compelling; it is felt in the courts as well as among the people; public opinion has grown powerful, and a punishment to-day too severe for the crime would be visited with universal condemnation. The treatment of felons has been remarkably ameliorated. The modern prison is a palace as compared with that of a century ago. The terrible jail fever which swept through the old-time prisons like a pestilence, and was more fatal to their inmates than the gallows, has been stamped out. The idea of sanitation has made its way into the cell and the dungeon, cleanliness is enforced, the frightful crowding of the past is not permitted, prisoners are given employment, they are not permitted to infect one another with vice or disease, kindness instead of cruelty is the rule, and in no direction has the world made a greater and more radical advance. [=The Factory System and the Oppression of the Workingman=] A century ago labor was sadly oppressed. The factory system had recently begun. The independent hand and home work of the earlier centuries was being replaced by power and machine work. The steam-engine and the labor-saving machine, while bringing blessings to mankind, had brought curses also. Workmen were crowded into factories and mines, and were poorly paid, ill-treated, ill-housed, over-worked. Innocent little children were forced to perform hard labor when they should have been at play or at school. The whole system was one of white slavery of the most oppressive kind.