In the city of my confinement an association devoted to the interests of the discharged prisoner kept a “home.” In this “home” the discharged prisoner could find food and shelter until able to procure work. On the eventful morning of my release from prison, as I walked toward this “home,” my whole being was a-tingle with the gladness of the day. Here I was, a free man after a confinement of weary years. Can you imagine how happy I was? The activities of the city’s streets bewildered me. I felt lost somehow, an atom as it were, in the life of the big world. I was struck by the great change in the dress of women. All about me seemed new. I walked, and walked, and walked still further until my feet were blistered with walking. A peculiarity of the discharged prisoner is the fact that he either walks or talks until almost exhausted, immediately upon his release. In this age of progress much happens in a space of seven years. You must remember that I was as absolutely cut away from the world as if I had been in some distant planet, receiving the news of the world through the columns of an aerial press. I stayed for about five weeks in this “home.” While I found a sincere desire on the part of the officials to make one at home, the place itself was too much institutionalized for them to succeed. That to me is the fault of the “homes” devoted to the interests of the discharged prisoner. The man coming out of prison should be made to forget such a thing as an institution. To step out of a place where rule and routine are the fundamentals, and enter again into the same environment under the guise of a “home” is a discouraging feature to the man bent on turning over a new leaf. Of course I realize that in such a place, devoted to such a work, certain rules and regulations are necessary. But they should be as few as is consistent with a proper maintenance of discipline. As a matter of fact this “home” idea, to my mind at least, is not such a potent factor in the reformation of the prisoner as some believe it. In the first place, only a certain type of discharged prisoner cares to enter such a home. No matter where the home is situated it soon becomes known for what it really is. Neighbors look upon the men residing there either pityingly or with contempt. It advertises the “past” of the man, and no sensitive man desirous of regenerating himself, cares to have the fact of his former delinquency become household knowledge. Another factor against the “home” is this, that it gathers together a group of men of known criminal tendencies. Each man is making the fight for himself. There come moments of despondency and gloom. In that moment a suggestion of another in the same frame of mind may precipitate the fall of both. Instead of only one falling there may be more.