“It is not necessary to charge that the authorities or even the guards are worse than the ordinary run of mortals, to see how the human nature in them may be exasperated by the criminal classes under their charge into taking action which they would not take if the steadying eye of the whole community were on them. It must be remembered that prisons are not young ladies’ boarding schools. We do not send the brightest and best of our youth to them. In fact, the deliberate purpose of our system of justice is to send them our worst. Undoubtedly, at times, we do send there some of our best--men whom a chance step from the beaten path has tripped into disaster--but our whole machinery of justice is at fault if the rule is not to select our criminals for our prison population. “This being so, the guards and the prison authorities generally have a difficult and trying task constantly before them. It would be little wonder if they grew pessimistic and cynical touching the motives and the prospects and even the possibilities of their ‘guests.’ They are constantly in contact with men who ought to be far below the average in all these things. It would be a miracle if they kept their faith in human nature, and their attitude toward the human derelicts who thwart and defy them, at even the average pitch. Under such conditions, with the prison shut in on itself, like a little world islanded from the rest of the country, what can we expect but that prison opinion will come to justify harsh measures and cruel punishments? “What is clearly needed is to correct this drift toward cynicism and possibly brutality by keeping it always in touch with the sane and unruffled point of view of the general community. This can only be done by publicity. Nor would a demand for publicity be unfair to the prison authorities. Their prisoner is sentenced to a fixed punishment for a definite crime. If he commits another crime, he should be sentenced to another punishment for that; but he should have his second trial and sentence as fully safeguarded by public opinion as his first. Refusal to obey prison regulations would be such a second crime; and his public trial for it would not only make it certain that the evidence was convincing and the punishment humane, but would bring the regulations themselves under public review. “The whole prison system is bad enough--necessary as it is because of the criminality of certain people--without keeping it in darkness.” _State Use in New York._--The Prison Commission of New York bewails the reluctance of municipalities to obey the law relative to the purchase of prison-made goods. Seven municipalities have made no purchases of this sort since the enactment of the law in 1896. One city has bought nothing but a straight jacket in eighteen years. Towns and villages have been even worse offenders.