In 1905, Juan Jose Garcia, serving a ten-year sentence for highway robbery and holding a rich farmer for ransom, escaped. He, with a squad of prisoners, was working outside the walls, and during a severe rainstorm, he made a successful dash for liberty. He had four years to serve. His escape was reported to the warden and the usual reward offered for his arrest. Some days later General Castillo was going into Havana by automobile, when a man stepped into the road in front of the machine and held up his hand for it to stop. “What do you want?” inquired the general. “I am Juan Jose Garcia. I ran away from the prison last week, but want to return. I have been dogged and chased by the officers and am worn out and starving.” “It serves you right,” said General Castillo. “You have been a very, very bad prisoner, and moreover, I can’t keep such men as you in my prison. You ruin discipline and break the rules.” “But,” Garcia pleaded, “if you will just give me one more trial I’ll promise never to run away again.” “I am very busy to-day, but go up to the prison and if Colonel Garzon will take you back I suppose it will be all right.” That occurrence is one of General Castillo’s pet anecdotes and he tells it with much enthusiasm and never fails to impress one that it is the only case on record in Cuba that an escaped convict begged to be readmitted to jail. “General Castillo,” “gobernador del presido de la republica de Cuba,” is a noted soldier of the Cuban war of independence, and one of the island’s foremost men of affairs. He was educated in the United States and later graduated with high honors from the Royal French School of Engineers and he is what might be termed thoroughly “Americanized” from a modern business point of view. He has made a special study of foreign prisoners and is perhaps as thoroughly conversant with prison conditions as any official in the world. He arose to the rank of general, commanding a division during the war of independence and took part as such in the Santiago campaign. After the surrender he was selected by General Brook as the civil governor of Santiago. He was appointed to his present position by Governor Magoon. His son, Demetrio, Jr., is a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Garzon is also a veteran in the war of independence and commanded a regiment of regular troops. He keeps in close touch with prison affairs and makes a personal study of each convict. He goes through the prison at all hours unarmed, and some two years ago disarmed a coterie of prisoners who were planning trouble by walking into the casemate where they were confined and ordering them to turn over their crude weapons. That was the first and only time anything that savored of an insurrection has ever occurred. THE PRISON OF THE FUTURE. BY WILLIAM H. VENN, DETROIT, MICH. [Detroit Journal, March 2nd, 1914.]