Finally, without explanation or apology, the order for release came; and for me and his other friends, as well as for him, it was a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving. But, remembering that he was on parole, and therefore liable, on the least infringement of discipline, to be thrust back in his cell, none of us expected that he would venture to denounce the wrongs and expose the miseries of the imprisoned; we were glad to learn that he had secured a position paying him twenty or thirty dollars a month, with a chance of better things later, and that he had announced his purpose of running down the real perpetrator of the crime for which he had suffered, and forcing him to confess. For a few days, one or two local papers gave him half a column, and then there was silence. I had been denied parole, and the restrictions thereof did not apply to me when my own day of freedom arrived; and I gave a short interview to a reporter, in which I said that the warden was unfit for his position, that the food was abominable, and that punishment in dark cells and otherwise was still practised, though under cover. The next day the newspapers printed an interview with my late friend, in which he was quoted as declaring that every statement I had made was a malicious lie, that the warden was in all respects the best, kindest and most lovable man he had ever met, and that the men in confinement had all the food they asked for, of the best quality, and that all tales of hardships and cruel punishments were false and wicked. Is it conceivable that these statements were really given out by him? It seemed more likely that the words had been put into his mouth, under a threat, should he disavow them, of being sent back to prison. From such a threat the bravest man might shrink. But that statement of his still stands unmodified. And whether made spontaneously, or under the compulsion of a threat, its motive seems to have been fear of punishment for telling the truth. Such is the power of the System over its victims!