This may seem feeble; it is the mere instinctive stuttering of persons in a disturbed frame of mind. But the System will not depend for its defense upon persons of this kind. It has many strong forces at its command, of which the Secret Service, and the favorable prejudgments of the Government and of a large part of the public are but part. Any one opposing it may expect to be kept under strict surveillance in all his movements, his mail will be violated, his words, written or overheard, will be scrutinized for material that can be used against him. Nor is the line drawn there. While I was in prison, I received the confidences of many prisoners as to their own experiences, among others that of a Maine boy who had been convicted of robbing a postoffice. He had been arrested in the first instance as a vagrant, and while in the local jail had been approached by a postoffice inspector who charged him with the post-office crime. The boy had never been in the state in which the crime was committed; but he was told that, if he would plead guilty to it, he would be sent to Atlanta for a short term, whereas, should he refuse, he could be kept in jail awaiting trial for a year, and would then receive at least six months on the vagrancy charge. "Do as I tell you, and I will see that you get off easy," the inspector, who posed as a friend, told him. When he finally acquiesced, however, the judge imposed on him a sentence of five years, the inspector having testified that he was an old offender, implicated in many other crimes. The fact was, of course, that the real perpetrators of this postoffice robbery had not been caught, but it was expedient for the reputation and welfare of the detectives that a perpetrator should be produced--if not the real one, then one manufactured for the purpose. I learned of many cases similar to this--it is a common routine practise with the System. Moreover, when this innocent youth has completed his term, he will be thenceforth a marked man--"an habitual criminal," with a record against him; and he can be rearrested on general principles at any time. He will be given no opportunity to earn an honest livelihood, and it would be surprising indeed if his wrongs, not to speak of his empty stomach and hopeless circumstances did not make him a bona fide criminal ere long. Obviously, meanwhile, such a man is effectively gagged; if he be asked whether prison be a paradise, he will reply ardently in the affirmative, though his whole body and soul know it as a hell. For if, having blasphemed the Holy System, he is returned to the cell whence he came, every word of his rash revelation will be avenged upon him in torture and misery.