I had not been long in Atlanta before a guard informed me that LaDow was the best hated man in the prison, by officials and convicts alike. Nor did I find any prisoner there, afterward, who did not speak to the same tune. If he be really an efficient and trustworthy official, this is singular and unfortunate. Mr. Mackay's charges against him at Leavenworth are almost identically the same as what may be heard against him any day in Atlanta. If there be any basis for them, perhaps it would be expedient for the Government to supersede him. The parole law, at its best, seems to be rather a weak-kneed and perverse institution, and it would be a pity to deprive it of what value it may have by committing its dispensation to the hands of a man not peculiarly fitted by nature and temperament to carry out its provisions. It was Napoleon's opinion that a blunder is worse than a crime. XV THE FRUIT OF PRISONS After weathering Cape Parole, I laid my course for the Port of Good Time. Men whose prison records are clear are liberated after serving two-thirds of their original sentences. This new posture of my mind invited a review of the experience through which I had been passing, and of the conditions with which I had become conversant, and their significance in connection with the policy of penal imprisonment in general. I will introduce some of these reflections in this place. As I have just said, men whose prison records are clear are liberated after serving two-thirds of their original sentences. But part or all of this abridgment may be lost by imperfect conduct. One man, at least, within my knowledge, was punished by the dark hole several months before the expiration of his original sentence, and was kept there until that sentence had expired. Then, out of that filthy dungeon he was thrust abruptly forth into broad daylight and the crowded world. It was a miracle if he survived. What have most convicts to live for? Perhaps those who have most to live for are unlikeliest to survive--their anxiety is greater. On the other hand, severity itself may stimulate a convict. His human mind cannot comprehend despair. Instinct forces him to hope. So weeks, months, years go by, and hope seems to him more instead of less justifiable, till at last, perhaps, he dies with the illusion still strong in him. Real despair is un-human and possibly rare. Otherwise prison mutinies and killings would be more frequent. The argument of despair is, "Since I must die here anyway, I'll take two or three of those devils with me!" But few men believe they will die in jail, therefore the guard or other official escapes.