In many of the rooms of the mines there are large pools of water which accumulate there from dripping down from the crevices above; this, taken in connection with the natural damps of the mines, which increases the water, makes very large pools, and in these mud-holes convicts are compelled to work and wallow about all day long while getting out their coal, more like swine than anything else. How can this be in the line of reformation, which, we are taught to believe outside of the prison walls, is the principal effort of all discipline within the prison. The result of work under such unfavorable circumstances is that many of the convicts contract rheumatism, neuralgia, pneumonia and other lung troubles, and, of course, malaria. Many persons that enter these mines in good health come out physical wrecks, often to find homes in the poor-houses of the land when their prison days are over, or die before their terms expire. In the judgment of the writer the coal mines should be sold; until that is done, prisoners who contract diseases there that will carry them to untimely graves should be pensioned by the State, and thus kept from spending the rest of their natural lives in some of the country poor-houses. Each person in the mines is assigned a task; he is required to get out a certain amount of coal each week. In case the convict fails to mine the task that has been assigned him he must endure punishment, a description of which will be given later on. It is the opinion of the author that something should be done to remedy this. The young men from seventeen to twenty, together with the old men from fifty to sixty, and those suffering from diseases, are often required to dig as much coal as middle-aged and able-bodied men. I have seen old men marching to their cells after a hard day's work scarcely able to walk, and many times have I laid in the mines along with these young boys who would spend hours crying like whipped children for fear they would be unable to get out their regular task of coal, and would therefore have to spend the Sabbath in the dungeon, suffering unspeakable anguish. Because of the dangers to which the inmate is exposed; because of the debasing influences by which lie is surrounded, it is wrong, it is WICKED to work our criminals in such a place as those mines of the Kansas penitentiary. CHAPTER IV. THE PUNISHMENTS OF THE PRISON