The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri PenitentiariesReynolds, John N. (John Newton)
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The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri Penitentiaries
Reynolds, John N. (John Newton)
Prisons -- Kansas; Prisons -- Missouri
it often rises to one hundred degrees. They are then veritable furnaces.
Generally, after the prisoner undergoes the freezing or baking process
for eight or ten days, he is willing to behave himself in the future.
They are sometimes so reduced and weak when brought out of the dark cell
that they can scarcely walk without aid. I have seen them reel to and
fro like drunken men. They are often as pale as death. That in many
cases the prisoner contracts cold which later on terminates fatally, is
one of the principal objections to this mode of punishment. There is no
doubt that the dark cells of the Kansas Hell have hastened the death of
many a poor, friendless convict. If a person in the mines does not get
out his regular weekly task of coal, on Saturday night he is reported
to the deputy warden by the officer in charge, and is sent to the
blind cell before supper, and is kept there until the following Monday
morning, when he is taken out and sent to his work in the mines. While
in there he gets only bread and water once in twenty-four hours. This
is a great inducement to work; it certainly prevents criminals from
shirking their labor, and soon converts a lazy tramp into a rustling
coal miner. There is one thing, however, that is connected with this
system of punishment that I will criticise. The officer under whose
immediate control the prisoner is placed fixes the period of his
confinement in the dungeon. It gives the officer a good opportunity to
abuse a prisoner he may dislike. These subordinate officers are not all
angels. Some of them are lacking in sympathy. They have become hardened,
and frequently treat their men like beasts. These persons should not
possess such a dangerous power. The warden or deputy warden should
decide the character as well as the period of punishment.
If in this dark cell ten days and nights is insufficient to subdue the
rebellious spirit of the convict, he is taken out and placed in the
solitary cell. This is similar to the ordinary cell, with the exception
that it contains no furniture. Here the convict remains on bread and
water until he is starved almost to death, or until he is willing to
submit and do his work as ordered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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