The Subterranean Brotherhood

As we all know, the first thing done with a new prisoner is to take his bertillons, and the record of these measurements and observations, together with two photographs of him,...

Some doubt has been created in the public mind as to whether there really are dark cells in the Atlanta Penitentiary, or, if there be, whether their use has not been long discon...

It was as he had feared--the detectives had run him down. He put what he possessed in a trunk and left town that evening for a place nearly a thousand miles west. Here he was le...

Then, one night, Billy came to his house, and found that going on which his patience could not tolerate. He got hold of an ax, and, stealing into the room, struck the pedler, as...

"You would have only yourself to blame!"--I hear that comment. If you are kicked, be like the puppy--roll over on your back and hold up your paws for mercy. But if canine models...

Another day, following some months of constant deterioration in the food, and diminution in the quantity of it, a dinner of hash and bread was served, and both bread and hash we...

But in order to induce them to work economically, it is indispensable to give them continuous, intelligent, and manifestly useful work, and to pay them for doing it. It can be a...

Meanwhile, is there not something humiliating in the reflection that a tribunal authorized and appointed by the Government of the United States should descend to such practises?...

The only answer hitherto is compromise--the old answer, fresh once more from the devil's inexhaustible repertoire. We are willing to abolish the death penalty, which is more mer...

Civilization has progressed wonderfully, but always with this death-house on its back. And the death-house gets bigger and more populous every year. Reformers, exhorters, Christ...

This was malicious. But some of the things done by prison authorities are apparently due to sheer stupidity and ignorance. For example, there were some cows belonging to Atlanta...

When you sap a man's faith in plain justice, and terrify him with the threat of irresistible power, and torture him in mind and body through the exercise of that power, you driv...

Vague noises are at all times audible in jail--stirrings, foot-falls, a subdued voice now and then, the sharp orders of an official--"bawlings out" as they are termed; the clang...

Evil conditions breed evil deeds and dangerous secrets. Conditions have improved somewhat during the last two or three years, but the improvement has been more outward than inwa...

"This is ridiculous!" I remarked to my companion; and he consented with a smile; when language goes bankrupt, the simple phrase is least inadequate. "We may as well have lunch,"...

My friend and I looked at our new masters with curiosity; they looked at us with what might be termed arch amusement. With such a look do small boys regard the beetles, kittens,...

In the cell over mine at night A step goes to and fro From barred door to iron wall-- From wall to door I hear it go, Four paces, heavy and slow, In the heart of the sleeping ja...

More, there was at least one man among my companions there who contrived, by devices which I never sought to fathom, to pass the immitigable outer gates themselves every day, at...

This is not a fancy picture--no, not even of what is known to judges and attorneys (but not to prisoners) as "The model penitentiary of America," down in sunny Georgia. Fancy is...

All this did not alter the truth that all men are alike evil, and that such as are not also criminals, forbear--at the outset at least--from motives of enlightened selfishness....