: Within Prison Walls being a narrative during a week of voluntary confinement in the state prison at Auburn New York by Osborne Thomas Mott - Auburn Prison; Prisoners New York (State); Prisons New York (State)

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less comrade, were the sounds I heard far away in my cell. One of the trusties who, having the freedom of the corridors, was enabled to see most of the occurrence, so far forgot his position as to venture the opinion that it was a "pretty raw deal." This remark was overheard by an officer; and the trusty at once received the warning that he had better keep his mouth shut and not talk about what didn't concern him.

If it is realized that these officers have what almost amounts to the power of life and death over the convicts, it can be understood that such a warning was not one to be lightly disregarded.

Lavinsky, having been landed again in the jail, was kept there from Wednesday evening until Saturday afternoon. What special care or attention was given him during that time I am unable to state, but there is no reason to suppose that any exception was made in his case. Like the other denizens of the jail, he was fed only on bread and a very insufficient quantity of water--three gills in twenty-four hours--and also experienced the intolerable conditions of that vile place.

On Saturday afternoon, three days later, he was still down there, and still bughouse. Then as there was a disturbing rumor among the officials that I was planning to be sent to the jail, he was taken away about an hour before my arrival. His cell was the very one which I occupied, after it had been thoroughly cleaned.

He was removed from the jail to a special cell, where his case was taken up personally by the Warden, and where the poor youth was at last put under the care of the doctor, and received some humane and sensible treatment. When I first saw him, some three weeks after my term had ended, he had not become entirely rational, although he has since recovered himself. As I have already said, he had at first no clear recollection of the brutal treatment of which he had been the victim, nor in fact of anything that occurred at the time. Perhaps it was all the better that this was so.

An exceptionally intelligent convict, whose term expired soon after these events, and who could have had no earthly object in misrepresenting the matter, described to me after his release the episode in detail. He had been an eye-witness of the entire occurrence, as he was standing on the gallery where he could see everything that happened. He summed it up in these exact words: "Mr. Osborn, it was one of the most brutal things that I have ever seen, in all my experience in prison."

His story is fully corroborated by what I have learned, upon careful inquiry from other men.

Doubtless some will say that the statements of convicts are not to be believed. That touches upon one of the very worst features of the situation. No discrimination is ever made. It is not admitted that, while one convict may be a liar, another may be entirely truthful; that men differ in prison exactly as in the world outside. It is held, quite as a matter of course, that they are all liars, and an officer's word will be taken against that of a convict or any number of convicts. The result is that the officers feel themselves practically immune from any evil consequences to them from their own acts of injustice or violence. What follows from this is inevitable. Our prisons have often been the scenes of intolerable brutality, for which it has been useless for the victims to seek redress. They can only cower and endure in silence; or be driven into insanity by a hopeless revolt against the System.

Not so very long ago one of the prisoners at Auburn, on a hot night in summer, as an officer was shutting the windows in the corridor outside, called out from his cell, "Oh, Captain, can't you let us have a little more air?"

The officer promptly went to the tier of cells whence the voice came and made a chalk-mark around the keyhole of one of the locks. When a man is "round-chalked" he is not released when the rest of the prisoners are let out of their cells, but reserved for punishment. In this case the officer mistook the cell from which the voice had come, and round-chalked the prisoner who was locked in next to the one who had dared to ask for more air.

The next morning, finding that his neighbor was about to receive the punishment intended for himself, the culprit promptly told the officer that he was the guilty party, and if anyone was to be punished, he ought to be. This honorable action was allowed no weight. He had some of his hard-earned money taken away from him, three days of his commutation cancelled, and the disc removed from his sleeve as a mark of disgrace; in short, he was severely punished--as his innocent neighbor would have been, had he not prevented it by taking the punishment upon himself.

The point is this: that no convict has any rights--not even the right to be believed; not even the right to reasonably considerate treatment. He is exposed without safeguard of any sort to whatever outrage an inconsiderate or brutal keeper may choose to inflict upon him; and you cannot under the present system guard against such inconsiderate and brutal treatment.

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