n the flesh caused by the cat-o'-nine-tails in the hands
of a merciless official of the Missouri penitentiary. Another prisoner
carries thumbs out of joint and stiffened by the inhuman practice of
hanging up by the thumbs in vogue in a former place of imprisonment,
and still another carries about with him ugly wounds inflicted by
bloodhounds which overtook him when trying to escape from a Southern
prison.

The foregoing is a view of the punishments inflicted from a prisoner's
standpoint. That the reader may arrive at just conclusions, I quote the
statements on the same subject made by the warden, Captain Smith, in
his able biennial report of last year. In doing so, I beg leave to state
that the convict who had ever been the object of the prison discipline,
or who had spent his ten days and nights in one of those dismal
dungeons, subsisting on bread and water, would readily say that the
warden had treated the subject in a manner "very mild."

"The discipline has been carefully looked after, and as a general thing
prisoners yield to strict discipline quicker than most people think.
They seem to see and realize the necessity of rules, and very seldom
complain, if they violate them, at the punishment that is sure to
follow. Our punishments are of such a character that they do not
degrade. Kansas, when she established her penitentiary, prohibited
corporal punishment. She is one of the few States that by law prohibits
the use of the whip and strap; taking the position that it is better to
use kindness than to resort to brutal measures. I have often been told,
and that, too, by old prison men, that it was impossible to run a
prison and have first-class discipline without the whip. Such is not
my experience. We have had within our walls perhaps as desperate men as
ever received a sentence. We have controlled them, and have maintained
a discipline second to none in the country, How did we accomplish this?
Our answer is, by being kind but firm; treating a man, although he may
be a prisoner, as a man. If he violates rules, lock him up. Give him
an opportunity to commune with himself and his Maker; also give him to
understand that he is the executioner of his own sentence, and when he
concludes that he can do right, release him. It matters not how vicious,
how stubborn, or what kind of a temper he may have, when left with no
one to talk to, and an opportunity to cool down, and with a knowledge
that when he comes to the conclusion