sonment. They had continued to
love him, notwithstanding his misfortune; had been true to him during
his days of bondage; and he was now anxious to reach his home to meet
them. How true it is that the blow which falls upon the culprit, and
which justice intends for him alone, often falls with equal force and
effect upon wife, child or other helpless and dependent relative! I
asked him how he felt on recovering his liberty after being in prison
for five years.

"Oh!" said he, "this is the happiest day of my life thus far; I never
knew the blessings of liberty as I do now. I never saw the sun shine so
brightly before. Everything about me seems so beautiful. From this time
I will appreciate more than ever I have done, this beautiful world. It
almost pays a man to be penned up for a time to enable him to appreciate
what there is in the world for him. Behind the walls, however, banished
from the presence of loved ones, it is a veritable hell. I cannot find a
term that expresses my views of a prison life that is more suitable than
that word--hell. Those long, dreary days of monotonous work--the same
thing must be gone over, day after day; the food we eat, the treatment
to which we are subjected, our loneliness and solitude, all combined,
make prison life almost unbearable." "Do you know," I asked, "of any
prisoners who are so satisfied with their condition as to be willing to
remain in the penitentiary, did they have an opportunity of obtaining
their liberty?" "There is not a person in that institution," he replied,
"who would not hail with joy his release. Some of them are physical
wrecks, and would have to go to the almshouse to be taken care of in
case they should obtain their freedom, yet they would prefer any place
to that of a prison cell, deprived of their freedom." After spending
more than an hour in conversation with this ex-convict, and bidding him
"good bye," I proceeded on my journey to the prison. As I walked along
thinking of the poor ex-convict I had just passed, my imagination
pictured for him a rather gloomy future. He is a cripple, and has a
large family to support; he must bear with him along life's journey the
heavy load of disgrace that whisky placed upon him. An ex-convict!
Who will give him work to do? Who will lend him a helping hand in his
struggle to regain a foothold in the outside world? After a few vain
efforts to regain what he has lost, will he not yield to despair, as
thousands have done before