been kept from the prisoner for six months. To deprive the convict
of his tobacco for a month or two, if he uses it, and many do, is a
severe punishment. This kind of punishment is usually effectual in
securing good discipline. There are extreme cases, however, that require
severer punishment. To meet this contingency, dungeons are provided. As
their name implies, they are dark. They resemble an ordinary cell with
the exception of the door, which, in the common cell, contains open
spaces for the admission of light; but the dark cell admits neither
light nor a sufficient quantity of air. There is no furniture in this
dark cell. While undergoing punishment, if a prisoner desires to rest,
he can do so by reclining on the stone floor. No refractory prisoner
ever grows corpulent while confined in these dark cells, as he only
receives one meal of bread and water in twenty-four hours! The prisoner
is often kept in these cells from eight to ten days. Sleep is almost
impossible. When a prisoner enters the dungeon he is required to leave
behind him his coat, cap and shoes. During the winter months it is often
very cold in these cells, requiring the prisoner to walk up and down
the dungeon in his stocking feet to prevent his freezing, and this for
a period of ten days, in nearly every instance compels submission. After
the dark cells thaw out, during the summer months, they are excessively
hot. Sometimes in winter the temperature is below zero, and in summer
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