ture 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
believe