ng to do much to make
better men of us criminals, not only now but in the future when we
are again thrust upon society; and if there was just a little more
Osbornism and a little less Journalism the prisoners would have a
greater incentive to reform than they now have.

I speak not only for myself, but for many other old timers with whom
I have talked. I claim as an old timer and one who knows what he is
talking about, as I have been through the mill since childhood, that
one act of kindness will do more toward reforming a criminal than a
thousand acts of cruelty and than all the punishment that you can
inflict.

Men will err, men will fall, and men will continue to commit crime,
and society must be protected. We must have prisons; but I claim that
the better way to treat a criminal in order to try and reform him is
to use a little more kindness in our prisons and a little less
punishment and cruelty.

I don't want to be misunderstood in this matter. I have no favor to
ask of anyone. I expect to do my time--all of it. But I want to take
exception to the insinuation that Mr. Osborne's stay was made any
softer by the fact that the editor of his paper is Warden of Auburn
Prison. The fact is that Warden Rattigan was away from the prison
during the most of the week of Mr. Osborne's imprisonment, and I know
positively and from my own knowledge that his orders were to treat
Tom Brown the same as any other convict in this prison; and 1,329 men
here can testify that these orders were carried out to the letter.

If some of these editorial writers could have heard the spontaneous
applause in our chapel when Mr. Osborne, clad in the garb of a
convict, rose from his seat and walked to the platform to address us,
and could have seen the tears in the eyes of hardened rogues, I am
sure that they would never treat this experiment in the light way
they do. It was really a sorrowful and heart-rending spectacle and
one which will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. And if
they could have witnessed the tears which flowed from Mr. Osborne's
eyes after he had once again put on the clothes of civilization, they
would have been convinced that his heart was almost breaking for the
men whom he was leaving for a time.

I am firmly convinced that Mr. Osborne