is as much a friend of society
as he is of the prisoner--there is no question about that; that he
has at heart the interest and welfare of society, as well as the
interests of the under dog, and that his motives are not inspired by
any wholly sympathetic feeling, but by a feeling of brotherly love
and justice and the feelings of one who believes in all of the words
in the little line of the Lord's Prayer:

"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us."

L. RICHARDS, No. 31--.

I leave it for any one to judge whether the writer of that letter is a
hopeless criminal. Yet he speaks of himself as an old-timer, who bears
upon his sleeve that cruel symbol of a repeated failure to make good--"the
red disc of shame."

To gauge this one man's ability, his latent power for good, I add another
letter from him, written at a time when the whole prison population was
fearful that the new order of things in the prison department of New York
State might be upset by the change of governors.

Auburn Prison,
October 20, 1913.

Mr. Thomas Mott Osborne, Auburn, N. Y.

My dear Sir:

I learn of your expected visit to Albany during the present week, and
I most earnestly request that if you take up any of the matters with
reference to the work of your Commission, that you present a plea of
the prisoners here for a continuance of the work which you have
started.

I have read numerous criticisms of your acts, most of them coming to
the one conclusion--that you could not during your stay here undergo
mentally what other prisoners were enduring. I know that was not
calculated on by you; and I, as well as quite a number of others with
whom I have spoken, fully understand and appreciate your motive.

Were not one of your ideas adopted, were not a single thing done to
better the physical condition of the prisoners in the penal
institutions of the state, yet you have brought into our hearts and
minds a desire to make better men of ourselves, to prove to the world
that kindness and not punishment is the reformative agency.

We wonder what there is in us that impels men to take up our cause. I
have given considerable thought to this in my solitary moments at
night, and have come to the conclusion that there must be some good
still left in even the most w