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SI write these lines I am sitting in a six by-eight cell in the Ohio Penitentiary. The music bell has just rung, and the harmonicas, Victrolas, mandolins, and so on are all going full tilt, each one trying to make more noise than the other. Just now a harmonica seems to be leading the noisy pack; and the windy gent playing it is abusing "What'll I Do?" to such an extent that I keep expecting to hear some one suggest something at any moment.

Down on the lower ranges I can hear them taking the "chorus girls" for our annual prison "Follies" out of their cells for rehearsal. Two of them are murderers, one a bank robber, and the rest just common every-day dips, prowlers, forgers, and bootleggers-the last predominating.

And as I sit here waiting for the Hour of Bedlam to pass-it would be foolish to attempt to write in all this clamor I can't help but think of a real writer, one of our "alumni," the late O. Henry, and of the difficult task one would have convincing him, could he drop in for an informal call, that the Ohio Penitentiary of to-day is the same old Alma Mater where he was known as student 30,664.

In the first place, if force of habit should direct his footsteps toward his old "apartment" in the C & D block, he would find it occupied by the writer in

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stead of his former cell buddy, Al Jennings, who used to be so fond of interrupting Western mail trains. And, secondly, if he should walk on down the tier, he might easily imagine that he had stumbled into a vocational training school by mistake, for that-through the indefatigable efforts of Warden Thomas and Chaplain Reed-is just what the Ohio Penitentiary is to-day.

And there, in the same old unsanitary building where General Morgan of Civil War fame tunneled to freedom, O. Henry would find that an astonishing change had taken place-that some one, with a magic wand, had transformed the dark, gloomy prison cells into individual schoolrooms where men might become better through teaching and thinking. He would find the 1925 edition of

"Percy the Penman," brush in hand, practicing show-card lettering instead of forged signatures, and his cell buddy, "Silk Hat Harry," studying ad writing as thoroughly as he would a gullible prospect to whom he wished to make a quick cash sale of the Brooklyn Bridge. He would find "Second-Story Pete" and "Jerry the Yegg," their wrinkled foreheads resembling the corrugations of an old-fashioned washboard, delving deeply into the perplexing mysteries of cube and square root, and their next-door neighbors, "Two Gun Mike" and "Shorty the Dip," handicapped by the life-long habit of talking out of the corner of their mouths, conjugating French verse or spelling down as though their very lives depended upon the outcome. And if, at last, O. Henry's bump of curiosity should get the better of him and he should demand to know what on earth they were doing, he would get this reply: "Learnin' somethin', chump. Gwan, git away from here!"

This is how it happened: Some time ago Chaplain Reed, whose duties include those of librarian, noticed that a great many of the prisoners were in the habit of drawing out books on technical subjects and were returning them within a few days. Being himself a student, he knew these books could not be assimilated in so short a time. Upon investi

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Third grade schoolroom. Two of the men shown in this picture were classed as "master minds" by

the newspapers at the time of their arrest

gating, he discovered that, instead of being the "master minds" the newspapers are so fond of calling them, thirtytwo per cent of the prisoners could neither read nor write and forty-seven per cent had called it an education upon reaching the third grade. Realizing that these men had a thirst for knowledge, but that they did not know how to study, he decided to teach them how.

So one morning he called his assistants, a few of the better-educated prisoners, into his office. "Boys," he said, "there are a number of men in the shops and Idle House who ought to be in school. There isn't room for them, so I've decided to start a school. Will you help me?"

"When do we begin?" was the reply, and the Intra-Wall Correspondence School of the Ohio Penitentiary-the most practical effort toward prison reform in the history of our penal institutions-was born.

They started with just a few carbon copies of lessons and a half-dozen students. But the news that "de sky pilot's dishin' out learnin'" spread around the big prison like wildfire, and within a few. weeks two hundred additional students had courses, and more were clamoring to be enrolled.

This new system began to show such marked improvement in the men making use of it that it attracted the attention of Warden Thomas, who encouraged and assisted the chaplain to extend it throughout the prison as widely as possible. Before long more than one-half the prison population of three thousand were busy at their lessons, which embraced practically every subject taught in primary school or university.

It was then that Chaplain Reed's real troubles commenced. To furnish all these students with books, paper, pens, etc., cost money, and there was none at his disposal. Something had to be done. So the chaplain asked for and obtained a ninety-day leave of absence, and began a tour of the State to raise funds.

In his talks before churches, clubs, fraternal organizations-any interested group of public-spirited citizens-the chaplain described life behind prison walls as it actually exists. He painted a word picture of the morbid surroundings, the dark, gloomy cells where prisoners idled away precious hours, brooding, possibly plotting the revenge they would take when the State considered their debt to society paid.

"Ninety per cent of the men in prison are coming back some day," the chaplain would say. "The question is, how do you want them to come back-hardened criminals, fitted for lives of worse crime, or better men, fitted by education

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A corner of the prison library. More than 22,000 volumes-all donated-are kept here. A few of the Intra-Wall faculty are shown in the foreground; one of them reads, writes, and speaks fluently seven different languages

for useful service in the outside world?" By this sort of an appeal he raised sufficient funds to keep almost 1,700 students in supplies and to furnish 320, or the most advanced, with a complete course of instruction in a useful vocation.

Since then many generous contributions have flowed in (enough to install this school in both the men's and women's reformatories), but none of them is so appreciated as the soiled and wrinkled dollar bill that arrived the other day. "This ain't much," read the boyish scrawl that accompanied it, "but I had to sell a lot of rags and junk before I got it. My brother's in the pen, and maybe this will help make a better man of him."

To help you understand what this school means to us, I will try to give you an idea of our routine. We get up at 6 A.M. After working all day in the shops or sitting in the Idle House as hundreds, through lack of work, are compelled to do with just a short time out for dinner, we are again locked in our "drums" at 4:30 P.M. Lights are turned out at 8:30 P.M. out at 8:30 P.M. On Sundays, except for the short time we are at meals or in chapel, we spend the entire day in our cells-cells in which no reasonably sane man would care to house his dog; for into many of them the sun has never

shone, and when they were erected sanitary conveniences were unheard of.

How long could you live in that sort of environment without losing all hope, without becoming bitter, without plotting revenge? How long could you live in an Idle House, where you had to sit all day on a long wooden bench, thinking, brooding, doing nothing for days, weeks, at a time? How long could you sit there without losing your mind, or coming out, as so many have done, with the firm determination to get even? And why not? To make a man think normally you must let him live normally.

This school is no "sob, stuff;" it's a business proposition. "Sob sisters" and "gush brothers" who infest prisons and other such places, always wanting to do something, and usually ending by doing nothing, don't fool the officials, and they don't fool us. What we want is something practical, not pampering or coddling.

Under this system we can devote the long, weary hours. hitherto spent in brooding over our condition, or listening to a "hard-boiled" cell partner tell how many "peters" he had blown and the hundreds of "soft touches" he'd made, to learning a trade. And if, upon our release, we are given a fair chance to work at it, and not the "bum's rush," the tax

payers will have fewer convicts to support.

Getting away from the subject for a moment, let me tell you of an incident that happened last Sunday, which will do very well to illustrate just how much some of the "would-be" reformers really know about prisoners and prisons. We were at dinner, and a party of visitors who had attended chapel services came into the dining-room.

"Why, you have knives and forks, haven't you?" exclaimed one, her eyes as big as saucers.

"Yes, ma'am," replied a joker on my right. "An' some of us even got teeth!"

Warden Thomas and Chaplain Reed cannot reform any of us; that is one chore we simply have to do for ourselves. But they can, and have, made brilliant scholars and even teachers of some of the most troublesome and unruly prisoners this place has ever known-men who have been in and out of prison so often that one might say that they were doing "life" on the installment plan; and any one who can do that has done more toward helping us back on the slippery strait and narrow path than all the legislation our assemblies can write onto the books.

There's Spike, for instance. Spike was

Y dear B- -:

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what the world called an habitual criminal. He was only twenty-six years old, but had spent almost seventeen of those behind prison bars. We locked together for a while, and he told me something of his life's history. He had never known his mother-she died bringing him into the world-and a switch engine got his father when Spike was eight. Two years later the Boys' Industrial School got Spike, and the State has been his host on and off ever since.

There has been some real tough "mugs" in this old quadrangle of granite at one time or another, but Spike stood head and shoulders above any of them. And as a consequence he not only earned the sobriquet of the "Prison Demon," but served about two-thirds of his time in the "hole." One day Spike walked into the chaplain's office and rather sheepishly asked if he could have a

course.

"Certainly you can, Spike," was the chaplain's reply. "But I don't want you to take one unless you will promise me to go through with it."

Spike promised. And when the chaplain asked him what study he wished to pursue, he asked for a course in poultry raising! Can you beat it? Well, he got one; and from then on Spike was another

The Crocodile

As you have shown in your last letter a great interest in the conditions of my work at our factory, I can tell you that one's position at a higher post is by far not all "beer and skittles." One has always to balance between three fires: the administration at Moscow, the Workmen's Committee, and the workingmen themselves. You have to satisfy all three if you wish to stay. These are the more or less technical resorts which you have to consider; politically you are kept in fear and horror by the local cell at the factory and the Country Executive Committee.

As to the work itself, one is generally kept busy from early morning till late at night-unfortunately, most of it unproductively. One's time is fully taken up by endless meetings and discussions with the Workmen's Committee, the Workmen's Conflict Committee, and different traveling officials.

Besides all these there are the reports in writing to the administration at Moscow and to other Government institutions. You see, one cannot complain of

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man entirely. And if any one wanted to talk to Spike, the pièce de résistance of the conversation would have to be chickens. Spike's been out for over a year now (just eight months longer than he ever managed to stay before), and the last I heard from him was a jubilant note stating that he was working on a chicken farm, where he was chambermaid to a large flock of full-blooded Plymouth Rocks.

There are some who insist that Spike's reformation is just a flash in the pan, that he'll come back. But I'm betting that he doesn't. For he also stated in his note that whenever he felt the urge to shatter the Seventh Commandment he simply opened one of those roadside vegetable stands, and that's one form of highway robbery our lawmakers have completely overlooked. Besides, Spike didn't have to go to work when he was released; he could have gone back to the old mob or into politics. So, if he has not reformed, he has at least developed some commendable scruples, and that's a step in the right direction. Hats off to Chaplain Reed and his college, which, even though it has crowbars for window screens, is making our greatest failureour prison system-pay dividends in rehabilitated men and women.

young men submit our activity and our conduct to a severe public criticism, which appears later on in all newspapers. In order to attract a larger audience, the passing of the final sentence upon us is being transacted in an absolutely farcical manner, and on the top of that we are represented as more or less ridiculous. Well, then, listen:

There is a certain excitement at the factory: the crocodile is being expected! A fortnight before its arrival an urn is put up in one of the rooms of the factory, wherein everybody may throw complaints, written on small slips of paper; complaints against everybody-administration, employees, workingmen, just as everybody thinks fit. Night and day a militiaman is sitting by the urn to watch in order that it should not be turned over and to prevent anything happening to it. This seemed the more necessary, as a few days ago the monument of Karl Marx, which was standing in the marketplace of our little town, had been knocked over.

By the day of the arrival of the crocodile the urn was full of slips of paper

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The Outlook was barred from Russia under the Czar. That was because George Kennan, of The Outlook's staff, worked with the revolutionists against the old régime. Now, under the edict of the Communist Government, we are barred again, as this reproduction from a wrapper containing Outlooks sent to Russia clearly shows. The Russian Censor found it necessary to stamp the wrapper three times with the direction, "Returned because forbidden admission by the Press Bureau

and the expectation great; nobody knew what would happen. In the afternoon the director of the factory sent a circular to all the higher employees. We were obliged to give a written guaranty to appear at the session of the crocodile.

When I entered the great school-room of the factory at nine o'clock P.M., it was full of people, who fought desperately, in expectation of what was to happen, for the best seats. When at last the curtain rose, we saw the crocodile and three quite young men from Moscow on the stage, who were seated round a table, on which the aforementioned urn was standing. In the background there sat the director of the factory, the members of the cell, the Workmen's Committee, and different other comrades of high standing in a solemn semicircle. The appearance of the crocodile corresponded to the highest expectations: It was clothed in a scarlet dress, had a mouth full of dreadful teeth, and held in its paw a pitchfork. The orchestra behind the stage was playing a triumphal march, the crocodile rattled, keeping time with its jaws, and the three strange young men bowed, smiling men bowed, smiling proudly, in all directions.

The audience, in expectation, held its breath and was enthusiastic about the appearance of the red monster. Presently one of the young men stood up and delivered a humorous address: The crocodile had come to the factory to discover misuses and to punish undutiful employees. The slips of paper in the urn would

be read at once and a just investigation should take place; the guilty ones would be severely punished. The crocodile being tired from the journey from Moscow, he would have the honor to preside at the meeting. Again the monster clattered with its teeth, the music played, and the session began.

The complaints had in the meantime apparently been sorted, because one of the young men pulled out of the urn three complaints against my person at once. As it appeared later, there had not been left in the urn any complaints at all against comrades (i. e., members of the Communist Party); these had been in wise forethought destroyed and the whole material had been carefully looked through and sorted. And so it began at once with me, and that pretty sharp.

(1) Why is this expensive foreigner here? He gets high wages, lives in a detached house, and does not do anything tached house, and does not do anything either for the factory or for the culture of the Communist Party. Goodness knows what he is doing in his house! In the evening the windows are shut off with blinds, and it is impossible to peep in. These were the contents of the first slip. The discussion of the separate points lasted for over an hour, wherein I was attacked by several comrades, but protected, to my great satisfaction, by the workmen, so that I escaped comparatively lightly. The resolution of the crocodile was as follows:

It does not matter that Citizen His a foreigner, neither does it matter that he draws a comparatively high salary, because he earns it, being a specialist and is being fully occupied in the factory from early morning till late at night, according to the statement of the workmen. He has no right to live in a separate house by himself; it is desirable that a comrade should be lodged with him; the question about the curtained windows would be settled then.

That the accused does not do anything for the education of the workmen is a proof of want of interest and is to be regretted. There should be taken steps in this matter.

(2) Why doesn't Citizen H- split his firewood himself, but allows it to be done by workmen from the factory? The following resolution was carried after a long debate: Citizen H, being pretty stout, it would only do him good if he would split his firewood himself.

received

(3) Why has Citizen Hso much good furniture from the factory? The furniture is the property of the workmen and should be given to the employees only in small quantities.

Again there followed long discussions. As they could not come to an agreement in this important question, this matter was given over to the Workmen's Committee for a further investigation. Eventually nothing was taken away from me; there appeared only constantly delegates, who made a note of each piece of furni

ture for at least ten times, and disturbed me and my family by their presence and the many questions.

Finishing this narration, I wish to mention that this whole comedy was by far not so innocent as it may appear to be. The minutes with the resolutions were handed over to the Executive Committee, and the newspapers brought detailed reviews of the debates. A regrettable result of this was the discharge of several able employees.

Other employees of the factory did not
fare so well; most of them were found
guilty and were impaled upon the pitch-
fork or the great corner tooth of the
crocodile, figuratively of course-that is,
this was done with their slips of accusa-
tion along with the verdict; at each
execution the music played a flourish, the
crocodile clattered madly with its teeth,
and the audience screamed with pleasure.
There will be other letters from this author to follow

With this point ended the discussion about my person. I did not get any punishment, thanks only to the workmen, who defended me the whole time against the comrades. I escaped with a few admonitions, administered by the president in the name of the crocodile.

H.

I'

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In which a big-game hunter tells how our wild life can be preserved
from the menacing combination of automatic and automobile

T always has been, and always will be, quite impossible to secure harmony, either in thought or in legislative action, concerning the limitation of a natural right. Sportsmen regard the right to hunt and to fish as such a right, and too many of them resist all efforts to restrain them in the exercise of that right. To the common law, game birds and animals are known as feræ naturæ, which is to say, they are of a wild nature and their ownership is in the State until reduced to actual individual possession as permitted by statute law. This legal theory had its origin centuries ago in the necessity for conserving food supply and for insuring food for the pioneers who went into unsettled lands. Except in remote regions of Alaska, such necessity no longer exists in the United States, and no longer is there necessity for conserving for food supply such game birds as grouse, wild turkey, quail, geese, and

for conserving game in order that there may be hunting is a present problem which should be met dispassionately, though firmly. The problem is complicated by the inevitable invasion of the natural right to hunt. And this is no new thing. Almost two hundred years ago Gilbert White wrote in one of his letters to Thomas Pennant, Esq., which go to make up the charming "Natural History of Selborne," these reflections over the unlawful killing of game: "The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution; and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain." Therein is found the obstacle which has caused the legislative pendulum to swing from one extreme to the other, both equally wrong.

The Less We Kill, the More
We Have

ducks. For the sportsmen themselves, WE

and for recreation, and for a most valuable training of our youth, the necessity

E are firm in the opinion that the problem in itself is a simple one, capable of a just solution. If we would

have more game, we must kill less. All agree with that, but differ, and sometimes needlessly quarrel, over how to restrict hunting.

In some States, such as Ohio, the hunting of quail has been restricted by the extreme of not permitting them to be hunted at all. The reasons for the widespread increase in hunting during the past fifteen years is found in the fact that it has become so easy. When the hunter was under the necessity of depending on the horse and buggy for conveyance to the hunting-grounds and the double-barrel gun for his firearm, hunting was not so easy as with the motor car for conveyance and the automatic and repeater for his firearm. Well do we remember how, in the late eighties and in the nineties, the hunter was under the necessity of getting up long before day and facing a cold buggy ride for from two to three hours before reaching the game fields: and also do we remember the return in the star-lit frosty night. There were but few quail hunters then. The

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