COLLIER.
This man entered the prison under the influence of a cold which he had taken in gaol. He was in the bloom of youth, and as bright as young men in general. Not feeling well, he did not always do so much work as was required of him, and consequently soon began to feel that he was in a prison. The iron storm of punishment began to beat upon him, and he was so affected by it, that he lost the use of his limbs in a great measure, of his speech for some time, and finally of his reason. The treatment he received would make the records of the inquisition blush. Starvation, chains, and the cold cell were the only mercies he experienced. At a certain time when he was unable to speak, as he was sitting in the cook-room, the Warden entered, and declared that he would make him speak or kill him. To effect this, he took him by the hair of his head, and dragged him round the room, pulling and jerking him with all his might, and crying all the time, "speak or I'll kill you!"—Reader, have you ever read Howard's Prisons of Europe? It was in Europe that he found so much misery and cruelty; but this is in America. Yet here, see that Warden of a prison, dragging a prisoner by the hair of his head, and declaring his intention to kill him if he did not speak. Inhuman man! where is your heart, if you have any? Will God suffer you to go unpunished for thus trampling on His authority, and abusing your fellow man?
After exhausting all his strength, the Warden gave up, without either making him speak, or killing him. Every prisoner's heart burned within him, when he saw what this poor unfortunate man was suffering, and what might become his own doom. I wonder that every one of them did not spring forward, and rescue the sufferer from the wicked hands of that heartless tyrant. I wonder that the earth which bore up the lion-hearted despot, did not open and destroy him. But this is not the end of Collier's sufferings from the same man.
Reduced by disease, and unable to be in the yard, the doctor ordered him to be put into the hospital, and properly attended to. While he was there, the Warden went up to see him. Unkind visit! for he took with him a horsewhip, and before he left him, he used it with lusty arm about his naked back, until he was quite exhausted, and till demons might have trembled at the superior depravity and heartlessness of man. This visit was repeated once, and perhaps twice, and the same medicine administered.
Such was the conduct of the Warden, of whom the laws of the prison say, that "with the powers entrusted to him it cannot be necessary for him to strike his prisoners; much less can it answer any good purpose for him to give his command in a threatening tone, or accompanied with oaths; but he shall give his commands with kindness and dignity, and enforce them with promptitude and firmness."—"He shall never strike a prisoner except in self-defence, or in defence of those assisting him in the discharge of his duty." With this part of the laws of the prison before us, no comment on the acts of the Warden, in the cases cited above, is necessary.
After wading through seas of affliction—after losing his reason—after he had outlived the ability of his destroyers to torment him further, he went home to his mother, a fair specimen of the Warden's mercy.—His ruined form is before me—I see his vacant look—I hear his unmeaning words—my soul sickens—my nerve trembles—I can neither think nor write.