DEAN.
Only fourteen years had rolled over this boy's head, when he became a prisoner in Windsor on a sentence of three years. Rude, but not vicious—lively without design—and less experienced than a man of sixty, he was a promising victim for the irrespective discipline of that dreary place. He soon took up his abode in the solitary cell, and there, young as he was, he spent much of his time, both in summer and winter. Fifteen days at a time has that little boy been in the cell in the dead of winter, with only one blanket, and a piece of bread not larger than his hand once in a day. All night long have I heard him cry, and plead to be let out, that he might not freeze; but no reply could he get from the keeper but—"Stop your noise—shut your head—learn to keep out—I hope you'll freeze."
To say nothing about the impropriety and unmercifulness of such conduct to any prisoner, how does it appear in a man of sufficient years to know better, towards a small boy. Would Lucifer himself have treated even a young christian so? Every one knew that Dean was by no means a bad boy; he was thoughtless and imprudent, but never did he deserve such cruel treatment. Indeed such punishments as are properly called cruel, cannot be constitutionally inflicted on any one, much less on a boy; nor for any offence, much less for a trifle. I here hold up to the view of humanity this tortured youth—his ears frozen, his limbs shivering, his fingers numb and red as blood, pinched with hunger, exhausted by exercise to prevent freezing to death, and dying for want of sleep. I hold him up in this predicament, amid the gloom of the solitary cell for some trifling error, at the dark and silent hour of midnight, in the cold months of winter, pleading for his life, and comforted only by this snarling reply of the guard, "Stop your noise." Yes, I hold him up in such circumstances, where I have often heard his piercing cries, and ask the beholders to read in him the common mercy of that "merciful Institution."
This is a penitentiary. It was erected as such. The laws consider it in this light. It is made the duty of the officers to have an especial eye, in all their conduct, to the moral reformation of the prisoners. How inconsistent, then, must such conduct be? Can such cruelty on any person do him any good? Rather would not such treatment have the effect, even on a saint, to make him a sinner? But look at the punishment of this little boy. What he endured would have crushed a giant. No account made of his age and inexperience—no thought of the kind and degree of correction suited to him—no feelings of compassion; but the steel-hearted man, who ought to have thought of his own children of the same age, met this young unthinking trespasser on some of the minor rules of the limbo, like a hungry bear, and threw him into the infernal machinery of his vengeance.