In the course of the afternoon, talking again of last night’s occurrences upon which no further light has come, I retail to Jack my visit from Officer X this morning, and that gentleman’s conversation. At the conclusion Jack looks over to me with scorn on his honest face and blurts out, “Say! I wonder what they take you for anyway!”
“For a damn fool, evidently; that is, some of them do,” is my answer. “But fortunately, Jack, they can’t be all like that. Probably these officers last night were afraid that I should hear the disturbance that young fellow was making, and felt that they must hustle and get him out of the way on that account. At least that’s how I am inclined to figure it out.”
“Well,” says Jack, “some of them seem awful anxious to know all about you. They come around to my cell every night and ask after my partner’s health, and want me to tell them about everythin’ you say and do. But you can bet I throw ’em off the track. Say,” he continues, “I just wish you could have seen one of the screws last night when he asked me how long you were goin’ to stay here, and I told him that from what I heard you say I judged it wouldn’t be much over two months. Gee! but you should have seen his face! He was just horrified.” And Jack laughs heartily at the recollection.
“Too bad to give the poor fellow a jolt like that. But after all, Jack, the keepers act a good deal as most any of us would in their places.”
This kindly view is not perhaps altogether sincere on my part; but I do not wish to use my influence to stir up trouble between the keepers and the prisoners. Without standing up for the keepers when they are wrong—to do that would be to forfeit the confidence of my companions, I shall do my best to make the men feel that resistance to authority is both foolish and useless. Prisoners cannot expect to have things to their liking; but neither can keepers expect their charges to be blind to hypocrisy, or to acquiesce in brutality.
In the course of the afternoon I have a long and pleasant talk with Jack Bell. A convenient post is just at my right, behind which Bell stands, screened from the view of the Captain. I can talk low without turning my head, and the officer cannot tell that I am not talking to Murphy. As everything else is going on as usual and the men working near pay no attention, not even looking at us, we are able to enjoy quite a prolonged conversation. Finally, however, the Captain seems to suspect something and steps down from his platform, but Bell glides off quietly and with an admirable innocent air of business. The Captain returns to his seat, apparently satisfied.
After Bell has dropped away, I have a long and interesting discussion with my partner. For some years I have felt that the principles of self-government, as developed at the Junior Republic, might probably be the key to the solution of the prison problem; but as yet I have not been able to see clearly just how to begin its application. There have seemed to be almost insuperable difficulties. In this connection Jack makes a suggestion which supplies a most important link in the chain.
In discussing the various aspects of prison life, the better and the worse, the harder and the less hard, we reach the subject of the long and dreary Sundays. Jack agrees with all those with whom I have talked that the long stretch in the cells, from the conclusion of the chapel service, between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock Sunday morning until seven o’clock Monday morning—over twenty hours, is a fearful strain both physical and mental upon the prisoners.
“Well, Jack,” I say, “from what I have heard Superintendent Riley say, I feel sure he would like to give the men some sort of exercise or recreation on Sunday afternoons; but how could it be managed? You can’t ask the officers to give up their day off, and you don’t think the men could be trusted by themselves, do you?”
“Why not?” says Jack.