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kkSome Prison FrierAn exposition of prison thoughts and feelings, strange friend* __________ smother—alltold by Julian Hawthorne in today’s Sunday Post article—the third in awritingis prison life. Last week Mr. Hawthorne described his arrival at the federal penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., where men become mere numbers. Today he strikingly points out that though the adamant laws may destroy identity, personality remains. He strikes a graphic personal note which vivifies his experience.BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE\t dinner, soon after my arrival at Atlanta,amid the omnipresent murmurous palaver ot conversation, there fell an unusual noise.The unusual is always formidable in jail. The noise was nothing in itself and would havepassed unheeded in a hotel dm.ng room. But over us crowded together there, spread an instant hAll! -that men had been stabbed, frenzied broken out in that room. What wasaffrayslt Thl^euard in the window stiffened and poised 1,1. rifle The guards on the floor caught their ^a h iu. assam,d a confidfent air. The me,, sat staring in the direction of the noise, tense^Votoing* happened; somebody had dropped a nlate and broken it, perhaps. But had some natural leader of the enslaved leaped up and shouted at that juncture, murder would have followedthCA^non«Te very ^undred convicts there arc eight or 10 whom misery and wrong have made reckless whose morbid rebelliousness needs, to break forth only the shadow of opportunity to kill before being killed, and they accept it.But it was not to be that day, and we relaxed, and grinned, nervously or grimly, and resumed our meal.|IVV« V*** ---Eight hundred men, clad in a shapelessmonotony of dingy blue, libelled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bant and eyesdowncast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsc-quiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions!Meanwhile, I paid attention to my compan-ions themselves. •There was one dear old fellow who was an‘alleged moonshiner, though, as he said, ‘ Yes, I / did make some whiskey, but I never sold none!/ “Hew’re you feeling. Joe? I would say; and he would reply, with his pathetic sm.le and his1 high, soft voice, ‘Pretty well-pretty well, for nold man!’ with a drawling emphasis on the° d HAD CONTAGIOUS LAUGHHe was about 70, with the soft brown hair of vouth but bent and stiff and wrinkled with hardvears and rheumatics; and if I questioned himmore closely, he would confess that he suffered from “lots o’ misery here!’ —passing his gnarledold hands over his digestive tract.\ He would fix his old eyes squarely on yours,/ and laugh and laugh with infinite mirth and goodJ nature Such a sound in such a place was rare/ and wonderful, and helped onlt;5 like fresh waterPv. hi a desert.I ¥ Th* general friendlin*** among the men— L with thoir demeanor toward thosdtohde—waa dua to til* identity of thnircommon interests; they were in the same boat, facing the same perils and disasters, united in the same aims and hopes, and leagued against the same oppressors.They lived in the constant dread of some calamity; and if I met the same man three or four times in the same day, he would never fail to maka the same inquiry—“How’re you feeling?0 recognising that I might have received some ugly blow in the interval*There was a spontaneous courtesy and a charitableness in it that touched the heart*The same sentiment was manifested at meals; if anybody got hold of anything that seemed to him a little better than usual, he could not rest till he had offered some of it, or all of it, to hisneighbors at table. *“Here, take this—take it—I got- more1!! Iwant!A pecifliar consideration was manifested by the men toward ‘'the old man”; my hair was white enough, to-be sure, but it had been so for nearly 20 years, and I was in much better physical condition than most of them.I accepted their kind offices with gratitude and emotion, and, when I saw that to do otherwise would hurt their feelings, their concrete gifts, too.TRADITIONAL TALE THAT'S TRUEBut there were many instances of self-sacrifice greater than these; men would go to the hole sooner than betray a comrade; and you are fortunate in being unable to comprehend whatthat means.The traditional tale of a prisoner’s devotion to animals is also true; a man next me at table— a yegg—for two weeks poured half his allowance of milk (h£ was on milk diet for acute indigestion) into a surreptitious bottle, and bore it off for the sustenance of a couple of little forlorn kittens that he was acting as special providence for. The meditative smile with which he perpetuated this theft upon the prison authorities was a wonderful sight. ~ 'Another convict, a hardened old timer, for several weeks lavished cargoes of tenderness upon a rat which he had (laboriously conciliated and tamed. “What makes you so fond of that animal?” inquired one day a sentimental and statistical old lady visitor to the prison. After struggling with his emotions for a minute, he burst out, “Yaht bo bit the guard t”.This dialogue wap overheard, and enchanted the whole penitentiary for months.CONVICT'S SILENCE A SERMONOn my first Sunday in the chapel there came an exhorter or revivalist, accustomed to dealing with prisoners from the platform, and dubbed “The Old War-Horse of Salvation,” or some such title. He had his white waistcoat, his raucous. shouting voice, his phrases, his anecdotes,his'“my men,” “my friends” “Uows”; his “I’m*saved, I hope, and you can be!H^pHHBpH|Oh, the phariseeissn of that J hope T At the end of his uproar, he called upon' . i Hfc .
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