The Punishment of Robbers After Death, as Described in Canto XXIV of Dante's
Inferno, Showing the Old Conception of Ci'ime and Punishment. From the En
graving by Gustave Dore.
bccause the chapel, the usual'place of trial, was too fre
quented l?y visitors: thai they should bo tried for crime
committed within 1 ho prison, found guilty, and sen
tenced to?loss of club privileges, sounds like a crazy
nightmare or the ravings of an asylum novelist ! When
you add that if was very seriously contested as to whether
a prison guard was present or nol, with the. natural in
ference that their social gatherings were habitually not
supervised, one's imagination staggers at the suggestion
that il was a prison at all. It sounds as if the walls and
guards were used not for the purpose of keeping the
prisoners in, bul to keep out. the uneleet. And how can
men who an* serving sentences because they have demon
strate.! ihat they neilher know nor respect the law, sit in
judgment over one of their own kin,d?
Great Britain Riphtg Reserved.
This is a fine object lesson in the results of relaxing^
prison diseipline. Substitute nurses for guards; take
away, as Dr. Stearns suggests, the power to punish infrac/
tions of what little diseipline remains and a prison, I; '
mean a hospital, would be a fine place to Hire moral ob
liquities! How long would an asylum go on if discipline,!
and strongly enforced discipline, were removed? How'
long would it take before there would be a copy of Poe's
"Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather?" Not more than a k
week, T am sure, if as long.
