The prison mirror. [volume], March 09, 1893, Image 2

About The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
J’ite sh*isou
Edited and Published by tlie Inmates.
Entered at the Post Office at Stillwater, Minn.,
as Second Class Mail Matter.
The Prison Mirror is issued every Thurs
day at the following rates:
One Year SI.OO
Six Months 50
Three Months -*5
Address all communications.
Editor Prison Mirror.
Stillwater. Minn.
THE PKISON JIIRBOK is a weekly pa
per published in the Minnesota State Prison. It
was founded in 1887 by the convicts and is edited
and managed by them. Its objects are: to be a
home newspaper; to encourage moral and intel
lectual improvement among the prisoners; to
acquaint the public with the true statius of the
prisoner; to disseminate penological informa
tion, and to aid in dispelling that prejudice
which has ever been the bar sinister to a fallen
man’s self-redemption. The paper is entirely
dependent on the public for its financial sup
port. If at any time there should accrue a sur
plus of funds the money would be expended in
the interests of the prison library.
Grover Cleveland once more becomes
President of the United States. On the
4th of March he was placed into that
high office for his second term. lie will
be known to posterity as the thrice nom
inated and twice elected president of
the United States.
We are more than pleased to learn
that the newspaper people of Minnesota
regard The Prison Mirror as “just
the thing for the state." We are unable
for want of space, to give in this issue
many specimen letters showing the
feelings we have awakened.
A Japanese Harvard student says
that “the Japanese of to-day are suffer
ing from religious dyspepsia —they have
had so manv kinds stuffed into them."
h
Sorry to hear it. Call upon our two
chaplains, who will quickly convince
you of the errors of your ways. You
have been living too high.
The Washington Count]/ Journal is
the name of the latest journalistic pro
duction credited to this city. It came
out last Friday for the first time and is
edited by our old friend. Mr. X. A. Nel
son. The Journal has jumped into
the newspaper arena with both feet,
and will prove itself one of the modern
hustlers of the newspaper world.
Our supply that is “jaw-bone" is
about exhausted, and we affectionately
insist on the delinquents adjusting their
small accounts at this mansion. Labor
ing seventeen hours per day for the
dear public is rather up-hill business,
“and this and nothing more" fails to
purchase the necessary amount of el
bow grease, caster oil. and first-grade
suits.
Says the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, in
a letter written to the St. Paul (llobe:
Editor Globe: There is published, by the pris
oners at Stillwater, a very creditable little news
paper called The Prison Mirror. I always
read it with groat interest, for I cannot help but
sympathize with those unfortunates, with their
strangely mingled instincts of good and evil—
the good too often struggling vainly to surmount
the evil. In the last issue I find a little poem
which I enclose. It shows touches of real genius,
and, viewed in connection with the circumstan
ces under which it is written, is most pathetic.
Very respectlully yours,
Ignatius Donnelly.
The poem referred to by Air. Donnelly
is “My Sweetheart." written by our
“Shorn Poet."
We congratulate la belle France on
her relief from the horrible incubus
that has so long rested upon her. AVe
congratulate all who have stood by her,
with faith in her purity and integrity
unshaken. AA"e congratulate the coun
try that many of its proudest names
have emerged from a cloud of slander
that can never hide it again. AVe con
gratulate the atmosphere that is pure
again. AVe congratulate the wind that
its nasty burden of the past few months
are dropped in the cess-pool from which
they sprang. A\ T e congratulate all news
papers, news-dealers, news-boys, the
French mail, post-masters and post
mistresses, that their work is to be
clearer in the future.
Do we seek the prevention of crime?
Would we extend due protection and
encouragement to discharged prisoners!
If so, we have a two-fold duty: First,
to protect the weak from unnecessary
temptation by a wise policy of legisla
tion; and, second, to employ the minis
trations of genuine, practical religion.
If the State arrests and restrains the
criminal, it may interpose its benefi
cent authority to remove palpably de
moralizing agencies; it may close the
wide-open doors of temptation. If it
may blow up and destroy blocks of
magnificent buildings to save a city
from conflagration, it may not only or
ganize and sustain a vigorous fire-de
partment, but also prohibit altogether
a particularly dangerous fire-inviting
architecture. That is a poor type of
statesmanship, scarcely deserving the
name, which deals only with results,
and does not at th& same time look at
and give due consideration to their pro
ducing causes. Xone should be per
mitted to prosecute a traffic for the
sake of gain by pandering to the vices
and inflaming the passions of those who
are weak or criminally inclined. As
infected ships are quarantined in the
interest of the public health, so must
be the grog-shops and drinking-places
for the protection of the weak against
undue temptation, as well as society
against the depredations they may be
expected otherwise to commit.
CRUSH ROUTINE
Were we to say that God had so con
structed the human mind that routine
will tire and disgust it. we should say
in effect that he never intended our life
to be one of routine. While the earth
swings round its orbit once a year, and
turns on its axis once in twenty-four
hours—while the tide ebbs and flows
twice daily, and the seasons come and go
in rotation, every atom changes its re
lations to every other atom every mo
ment. Influences are tossed into these
skeleton cycles of motion and event
which start a myriad of diverse cur
rents. and break up the whole surface
of life and being into a healthful con
fusion. There are never two days alike.
The motherly sky never gives birth to
twin clouds. The weather shakes its
bundle of mysteries in our faces, and
banters us with,“Don’t you wish you
knew." AVe prophesy rain on the mor
row and wake with a bar of golden sun
light on the coverlet. AVe forteell a hard
winter, and, before it is half gone, be
come nervous lest we should miss our
supply of ice. The fly, the murrain,
the potato-rot, and the grasshoppers, all
have a divine office in tipping over our
calculations. The “phantom host of
the great Xorth ’’ come out for parade
without announcement, and shoot their
arrows toward the zenith, and flout the
stars with their rosy Hags, and retire,
leaving us looking into heaven and
wondering. Long weeks of drought
parch the earth, and then comes the
sweet rain, and sets the flowers and fo
liage dancing. All the seasons are
either very late or very early, or, for
some reason, “the most remarkable
within the memory of man."
This is Nature's management for de
stroying routine within the law r of stat
ed revolution, and for bringing the
mind constantly into contact with fresh
influences. The prisoner’s soul, encased
by a wall of adamantine circumstances,
and driven around a track of unvary
ing duties, shrivels, or gets diseased.
But these circumstances need not im
prison the convict, nor these duties be
come solely the polished pavement of
his cell. Let us study our daily labor,
as the moment that any field of la
bor becomes intelligently experimental,
that moment routine ceases, and the
field becomes attractive. The most re
pulsive things under heaven become
attractive, on being investigated with
interest. All, therefore, that the prisoner
has to do, to break up the tradition
al routine of his method and labor, is
to become a student of his daily occu
pation. He will then have an interest
in his labor, and its results above their
bare utilities. Labor that does not en
gage the mind has no dignity; else the
ox and the ass are kings in the world,
and we are but younger brothers in the
royal family. So we say to every in
mate. —If you would make your position
attract ire to yourself seek that which
will break up routine, and make your
life, while here, an intelligent pursuit.
“Time and Tide Wait for No Man.”
AA T hen a man arrives at the age of for
ty, how different life appears to him.
The rosy hues, the honest laugh, and
careless jest of twenty, as he looks back
at it, seem far-fetched and tiresome, and
he wonders how he could possibly have
been so callow a clown as to enjoy such
frivolities. And yet he never considers
that he is just at the threshold of the
“sere and yellow leaf."
An eminent physicist has written,
and the scientific world has endorsed
his words, that “after forty, the human
frame is positively on the retrograde "
all signs pointing to this: failure of the
eyesight, stiffening of the muscles, ri
gidity of bone, etc.
And yet how short the time since
each one of us longed and yearned for
the age to arrive when we could honestly
vote, and be called Man; and then, after
that, until now, how fast the years have
sped away! This is a truism"that must
appeal to everyone, and especially to us
who are cooped up here. The golden
hours of youth are all but gone;
the gray hairs are coming thickly
around the temples, and those of us who
are not yet forty, are terribly conscious
of the railroad speed at which the days
are (lying past.
Can a man need a better lesson, or
take to himself a sounder thought than
this? As for me, it positively seems
horrible to have to pass so many good
days of earnest life in prison wails; and
as for good resolutions well. I can
safely assert that this lesson has been
salutatory and permanent. Not all the
gold in Colorado could tempt me to
jeopardize my liberty again, if I ever
succeed in being liberated. AVayxe.
.Judge Kelly of Saint Paul, in drawing
a distinction between the application of
the extradition laws between the Unit
ed Sates and foreign countries, and
those of our states, says: “The several
states of the Union, composing the one
sovereign state known as the United
States of America, are not in their sep
erate capacity sovereign states within
this meaning. They have many of the
attributes of sovereignty, but not all of
them for, by the constitution, they
yielded to the" United States the great
distinguishing powers of real sovereign
ty. Some politicians questioned this
up to 1861, but in April, 1865, at Appo
matox court house the dispute was set
at rest forever. I refer to this in pass
ing merely to illustrate the danger of
loose and illogical statements. They
are ‘so far as concerns their internal
government seperate sovereignties, in
dependent of each other, but no
farther.’" Pioneer Press.
Mr. Cleveland Will Not Live in the White
House.
Mr. Cleveland, after giving bis party several
startling political surprises in the selection of
the next Cabinet, is, it appears to signalize his
return to Washington as President by an equally
striking social innovation. For the first time
since it was built the White House will cease to
be the actual residence of the President and his
family, and Mr. Cleveland will give society here
the sensation of seeing him occupy and maintain
a private house like any other public official at
the Capital. The President-elect to-day for
warded an order to a real estate agent here to
lease for him the house in H st., between Seven
teenth and Eighteenth sts, owned and occupied
for many years by Admiral Porter; and here Mr.
Cleveland and his family expect to live for at
least several months after his inauguration. It
is said that the Clevelands are fearful lest the
White House was not completely fumigated after
little Marthena Harrison’s recovery from her at
tack of scarlatina, and they do not care to take
any risk of contagion with their own daughter.
It is understood that Mr. Cleveland will use the
White House for official purposes only and will
establish another real White House in the II st.
home, a few doors west of the Metropolitan Club.
—Neu % York Tribune.
If motives were always visible, men
would often blush for their most brill
iant actions.
NEWS OF A WEEK.
March l
Brig. Gen. T. K. Freeman dies at Neosho, Mo.
The Washburn anti-option bill is killed in the.
house.
Gordon McKay leaves $2,000,000 in trust for
Harvard college.
Madame Grevy. widow of Jules Grevy, form
erly presicent of France, dies in Paris.
The citizens of New Jersey hold a monster
meeting at Trenton to protest against the racing
bills.
The Vice President and Mrs. Morton tender a
reception to the Vice President elect and Mrs,
Stevenson.
Princess Kaiulaui loses no time in making an
appeal to the American people to aid her in
securing her ground.
March 2,
The Orangemen in Belfast burn Gladstone and
Morley in effigy.
The estate of the late Gen. Beauregard is said
to be worth $2,000,000.
Dr. Talmage denies emphatically that he is to
retire from the Brooklyn tabernacle.
Spectators of a launching at Bay City, Mich.,
are thrown into the water and some are drowned,
John L. Sullivan and Charlie Mitchell meet at
a theatre in St. Louis and become fast friends.
The house committee investigates Panama
canal matters, and no evidence of the corrupt
use of money is found.
President Harrison decides to accept a profes
sorship in the Leland Stanford university where
he will lecture on constitutional law.
March 3,
Five children are suffocated in a rear room of
a tenement house in New York.
Gov. McKinley, it is said, is the fourth execu
tive of Ohio who lias come to grief while in office,
The parish of Avoyelles. La., is visited by a
terrible cyclone leaving death and destruction
in its wake,
Ed. Smith, the Denver pugilist, defeats Joe
Goddard at the Olympic club, New Orleans,
Purse, SIO,OOO.
Senator Blackburn has made a suit of Con
federate jeans which he is to wear at the in
auguration.
Melville E. Stone is elected general manager
of the Associated Press, the organization being
completed in Chicago after a two days’ session,
March 4
A Wall street firm makes the statement that
bonds will be issued by Mr. Cleveland.
' Lee Mantle. Bepubliean, is appointed by Gov,
Rickards of Montana. United States senator.
George Hazelett makes preparations for going
over Niagara Falls in an egg-shaped barrel.
P. F. Egan, a jeweler at St. Paul, makes an
assignment. Assets, $7,t00; liabilities, $15,000.
Donaghue’s twenty-five mile record is lowered
nearly two minutes by A. 1). Smith of St. Paul.
Grover Cleveland is inducted for the second
time into the high ollice of chief executive of the
nation.
The continued absence of the White Star
freight steamship Naronic is causing a great
deal of anxiety in New York.
March 5.
Hyppolite Taine. the author of “History of
English Literature,” dies in Paris.
Admiring friends of Gov. Neison present him
with a fine gold hunting time-piece.
It is expected that the switchmen and switch
tenders of the Michigan Central road will go on
a strike.
Col. Hans Mattson, who was three times secre
tary of state of Minnesota, dies at his home at
Minneapolis.
Cord Burfeind. a pioneer settler of Lake City.
Minn , dies of cancer of the stomach at his home
in that city.
Ballington Booth, the commander of the Sal
vation Army in this country, decides to adopt
his father’s " Darkest England ” in this country.
March li,
An American female base hall club is mobbed
in Havana. Cuba.
Mrs. Rebecca Clark, the oldest woman in Rice
county, dies at Nortlifield, Minn.
The latest advice from Honolulu shows that an
nexation is desired by the Hawaiians.
Secretary Gresham’s successor on the circuit
bench will he Judge James G. Jenkins.
Mrs.. Christina Jensen of North Mankato.
Minn., shoots Endel Peterson by mistake.
Gov. Nelson thinks that the state of the public
business will not admit of a journey to the
World’s Fair.
A new revolution has broken out in Southern
Honduras which will probably involve all the
Central American republics.
March 7
Evangelist Mills begins work in Minneapolis.
Brokers on the New York stock exchange have
to pay 52 per cent, per annum for funds.
The sailors of the American war-ships station
ed at Honolulu nearly have a fight.
The Minnesota Iron company declares a div
idend of lVa per cent, on the capital stock.
John W. Meagher of Mankato, Minn., son of
Hon J. F. Meagher, dies of consumption.
President Cleveland intimates that lie will take
his own time in making room for office seekers,
It is said, that President Cleveland may ap
point a commissioner to visit Hawaii before act
ing on the annexation question.
A consolidation of the leading cash register
companies is consummated in Boston. The com
petition which has heretofore existed is brought
to end.