The prison mirror. [volume], January 25, 1894, Image 2

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

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

                
gtte prison
Bdlted and Pnbllslied by the Inmates.
"Stored at' the" Post Office at StfUwater, Minn.,
as Second Class Mail Matter.
The Prison Mirror is issued every Thurs
day at the following rates:
One Year
Six Months
Three Months
Address all communications.
Editor Prison Mirror,
Stillwater, Minn.
THE PRISON MIRROR is a weekly pa
per published in the Minnesota State rrison. 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 tlie prisoners; to
acquaint the public with the true status of the
prisoner; to disseminate penological informa
tion and to aid in dispelling that prejudice
which lias ever been the bar sinister to a fallen
man's self-redemption. The paper is entirely
dependent on the public for its financial sui>-
port. If at any time there should accrue a sur
plus of funds the money would he expended m
the interests of the prison library.
Nevada has 104 convicts employed in
making boots and shoes.
Virginia convicts are hired out to
shoe contractors and railroads.
Salt Lake City, heretofore democratic,
vreut republican by 973 majority.
Texas has ten state farms on which
the convicts are worked under contract.
Florida has no state prison. The
convicts are leased and sub-leased to
individuals in various parts of the
state.
Horace (freely Porter says that a New
Englander crosses his bees with light
ning bugs so they can see to work
nights. —Logan Nation.
The inmates of English prisons are
employed in picking oakum, making
coal bags for the navy and mail bags
for the general postoffice.
The Duval Athletic Club of Jackson
ville, Fla., has made a proposition to
Corbett and Mitchell to tight on Satur
day instead of to-day. Corbett has ac
cepted. and it is thought that Mitchell
will.
Town Topics and The Saturday Morn
ing Courier of Lincoln, Neb., have been
consolidated with W. Morton Smith at
the editorial helm. The Courier is a
dandy and ever finds a weekly welcome
at our editorial table.
The Salem, Oregon State Prison con
tains four hundred inhabitants, only a
part of which number is now employed.
A jute manufactory will soon be estab
lished which will furnish employment
for the entire population.
Warden French, of the Indiana State
Prison, North, is about to hold a big
celebration at that institution in dedica
tion of the new prison chapel. The
governor and other state officials will
be present and take part in the cere
monies.
The state editorial association meets
in Minneapolis, February 15 and I<>.
The “Flour City” never does anything
by halves, and the boys will be royally
entertained. We will all be there with
our wives, daughters and best girls.
—Washington Co.. Journal.
No. WE won’t!
The late Chief .Justice Chase once
startled his hearers by saying: “The
wicked men are not in the penitentiary,
they are in the churches. The criminals
we convict are not wicked, they are
simply weak weak in character and
weak in intellect. The men from whom
society suffers, are the cold, selfish, cal
culating creatures who not only keep
clear of the courts, but seek the church
es, and deceive others as they deceive
themselves, and hope to deceive the Al
mighty.”
Now that congress has taken the Ha
waiian matter in hand, Queen Lil has
entirely abandoned all hope of ever re
gaining the throne of Hawaii, also
her previous arrangements for bring
ing suit against the United States for
an immense amount of damage money.
We hear much about railroads hav
ing been looted, but very little about
the looters being punished. There is
never any trouble about finding a law
to punish small thieving, but it seems
to he difficult, one might say almost im
possible, to bring any law to bear on
the big thieving. —St. Cloud Times.
L. F. Freeland, a prisoner in the
Montana State Prison, has recently
forwarded to the Columbian Athletic
Club, of Chicago, a novel and valuable
cane, skillfully carved with portraits of
the officers of the club. The cane will
be raffled by the club and the proceeds
forwarded to the ingenious prisoner.
The county judge of Phillips county
Arkansas, having been unable to dis
pose of the convicts of that county col
lectively, violators of the law who are
unable to pay their fines are put up and
sold for costs. In this way men who
would otherwise have to pay heavy fines,
get their friends to bid them in for small
amounts and thus get off lightly.
Among the notable features of the
San Francisco Argonaut for January
22d are: “The Child of Sin; A Salva
tion Army Episode,” by Harrie K.
Chambers; “The Venus of Paris,” by
Richard Pryce; and letters from Paris
on the illegitimate son ©f the late
Prince Imperial, from London on the
Ardlamont murder mystery, and from
New York on social recognition of
people of the stage.
We have just received a copy of
Laird & Lee’s Vest-Pocket Dictionary.
It is the most unique and handy little
book ever published. It is fully in
dexed and contains 27,500 words, and
is right up to date. No other Diction
ary that has ever been published in the
world contains more than one half the
amount of information that will be
found in it. Price, Russian leather,
full gilt, 50c. Silk cloth, red edges, 25c,
Address, Laird & Lee,Publishers, 263
and 265 Wabash Ave. Chicago, Illinois.
A Nebraska man has just been sen
tenced to imprisonment for life, for
robbing the United States mail, and real
izing the munificent fortune of one
cent. And it was in that very same
state, not long ago. that a bloated,
aristocratic thief, who got away with
$500,000, was given five years in the
penitentiary, where he was probably
surrounded with luxury, and invested
with the privileges of the good conduct
rule. There is a great difference be
tween stealing a cent and half a million
dollars. —The Raw’s Mouth.
An Associated Press dispatch is go
ing the rounds of the press to the effect
that on January 2nd, forty Indians,
nearly all full-blooded, became residents
of the Kings county, New York, peni
tentiary, to remain for periods of from
five to twenty years. Their home is in
the Indian Territory. They belong to
many tribes, but the most dangerous
among them are members of the Nava
jo and Blackfoot tribes. They were
i convicted at Paris, Texas, of various
crimes, principally horse stealing. 1 his
report, however, will bear investigation.
The idea of a horse thief ever getting
out of Texas unhung, is contrary to
precedent and entirely beyond all hu
man comprehension.
There is no reason why the court of
primary jurisdiction should not perform
all that is required in the matter of de
termining the guilt of a person. Be
sides it is infinitely more compatible
with the spirit of American jurispru
dence before depriving the accused of
his liberty to weigh such evidence in
his behalf as he shall be able to offer.
The grand jury hears but one side and
upon that renders its verdict. Thou
sands ©f dollars are paid out annually
upon this useless court of inquiry. It
can be abolished and this money not
only saved to the people but the aims
of justice will be best promoted by it.—
lowa Plaindealer.
There has just been published in Chi
cago, a most valuable book entitled,
Blaine's Handy Manual and Atlas of
the World, compiled by Prof. Wm. H.
Blaine, of Lancaster University. Its
500 pages are full of just what its name
implies—useful information--and we
fully advise all our readers to send for
a copy of it. It is a compendium of
things worth knowing, things difficult
to remember, and tables of reference of
great value to everybody, that it has
never before been our good fortune to
! possess in such complete shape. Our
wonder is how it can be published at so
low a price as is asked for it. It is
handsomely bound in fiexible cloth cov
ers, and will be sent to any address,
postpaid, on receipt of 25 cents in post
age stamps, by the publishers, G. W.
Ogiivie & Co., 276 and 27S Franklin St„
Chicago, 111.
The San Francisco Argonaut very
truly says: “The Salvation Army is
gradually winning the respect of the
community. Its methods are certainly
peculiar. It is not admirable, in our
opinion, that religious worship should
he accompanied by discordant singing,
cracked tambourines and dropsical
bass-drums. But, while we do not ad
mire some of the methods of the Salva
tion Army, we cannot help but admire
the results. This body of women and
men seems to be earnest and honest,
and unselfishly engaged in the doing of
good. One whom all revere, whether
Christian or Gentile, Buddhist or Mo
hammedan, said: 'By their fruits ye
shall know them; and the work accom
plished by the Salvation Army in tlie
large cities of the world is, we think,
far more fruitful than that which is
done hv all the churches.”
Application was recently made to
Controller Eckles, asking for the re
moval of Linanel Stagge, of Oregon,
from the position of U. S. bank examin
er, upon.the charge that Mr. Stagge had,
some years ago, served a term in the
Oregon State Prison. Controller Eckles
refused to remove Mr. Stagge, saying:
“It is not my inclination to push the
man to the wall; should I discharge him
he might go the bad. Mr. Stagge has
atoned for his past sins; he came back
to the very town where his offense had
been committed and so conducted him
self as to be again received into good
fellowship among the mercantile com
munity, and unless some more reason
able charge or offense is fastened upon
him, I will retain him in his present
position.” Controller Eckles evidently
does not believe in the universal prac
tice of crushing a man down and brand-
ing him with eternal condemnation be
cause he, in a moment of (Cod only
knows how great) a temptation, strayed
from “the straight and narrow wav.”
Would to God there were more such
fair and noble-minded men in this
world, as Controller Eckles, our jails
and prisons would then be less crowfied.
“Man's inhumanity toman make count
less thousands mourn.”
“The most critical period for the
prison convict”, says Prof. C. A. Collin
of Cornell University, “is the few
months immediately following his dis
charge. Upon these few months all
theories of prison reform, all methods
of prison treatment, must be focussed.
The key-note of prison reform is prep
aration of the prisoner for this period.
“At this critical juncture the definite
sentence, for a fixed term, suddenly
drops him on the world with a new
suit of clothes and a few dollars in his
pocket. How many graduates of Har
vard University sent out in such
fashion, with all the advantages of
reputation, ability and character which
Harvard can give, if compelled at once
to maintain themselves, without friends
of whom they could borrow—how many
Harvard graduates could get through
the next two years after graduation,
without being compelled to beg or steal ?
What, then, can you expect, of the sud
denly discharged prison convict, with
the firmest of good resolutions, as many
at that moment have, but intoxicated
with the sense of freedom, with friends
indeed, but only such as beckon him to
haunts of vice and criminal ways of
earning a living, with none others of
whom he can borrow, and with no sat
isfactory references to previous em
ployers? Is it exaggeration to say that
the definite sentence, in most cases, com
pells the discharged convict to commit
new crimes before he can earn an hon
est living? Borrow he cannot. If he
begs, he is a criminal vagrant. If he
steals he must be very careful; for he
will be the first suspected.
“With such manner of discharging
the convict, the wisest prison treatment
is liable to be largely thrown away. It
is good while the prisoner is in prison,
but must inevitably fail in the large
majority of cases to carry him over that
critical period during which he is to re
establish, or for the first time establish,
habits of honest living and a new record
for future reference.”
18ig§gfSg::
Thk Prison Mirror, published in
the Stillwater penitentiary, has been
added to our exchange list and a neater
or brighter little newspaper will be
hard to find anywhere. The paper is
edited and published by the convicts.
—The Mancelona (Mich.) Ileraid.
“xYuxious Inquirer” is hereby in
formed that “Doc” Fish is not the editor
of The Prison Mirror, nor Ignatius
Donnelly editor of the new paper just
started at the Rochester insane asylum.
Some evilly disposed person started
that report to hurt the standing of these
deserving publications.” Blue Earth
City Post.
The Prison Mirror published by
the inmates of the prison at Stillwater,
Minn., is one ol' the brightest exchanges
we have on our list. According to the
figures in its last issue, there are 483
inmates. Quite a number of these con
tribute regularly to the columns of The
Mirror and many of their articles
show refinement, education and very
deep thought.—The Reedsburg, (Wis.)
Times.
The Prison Trusty, of Lansing, Kan.,
has a rival in The Prison Mirror,
published and edited by the inmates of
the state prison in Stillwater, Minn.
The editor is L. P. Sehoonmaker, who
would be pleased to receive exchanges
from brethern on the outside for the
edification and instruction of the boys
who are unavoidably in. Editors, help
swell Mr. Schoonmaker’s exchange list,
remembering that you may some day
be in the pen yourselves.—Sunday
(Kan.) Sun.
The Prison Mirror came to the
News-Messenger exchange table this
week for the first time in many years.
The Mirror is a decided novelty in
journalism. It is printed behind the
walls of the state prison at Stillwater
and its editorial staff and contributors
are all inmates of the prison. It is a
four column folio and despite its sur
roundings is particularly bright in both
text and typographical appearances,
while its general tone is highly intel
lectual—Marshall News-Messenger.