LITERARY PRIVILEGES.
The literary privileges are so widely different in the various prisons throughout the land that it would be very difficult to render the proper information. There are some penitentiaries, and especially the stockades of the South, without libraries, and many prisoners even serve a term without being granted any educational privileges whatever, either by way of literary work or reading of good books. It is more difficult in the stockades to give the literary privileges than in other established prisons. However, there are states with established penitentiaries that have not provided the same with libraries and proper literary accommodations.On the other hand, many of the penitentiaries have established schools wherein prisoners can obtain a fair education. For instance, the Michigan state prison more than twenty-five years ago established graded schools, and all prisoners who have not a fair education are required four evenings of the week to attend these schools for an hour and a half. In this way the prisoner is not only benefited, but it brings him under a new line of discipline that enables the officer in charge to become familiar with his mental condition and capabilities and more fully understand the dispositions of those under his charge. Men who are thus drilled and properly cared for, after going through this discipline day after day, cause less trouble to those in charge. In the prisons where the most humane reformative system of management is used there can be many things brought to bear upon the minds of the prisoners that will tend to elevate them and fit them for the higher circles of society. By the proper treatment and privileges they will soon learn to have a taste for literary work. A few prisons give the prisoners the privileges of general literary work, such as delivering orations, recitations, essays, debates, etc. These things, while they educate and develop the mind, have a tendency to divert the mind of the prisoner from the feelings of disgrace and the deplorable situation; and instead of spending hours brooding in despondency it awakens an activity of the mind and new thoughts for consideration during the solitary hours.
Every prison should supply each cell with a Bible. Many do this while others do not. The prisoners should also have access to the library and permission to call for any book in the library. Where they are thus looked after it is the duty of certain prisoners to go to each cell and learn what book is desired for the coming week and to take up the one which was in their possession during the past week. These requests are taken to the librarian and the books selected and distributed according to number. Prisoners who mutilate or destroy the books in any way are denied the privilege of having a book to read for a few weeks. If the offence is repeated the punishment on this line is more severe and they are then neither allowed to receive a book or paper or are refused all privileges of the library and not even allowed to have paper or writing material to communicate with their friends. With most prisoners this is a severe punishment. One who has not been thus incarcerated or had to spend weeks and months in solitude can scarcely realize the value of good books to read under such circumstances. But he who has had the actual experience knows just how to appreciate such a privilege.
During the civil war a number of Union men made a daring raid through the Confederate line and were afterward captured and cast into dungeons where they spent weeks of suffering, amid heart-rending scenes, and notwithstanding their extreme hunger, thirst, and the stifling odor of their dark underground prison andsuffering much from their shackles and clanking chains, they were taken from place to place and then brought to trial. Seven of their number were hanged, leaving about a dozen remaining who were expecting to be called out to follow in their footsteps at any time. Through some sudden change or maneuver of war the remainder of these men were left in prison with guards over them and only a meager supply of food. As the seven of their comrades were taken from their midst to the place of execution those who remained were in much distress of mind. During the morning hours before this they had spent the time in playing cards, now and then an oath escaping their lips, but now the scene changed. Some one suggested that they should pray. There was but little hope of them escaping the fate of their comrades and thus soon be hurled into eternity, and what added more to the darkness of the hour was the fact that they had not made their peace with God. One of the surviving party describes the occurrence as follows:
“From this time forward we had religious exercises morning and evening and found them a great consolation and support. We began and closed the day right and thus added sweetness to all its hours, supplying a subject of thought not bearing directly upon our future gloomy prospects and thus enabling us to maintain better mental health. We always sang a hymn or two on these occasions. We sang ‘Rock of Ages,’ ‘Jesus, Lover of my Soul,’ and others of a pronounced spiritualcast. This greatly astonished the guards. They were given strict charge to watch us closely with the statement that we were the most desperate characters in the whole United States. Then to hear us singing ‘hymns’ and know that we had prayer morning and evening was a contradiction they found hard to reconcile.... What would we not now have given for the counsels and assistance of a minister whom we could fully trust! Just how to be religious was the puzzle. I know if I had a command to execute from an army officer I would do it, if in my power, no matter how difficult or dangerous, and I wished intensely that it was just as easy to be religious as to be a soldier; but there was the question of right feelings and right motives that did not seem to come into play very much in the army. For if a soldier did his duty he was not apt to be asked how he felt about it. I had the belief that I must have joy and rapture in thinking of death and readiness to shout God’s praises, which I did not feel; and for a time it seemed as if I could not reach a genuine conversion. I diligently read the Bible which we had borrowed, and while I enjoyed many things in it, little direct guidance for me was found. I asked counsel of our captain for whom I had the greatest esteem and respect, but it was so easy for him to believe that I thought his case must be very unlike my own, so I spoke to another one of our company, the only one of our number who had a clear religious faith, and seemed to be happy in it. His first answerwas very striking. I asked how he felt about death. He thought I referred to our worldly prospect, and answered that probably we would soon all be put to death. ‘But what is your feeling about death itself?’ I continued. He said, ‘I am not afraid to die if it is God’s will. I trust him now and I expect to trust him to the last.’
He took my hand and there was a steady light in his eye that made me believe every word he said. But when I asked him how he got such a faith, he could only tell me that he went to a ‘mourners bench’ two years before and sought till he found it. This did me no good, for there was no place accessible here. In sore perplexity I read the Bible from day to day and prayed, taking my turn in praying aloud and reading with the others. At length I thought I began to see that trusting Christ must be something like taking his words and teachings for my guide, trying to do all that he commanded, and leaving the result while I did this with him. This was not that sudden transformation that I had hoped, but I soon found that it opened up a good many things that I had never dreamed of. One of these seemed especially strange under the circumstances. I had yet but a slender hope of ever escaping from the prison except by the way of the scaffold. But in spite of that dark prospect as an absolute test of my obedience—‘Will you, if satisfied that it is God’s will, be ready to give up the profession of law if you ever get home and go into the ministry?’The first and spontaneous reply was, No! I had studied law and meant to practice it if I ever got where law reigned. But at once the self response was clear, ‘What kind of obedience was this?’ I saw that I was not sincere in professing to enlist under Christ as my captain unless I would really obey him. It would be a poor allegiance that stopped short with the things I wanted to do. For a long time I could not pass this point. The difficulty when communicated to my prison companions seemed utterly absurd. ‘Try to serve God in the prison where you are,’ they said with a cheer plausibility, ‘and do not bother about preaching, being a lawyer or anything else, when you get out, for you never will get out.’ This seemed good advice but it would not give a serene mind or the victory over the fear of death, which I so much desired.
“One after another of those in the prison found the comfort I lacked. And it was not until wearied and worn-out that I vowed that if God would only give me peace I would serve him as sincerely in prison or out of it as I had tried to serve my country, and in any way he might direct. From this time I did have a steady conviction that I was on the Lord’s side and that I had a right to commit myself and my life to his keeping. Though all newspapers were strictly forbidden, yet through the kindness of negro waiters we were supplied and thus kept posted regarding war news.... We all remember with deepest gratitude the visit ofa minister. When he left he promised to send us some books and did not forget to promptly forward them. These we took good care of, read thoroughly to all in the room, and then returned, asking for more. These he generously gave and we thus continued until we had read nearly his whole library. Those only who know what a dreadful weariness it is to pass days without any definite employment can realize the great boon these good books bestowed on us. It made the prison room a veritable school, and in view of our religious efforts the character of the books was just what we would most have desired, as they were of a religious cast, which only made them the more welcome. But there is no employment upon which I look back with more pleasure than that for which the minister’s books furnished us the material. With fifteen persons in a room not more than eighteen feet square it was needful to preserve quiet if any reading must be done. We therefore appointed regular reading hours, two in the forenoon and the same in the afternoon. During this time no one was permitted to speak above a low whisper and all noise and running about was forbidden. Those who did not wish to read might sleep. Sometimes the books were read silently, but for a part of the time in nearly every period a volume of general interest would be selected and read aloud. These books would often furnish subjects and arguments for discussion in the debating periods that followed. We gained a great deal of knowledge in our novel school,which has been of lifelong value. Books of travel, adventure, history, biography, and theology—no fiction—were freely read and brought the freshness of the outside world into our dreary captivity.”
The foregoing gives us a vague idea of what can be done for the welfare of the prisoners in the jails, work-houses, and penal institutions of our land, towards making the prisoners happy by supplying them with good books, tracts, papers, and such like. Oh, the neglect on this line! Were prisoners thus supplied, their minds would not be occupied during the solitary hours in scheming and planning the best modes of perpetrating crime. Get a man interested in a good book and you thus place him in good company. He may never see you, but with deep feelings of gratitude will ever have the kindest feelings toward those who thus bestowed the kind favor of placing him in possession of such a companion.
For the entertainment of the prisoner and to develop an interest in literary work they have been allowed to publish prison papers. Some of these are very small while others are large and well edited. About three years ago at Sing Sing Prison, in the state of New York, it was decided to issue a bi-weekly twenty-six-page paper to be edited and printed entirely by convicts. No article is allowed in the paper except those composed and furnished by the inmates of the prison. When papers are thus printed and distributed among the prisoners it has a great controlling influence and creates a general interest in literary work.