CHAPTER XVI.

A pilgrimage through hell!—Seven ycars’ experience in the
Seatco contract bastile; the kind of a hell and swindle this was;
how I was taken there; a three or four days journey by wagon,
boat and rail—How I was judged by people on the road—Sym-
pathy.—“ Either innocent of crime or a very bad man.”—The set
questions asked by those who had suffered likewise.—Description
of the bastile—How I was impressed.—The kind of people I found
the prisoners to be, and t \e officials.—How they were employed.—
What they had done and what they had not done; their com-
plaints, ete—Jumping away.—The crooked and rocky road to
liberty —Who got there and how.—The inquisition of the mind.—
How prisoners are driven to the frenzy of despair and death.—
What they earned and were worth to the gang —What it cost the
people-—What they got to eat and wear.—How they were treated
when well and when sick.—The punishments.—How I was engag-
ed while in the midst of flaming desolation—Crazy prisoners.—
The good and bad qualities and conduct of the officials—The re-
deeming feature of the institution—The different nationalities
and occupations represented and their experiences.—One of the
Polaris’ crew; six months on an ice floe—The good, bad and
mixed; the innocent, guilty and the victims of circumstances,
vhiskey and accidents—Inequality of sentences and treatment.
—Robbing the cradle and the grave for seventy cents a day.—
How they lived and died.—The censorship on correspondence and
the real object of the same.—A secret prison.—Shanghaied
prisoners try to make their cases known to the public.—How the
Governor stood in with the gang.—Letters smuggled by ministers,
members of the Legislature, hnmane guards, ete.—Squelching
letters of vital importance —“ Damn you, you can’t prove it.”—
Like abuses in the insane asylum.—The remedy.—A plea that any
prone? shall at least be accorded a public hearing, and let the PEOPLE
judge—The worst criminals not in prison, but in office; their
victims erushed.—A_ pet prisoner turned in with a bottle of whis-
key and a pistol in his pockets.—The visiting preachers; what
they thought of the prisoners and of the officials—One that was
a thorough-bred; would fight the devil in any guise; what he done
for reform and how he was bounced.—Can write to hin yourself.
—Cruel deception.—False and cheating hopes.—‘“ There is France,
if he had not been so anxious about getting home, he would have
been out long ago.”—“ Must keep still and not bore anybody.”—
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18 CoNn1 ENTS.

How the still and meek languished and did '—How other prisoners
were shanghaied.—* Bad conduet.”—My conduct; strikes, ete.—
How officials are interested against a prisoner’s justice—How
“heaven is sometimes just and pays us back in measures that we
mete.”—How prisoners are robbed.—Women prisoners and how
they were treated.—Visits of the legislature, ete.—A prisoner
makes a great speech and his teeth are pulled out for the trouble
it makes the officials—What the legislature said and what they
did.—The pardoning power and how it was exercised.—The lie.—
That “to hear prisoners talk they are all innocent.”— Reading
matter, ete.—How to control prisoners.—How they get revenge.—
Tow prisoners should be treated—Where they should be kept.—
How a prison should*be conducted to be self-supporting and to
reform those who need reforming.—How to enforce the sacred
right of petition and the sober second thought of the people.