d the letter, begging
her not to write again, or to expect me to write. It seemed a refinement
of humiliation to have the home letters come addressed to me in a prison;
and besides, I was like the sick man who turns his face to the wall,
wishing neither to see nor to hear until the paroxysm has passed. I may
say here that both of these good women respected my wishes and my foolish
scruples. They wrote no more; and, what was still harder for my mother,
I think, they made no journeys half across the State on the prison
visiting days.

It will be seen that I have cut the time down from the five-year limit
imposed by my sentence; and so it was cut down in reality. After I had
been promoted to the work in the prison offices my life settled into a
monotonous routine, with nothing eventful or disturbing to mark the
passing weeks and months; and by living strictly within the prison
requirements, working faithfully, and never once earning even a reprimand
from the kindly warden or his deputy, I was given the full benefit of my
"good time," and at the end of the third year, with a prison-provided
suit on my back and five dollars of the State's money in my pocket, I was
paroled.

Though I have been its beneficiary and victim, and have been made to
suffer cruelly under its restrictions, I make here no arraignment of the
law which provides in some States--my own among the number--for the
indeterminate prison sentence. The reform was doubtless conceived in
mercy and a true spirit of sociological lenity toward the offender. But
in practice it may be so surrounded with safeguards and limitations, so
wrapped up in provisos and conditions, as to completely defeat its own
end and reverse its intent.

Under the law as it stood--and still stands, I believe--in my own
commonwealth, I was required to remain in the State; to report, at least
once a month, by letter to the prison authorities, and in person to the
chief of police in any city in which I might be living; to retain my own
name; and to bind myself to tell a straightforward story of my conviction
and imprisonment at any time and to any one who should require it. The
omission to comply with any of these restrictions and requirements would
automatically cancel my parole and subject me to arrest and
re-imprisonment for the unexpired period of the original sentence.

Again I ask you to put yourself in the place of a man paroled under such
conditions. With such handicaps, what