f what I shall have to tell in those that are to come.

Since the above was written I have run across a passage in a book on
English prisons which confirms so strikingly one of the statements just
expressed that room must be made for it. "The real atmosphere of
Dartmoor," says the author, Mr. Albert Paterson, writing of Dartmoor
Prison, "so far as the men responsible for its well-being and discipline
are concerned, is that of a handful of whites on the American frontier
among ten times their number of Apache Indians. 'We stand on a volcano,'
an officer said to the writer in a matter-of-fact tone. 'If our convicts
here had opportunity to combine and could trust one another, the place
would be wrecked in an hour.'"

Aside from the author's ridiculously belated simile of the American
frontier, we have here an accurate and forcible statement of the prison
keeper's constant nervous apprehension of danger and the necessity of
being prepared at any moment to sell his life as dearly as possible. And,
of course, this feeling of the keeper increases his severity and the
severity increases the danger, and so we have the vicious circle complete.

I am not now in any way disputing the necessity of a keeper being
constantly on his guard, I am not saying whether this view of things is
right or wrong, and when I use the word fear I do not mean cowardice--a
very different thing, for a brave man can feel fear. I am simply trying to
point out that in prison, as elsewhere, when men are dominated by fear,
brutality is the inevitable result.

CHAPTER X

THURSDAY

In my cell, Thursday evening, October 2.

This morning is cloudy and dark; it has been raining heavily during the
night, and the atmosphere is damp and oppressive. Oppressive too is the
feeling left by the unexplained occurrences of last evening.

My first visitor is Officer X, the man who wouldn't answer my question
last evening when he was standing back of the Warden and I asked him what
that noise was. This morning he is exceedingly bland and also, like the
weather, oppressive. He is so very anxious to know how I passed the night;
and I tell him. He then says that a thousand people have inquired of him
about me; and I remark that I'm glad my experiment is arousing so much
interest. He then says that several men have said to him that I must have
something special in mind, that I must be here for some ulterior purpose,
and they believe the result will be some dismis