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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1901)
VOL. XVI., NO. X 5STABMSHED IN 1SHJ PRICK F1VB CBNTS THE COURIER, mmni thb rosTonrcB at liscolh ab SBCOHD CLASS MATTER. PDBLI8HED EVEBY SATOBDAY Bt tie eOiRIER raimiG AND publishing go Office 1132 N Btreet, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. -4ARAH B. HABBIS. Editor Subscription Rates. Per annum 1150 8ix months 1 00 Reflate of fifty cents on cash payments. Single copies 05 Thb Coukixb will not be responsible for rol aaUrj communications unless accompanied by return postage. Communications, to receire attention, must be sUrned by tne (nil name of the writer, not rely as a guarantee ot good faith, but for smblication if advisable, S' 00VwwV RVATIONS. 8 OBSERVATIONS A New Penitentiary. Prison architecture has been slow to respond to the sanitary reforms which have effected all otherkinds of ..building. The largest prison in this country and the best known, Sing Sing has finally been condemned, be cause so large a proportion of the prisoners die of consumption. A few years ago any sort of unwholesome, ill-ventilated cells were considered good enough for convicts. The re formatory effect of plenty of sunshine and wholesome, cleanly surroundings was ignored and while other public buildings and private houses were be ing built with special regard to the admission of airand sunshine, prisons were constructed after plans more than a hundred years old. Society is at libertv to protect itself, but it has no right to torture the men, whose liberty it restrains, more than security requires. To men who have formed the habit of cleanliness and of breath ing pure air it is an inexpressible misery to be forced to breathe air poisoned by the exhalations from the lungs and bodies of others. Nebraska is a rich state, a republic within a republic. In rebuilding the penitentiary which has been burned down, the present site should be abandoned. In rainy times the pres ent location is in the middle of a shallow pond, long after the uplands and slopes are dry. It is doubtless cheap, but the state with so many sightly locations to choose from, has no right any longer to keep the cod vlcts in a spot which is a sink for all the surrounding country. Near the asylum or upon some hill where the natural drainage is good, the new building should be erected. Moreover -when plans for the new building are LINCOLN. NBBR., SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1901. asked for, the competition should not be entirely on a basis of cheapness but prison architects of the new school who believe that even a con vict is entitled to fresh air, pure water and sunlight from his jailer, should be consulted; men who have ideas about bath-rooms and the effect of noble architecture upon every one, even the most depraved Criminals are segregated from society in order to protect the law-abiding. Formerly it was supposed that societ7 had a right to revenge itself upon criminals and torture them just as the torture by chains and darkness of the insane was once justified. We are cured of that. Society is the large body of sane people, with sound minds and bodies, who recognize the insanity of murder, robbery and other horrible crimes. The sane are stronger, kinder, cleverer, less tempted. Guarded and armed by normal, clean, honest par ents they have an immense advan tage of those whom walls a foot thick, iron bars and armed men that patrol the cell corridors night and day, still further protect them from. Being stronger and wiser, society can afford to be just to the prisoners and to give them a chance within the awful soli tude of a penitentiary. There is no such uncompassable difference be tween them and us as there is between God and us, for the best of men has been momentarily under the control of a criminal impulse. Yet we are free or obey an indefinable something which has been labeled conscience. The light of a countenance, whose features are the same in spring, sum mer, autumn and winter shines upon us whether we lie, or steal or kill or defile the temple. Yet we liars and adulterers and the not absolutely honest dare to deprive our fellow men of sunshine, of the sight of growing things. Before the law reaches our own case, we consign the unjust to a stinking prison, where, say for ten years, the sky, the sun, the moon, the miracle of growing things, where everything that is a symbol of purity and beauty and that inclines to worship and regeneration is shut from sight by a wall supposed to be there only to protect the strong who are at liberty from the helpless wretches inside. The new penitentiary at Lincoln might be built on a noble plan, such a building as a state of sane, strong people should erect for criminals. Gloom, strength, and a very bad smell was destroyed last week when the Nebraska peniteut'ary was burned down. The new penitentiary should have some architectural beauty inside where the convicts can see and where long years of silent contempla tion may transfer a little of it to their barren imaginations. If it is necessary as a warning and as a moral lesson to the templed to make it re pellant on the outside, very well. But convicts do not see the outside. They are entitled to what they will not, in all probability get from us namely sunshine, air. some little view of the world of nature as effected, by the passing seasons and justice. If society were good enough and had business sense enough to try to reform con victs, the contractors would be in structed by the Governor and board of pub'ic lands and buildings to erect a great school and workshop, wherein patientand enlightened officers might teach the feeble-minded bow to get on more easily without breaking tte law. In the past the state has built an immense and very ugly prison, ugly, inside and out. Possessing thousands of miles of prairie, the prison cells have been piled one upon another in such a way that the sun might never reach, clean and disinfect them. The convicts have left the Nebraska penitentiary hating society more than ever, and no wonder. So ciety has not demonstrated to them, its superior goodness and justice. The criminal in the place of society would not have been any meaner, more re vengeful or vindictive. The cells at the penitentiary were a pathetic sight. The state dares to do what God has not dared, i e. say to a man that, the Sun shall nut shine on him any more. Nevertheless, the convicts try to decorate their ugly, dark cells, and the paper flowers, bright ribbons, and colored pictures are a rebuke to beauty-destroying so ciety. The hopelessness of the con vict's lot destroys his faith if he ever had any and the cruelty of men in the combination known as society makes him wonder why he ever felt penitent or as though he were not the ag grieved one and determines him to get even when he gets out. A New Woman's Club. Housemaids of Oak Park Chicago, to the number of twenty-two held a meeting recently and organized a club. The object of the "Young Wo man's Friendly Club'' is the better development of the social moral and spiritual life of the members and lending a helping hand to others. To promote this development some member is to prepare a paper on some subject, and there will be reading, music and talks. The first subject will be the study of India and its peo ple. For "the club is to become a Pundita circle' to assist the native missionary, Pundita Ramabai, in her work among the child widows of India." In the selection of a subject of study the housemaids have shown the same inclination to consider dis tant and impossible subjects which their richer and more established sis ters have exhibited, and it is not for an outsider to pronounce it an unwise selection. Housemaids labor thirteen half-days a week. They have Thurs day afternoons out. For those who are on duty eighty out of the eighty four working hours of the week a sub ject of consideration entirely foreign to their monotonous life is a tonic. As Louis XVI. fled from affairs of state to:i turning-lathe, the house maids of Oak Park turn with gla'dncsn from answering bells, dusting bric-a-brac and making beds to the rescue of the child-widows of India. At the first meeting after prayer and a Bible reading, there was a call for a name for the new club. Among the names proposed were the Young Woman's Club, the Thursday After noon Club, the Young Woman's Thursday Afternoon C!ub. A mem ber objected to the Thursday. It smacked too strongly of the calling of the members. Thursday was the maids' day nut. "I don't see what difference that makes," said a maid who is no snob; "1 am not ashamed of my work, and I think we ought to have a name that will tell what wc are and what we are organizing for." This opinion was received with gen eral applause. Fortnightly" was suggested. Anotheroutburstof wrath. "Fortnightly' was said to "sountMoo high-toned." "Who cares for that?" asked the young woman who is not ashamed of her Thursday out. "If wc like a name, 1 guesj we have as much right to use it as anybody." Then "Liberty" was mentioned. "Don't you think that might be taken as a challenge to the public?' asked a lady who is not a housemaid. Then she proposed "The Young Woman's Friendly Club," and that name was accepted. The young woman not ashamed of her calling has already progressed far and she will assuredly bean inspira tion and a spring of common sense for the refreshmentof the restof the club. Her advice shows that she has ad vanced beyond that stage of snobbery signalized a few years ago by women clerk" who insisted on being referred to as "sales-ladies." If clubs are good for some women, they are good for all women and the organization of this "Young Woman's Friendly Club' the members of which have decided to discuss one of the most difficult so cial problems of India, Is a sign that the roots of the club movement are taking deep root in the soil. The stimulation of discussing any subject with people engaged in the same work is exemplified in the number or authors', painters', journalists', and architects' clubs. It is pleasant and encouraging to discuss pottery not with a potter, but if one happens to be an oculist, with another oculist. For the workman on my right hand, writing down thoughts such as Bixby or Bok are inspired to write on the woman subject which they under stand about as well as these house mafds understand India. I feel a greater interest, than for the man across the way in another manufac tory, who is making handcuffs, though the latter artisan may, upon occasioo, deliver himself of something worth remembering. But the latter is not in the profession and his opin ions are nottherclore professionally relevant and it does not matter what he thinks. The housemaids, discuss- fit h i mi :ffl