The Prison Mirror

In the February 24th issue of the St. Paul Dispatch, we read an item in the "Open Forum for Readers," from the pen of Mrs. Alraine Smith, as follows:

"Sir: I have been reading in the papers about the dogs in the pound to be used in experiments. I think it is cruel to take a poor helpless dog to practice on it. Why not go to Stillwater and take some of those charges and experiment on them. That would be doing something good for our race."

In this enlightened age, and during the so-called "Brotherhood" week; when the blood thirsty cruelties practiced against convicts have largely been relegated to the dark ages; for anyone, supposedly in their right mind, to go into public print and place inmates of this institution in a category lower than the dog, and less entitled to humane treatment, is beyond our comprehension.

We are convicts, yes; have made our mistakes, and are paying society for those mistakes, but we were created by the same Supreme Being, from the same material as the writer, and have the same medium of thought, hopes and despairs; yes, and in most cases, a more acute sense of justice than the writer quoted above, exhibits.