Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — IN A LIVING CRAVE. [ARTICLE]

IN A LIVING CRAVE.

IVhWt 600 Men Live In Solitary Ceils—Louvain’s Dreadful Prison. The seclusion of Latimer in his solitary cell at Jackson, Mich., calls attention to the Maison Cenfcrale, of Louvain—that one prison in Europe where absolute isolation is still enforced. The buildings all converge to a central apsis, whence a warder can easily survey the six immense avenues or wings, consisting of two stories of cells. The convicts are clad in gowns and hoods of linen, * hich cover the face, except the eyes, nose and mouth. They must never see a face except their keeper’s, and they must conceal their own face from everybody. If, perchance, a face is seen by a doctor it is paled by the long sunless shadow and the want of free air, for even the daily hour’s walk is in cramped passages between two high walls, where a few stunted plants soon wither and die. The prisoners have that flaccid fleshiness which comes from the absence of movement. Two of the inmates have dwelt there since 18(54, At 6 o’clock in the morning the peals of an organ wake the convicts. The music may be religious or secular. It lasts for fifteen minutes, and by that time the warders must find each man at his work. All labor is performed in the sleeping cells. Breakfast consists of half a pint of coffee and bread, and the two other meals are of soup and vegetables. Three times a week the convicts have fresh meat. Sunday is a day of religious services. The prison library is excellent, and those who can neither read nor write are compelled to attend school. The chapel is like a circular and reversed amphitheater. The convicts occupy stalls. They can see the priest, but they enter the stalls one at a time and never see each other. The cells areclean and well lighted, heated and 'ventilated, but the convicts cannot see out. Some of the convicts are shoemakers; others bookbinders, tailors, carpenters, even smiths Some are employed in copying students’essays. The produce of each man’s labor is divided equally between the state and himself. His earnings never exceed two or three cents a day. In the evening, labor ended, he dines and goes to bed. None but isolated cases of revolt have ever taken place. These are punishable by incarceration in a subterranean dungeon, but there is another and harder punishment—the privation of work! and the threat of taking a convict’s tools rarely fails to insure submission. It is impossible to leave the Maison Centrale of Louvain without a feeling of almost superstitious horror at the vision of those miserable beings, buried in their livery of infamy, the face of each remaining as sealed to his GOO companions of irime and shame as if the lid of a coffin had closed upon it and the hand of death forever obliterated the features.

A Detestable Character. The slanderer has ever been regarded as a most detestable character; and the person who commits the iniquity must expect the severest retaliation. Few would err in this respect, if they would but consider that they provoke the same conduct in others which they exhibit themselves. We are none of us Immaculate; and the most irreproachable cannot afford to fling a stone at a neighbor. Indulgence in scandal of any kind is a disgraceful occupation of time, and tends iu no small degree to vitiate the heart and weaken the understanding. It is the pastime of the idle and the corrupt, and no virtuous man or woman will stoop to the indignity. Based on falsehood, calumny, and envy, it exposes those who pursue it to similar treatment at the hands—or, we' shou'd say, when alluding to the ladies, mouths—of those whom they have detracted, and by and by it is a contest between the parties who shall be the cleverest and most racy inventor and unblushing detractor.

The Artfulness of the Ant. Like many other insects, the ant Is very fond of sugar, to obtain which it employs a skill that is almost incredible. An observer thought he had protected his sugar basin from the attentions of a number of ants by placing it in the center of a vessel full of water. To his amazement, however, he found that they got at the sugar by climing up the wall of the room to the part of the ceiling that was just over the ceiling. From this point they allowed themselves to fall down among the sugar. Several that were carried by the draught past the bowl fell into the surrounding water, and would all have been drowned but for the efforts of their mates, who succeeded in rescuing some of them. The truth of this singular occurrence is vouched for by the witnesses of it

Dajr of the Dark Woman. The fai.-haired woman, lissome and loving, has had her day. Dark-eyed beauty,framed in dusky tresses,seems more in keeping with the tall and queenly type of woman that has of late supplanted the petite ideal of the old days. Men say it is because the tall woman makes such exquisite pictures, leaning and swaying in graceful poses, because she is infinitely nicer to make love to than the little woman She can cuddle her head up under a man’s chin, touch his cheek with her smooth, velvety face, while a little woman, even if she stands on tiptoe, only rumples his shirt front. And when she takes to ordering a mao about he doesn’t feel quite so much like a fool as when a little woman takes on the airs of a commanding officer.

Scores but a Single Victim. Of all the various legal measures that have been adopted in order to discourage suicide none has worked very well. Since the New Yoik law was passed but a single conviction has been had under it. This was twelve years ago, when a man undertook to drown himself. He was rescued and. was sentenced to Sing Sing,and he is there yet. The spring poet is backward this year because his rhyme doesn’t suit the time and he can’t reason with the season.—Philadelphia Times.