Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1889 — How a Convict is Searched. [ARTICLE]

How a Convict is Searched.

From George Kennan’s illustrated article in the July Century we quote the following: “You have lo idea, Mr. Kennan,” said Captain Nikolin, “how unscrupulous they are, and how much criminal skill they show in concealing forbidden things and in smuggling letters into snd out of prison. Suppose that you were going to search a political convict as thoroughly as possible, how would you do it?” I replied that I should strip him naked and make a careful examinatiob of his clothing. “Is that all you would do?” he inquired, with a surprised air. I said that no other course of procedure suggested itself to me just at that moment. '■ - “Would you look in his ears?” “No,” T answered; “I should not think of looking in hia ears.” “Would you search his mouth?” Again I replied in the negative. “Wonld you look in a hollow tooth?” I solemnly declared that such a thing as looking in a hollow tooth for a letter wonld never, under any circumstances, have occurred to me. “Well,” he said triumphantly,“l have taken tissue paper with writing on it outoi a prisoner’s ear, out of prisoner’s mouth, and once I found a dose of deadly poison concealed under a capping of wax in a convict’s hollow tooth; Ah-h-h! 1 he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, “they are very sly, but I know all their tricks.”