Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1904 — Most Miserable of Men. [ARTICLE]

Most Miserable of Men.

Entombed in a grim castle on the f outskirts of Lisbon are some of the most miserable men on earth. These are the inmates of Portugal’s prison of silence. In this building everything that human Ingenuity can suggest to render the lives of its prisoners a horrible, maddening torture Is done. The corridors, piled tier on tier five stories high, extend from a common center Uke the spokes of a huge wheel. The cells are narrow—,tomblike—and within each stands a coffin. The attendants creep about In felt slippers, j No one Is allowed to utter a word. The 1 silence is that of the grave. Once a day the cell doors are unlocked and the half a thousand wretches march out, clothed In shrouds and with faces covered by masks, for It Is a part of this hideous punishment that none may look upon the countenances of his fel- > low prisoners. Few of them endure this torture for more than ten years.— Tit-Bits.