[Pg i]

THE MAN BEHIND THE BARS

[Pg iii]

THE MAN BEHIND THE BARS

BY

WINIFRED LOUISE TAYLOR

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1914

[Pg iv]

Copyright, 1914, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
———
Published October, 1914

[Pg v]

TO

MY PRISON FRIENDS

[Pg vii]

PREFACE

Lest any one may charge me with extravagant optimism in regard toconvicts, or may think that to me every goose is a swan, I wish to saythat I have written only of the men—among hundreds of convicts—whohave most interested me; men whom I have known thoroughly and who neverattempted to deceive me. Every writer's vision of life and of humanityis inevitably colored by his own personality, and I have pictured thesemen as I saw them; but I have also endeavored, in using so much fromtheir letters, to leave the reader free to form his own opinion.Doubtless the key to my own position is the fact that I always studiedthese prisoners as men; and I tried not to obscure my vision by lookingat them through their crimes. In recalling conversations I have notdepended upon memory alone, as much of what was said in our interviewswas written out while still fresh in my mind.

[Pg viii]

I have no wish to see our prisons abolished; but thousands ofindividuals and millions of dollars have been sacrificed to wrongmethods of punishment; and if we aim to reform our criminals we mustfirst reform our methods of dealing with them, from the police court tothe penitentiary.

Winifred Louise Taylor.

August 6, 1914.

CONTENTS