Gentle reader, this small volume clearly proves that modern man

Can control his erring brothers with a clear enlightened plan.

Ne'er till now have prison printers voiced, unchanged, a convict's tho't!

Is the change with retrogression or with onward progress fraught?

Will this volume change your custom or relieve our horrid pain?

Or shall truth be crushed and bleeding, ever bound in prison chain?

Will you cast your glances backward, gathering age along by age,

Proof that man is wholly brutal when controlled by maddening rage?

View the pen of downy feathers, where men choked and choked to death,

Without power to ask for pardon with their last expiring breath!

See your brother in that river, safely chained to yonder rock,

While his thirst is wildly raging and the waves his tortures mock!

See yon dungeon, dark and dreary, built by human art and skill,

Whose dread mission is to madden any one the law says kill!

Visit to the hapless culprit, as in Pagan jail he lies;

See the jailer pass the hemlock, which he quaffs, and then he dies!

Think of club, of sword and pistol, of the bloody guillotine;

Of the whipcord, knout and gallows of the noted Wolverine;

Of starvation, rack and torture, of the lash and fiery stake,

And then tell me frankly, reader, did these wrongs one virtue wake?

Tell me frankly, honest reader, can two wrongs create a right?

And is man's inhuman conduct pleasing in Jehovah's sight?

Or do pitying angels shudder, as the cruel lash you ply,

Wondering man can be so brutal and the laws of God defy?

Does not conscience loudly thunder: "Sin is but the fruit of hate,

And who stones a helpless brother most deserves that victim's fate?

Can abuse and brutal treatment purge the sinner of his guilt?

If so, come, within my bosom sheath your dagger to the hilt!

Strike, till every erring mortal at your hands has met his fate,

Then sit down and calmly ponder on your awful lonely state!

You, perhaps, have been quite faultless; you, perhaps, no wrong have done,

If 'tis true, my peerless brother, you're alone beneath the sun"!

Do but think! we once were spotless as the babe on mother's knee!

Trace the causes of our downfall with a mind from malice free.

See, on every licensed corner, fiends incarnate hourly sell

Fiery waters of damnation, that create a living hell!

Women, once as pure as angels, leading heartless lives of shame;

For the trumpery of fashion dealing off both home and name!

Hear men laud the wealthy scoundrel and attempt to clear his ways,

While the poor and honest toiler none with pride or pleasure pays!

See Religion don the garments of all worldly pride and lust,

While the Savior's honest followers are but trampled in the dust!

See the press, with startling headlines, every vice and sin portray

That can sink your moral standard or lead innocence astray!

View the legions of temptation strewn along the path of youth,

See how few do practice virtue, and how few adore the truth!

There! the cause of crime is patent, and our downfall you behold,

To condemn it in a sentence: "It was women, wine and gold!"

If you read this book with caution, you have read between the lines,

Learning much the careless reader and the critic ne'er divines!

You have seen the author's purpose was to tell the simple truth,

As a tribute to the prisoner and a warning to our youth.

You have seen mistakes and errors that less haste would quickly mend,

Yet, with all its imperfections, it may prove a useful friend.

And in future I may publish one with less of hasty thought

That may be—God knows the future—with undying issues fraught.

All tried means have proved abortive yet, my friend, there is a plan

That will lift each erring brother to the standard of a man!

If I can but live to publish what I know and long to tell,

You will read it and believe it; so, dear reader, fare-thee-well!