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40
HELL IN NEBRASKA
 

besides, and would do his best to give satisfaction. "Well, my boy, we speak but one language here, and mighty little of that," said the deputy. For two years the Roumanian (sic) shoveled coal.

From the deputy warden's office, the new prisoner is taken to the cell keeper, who like another hotel clerk, assigns him to a room, but he does not ask his guest whether he will have a room with bath, nor if he wants to leave a call for in the morning. No, all guests here receive the same accommodations; a steel cell, about five feet wide, by seven feet long with two berths, of which the new man has to take the upper. There is a stationary wash stand and toilet in each cell. The cells are far too small for two men and it is torture indeed to be penned up in such a little compartment. Some inmate, poetically inclined, wrote the following tribute to his cell upon the wall, the day before he departed:

 

 
HELL IN NEBRASKA
41

"My prison cell was small and dingy, With here a bug and there a jigger, The architect must been quite stingy Or surely he would planned it bigger. Soon roam I free beneath the stars, And with pure joy my heart does swell, Because I hate them prison bars, That kept me in that awful little cell."

And while there is little poetry in this, there is a lot of truth. To the incoming prisoner this narrow cell is a hell on earth, and very few of new men get any sleep at all the first night spent in one. At nine o'clock a bell rings which means to go to bed, then all lights in the cells go out. In the morning the bell rings at six o'clock. The prisoners dress and go to their breakfast, and from there back to their cells for a short rest. At seven the bell rings again for them to go to work. The new man is assigned to his particular place, and within a few days he becomes accustomed to the routine of the prison.