CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HOW TO GET OUT OF PRISON
I mean
by the title of this chapter, how to get out legitimately and not by the von
Werner method. This is the way: be a good fellow, obey the rules, attend to
your own business, and before long the prison gates will open for you. Show
the world that you are a man even though you are in prison. Nebraska has just
adopted the indeterminate sentence and the parole law, and under these laws
the judge shall sentence a convict prisoner (except those convicted of murder,
rape, kidnapping and treason, whose sentence is affixed by the judge) to
the penitentiary, but he shall not affix the duration of the sentence.
That is left for the board of pardons and parole to do. And a wise
and good law indeed is the indeterminate sentence law. Under the
old system I have seen prisoners arrive at Lancaster on the same
day and for the same crime, one
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with a short sentence and one with a long sentence.
On the same day and on the same train once, but from two different
counties, there came a man with a five year sentence for stealing
a heifer and one with a two years sentence for stealing a team.
This is how it used to be. Judge Jones gets up on the wrong side
of the bed, and feels badly and out of sorts. He proceeds to court
and there stands a man ready to be sentenced to the penitentiary. "Ten
years," says the judge. The poor fellow goes up for ten years.
Now there is Judge Smith, in another county. He gets up on the
right side of the bed, and on this morning everything looks sweet
and good to him. "One year," says he. "Go down and
be a man and earn two months good time." In other words the
judges, like the prisoners, and all the rest of us, have a temper
of their own. I recall an instance where a prisoner stood before
the judge ready to be sentenced. "Four years" says the
judge. "What, four years for a little
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