years. When he entered this living tomb he had the bloom of youth upon
his cheek. When he goes out, at the end of his term, if he lives so
long, he will be an old, broken down man. He will not be likely to
live that long. The average life of a convict is but fourteen years
under the most favorable surroundings, but in the coal mines it cannot
exceed five years at most.

Let me tell you of this man's crime, and then you can determine for
yourself how easy it is to get in the penitentiary. This young fellow
is the son of one of the most respectable farmers in the State. He
attended a dance one night in company with some of the neighbor boys
at a village near by. While there, he got under the influence of
strong drink, became involved in a quarrel over one of the numbers
with the floor managers, and in the fight that ensued he drew his
knife and disemboweled the man with whom he was fighting. In a few
moments the wounded man died. The young fellow was tried, convicted of
murder, and sent to the penitentiary for twenty-five years at hard
labor. It is awful to contemplate. Young man, as you read this, had
you not better make up your mind to go rather slow in pouring whisky
down your throat in future?

As we passed along through the mines I thought about that word
"stretch," and as I did not like the idea of having jobs put up on me,
came to the conclusion that I would render myself popular by telling
the prisoners in the mines who might ask me as to my sentence, that I
had eighteen "stretches." I did not think that calling a month a
"stretch" would be "stretching" my conscience to such a degree as to
cause me any particular distress, for I knew that by the time I had
served out a month it would seem equivalent to a year on the outside.