This was an old man of near eighty. He had been worth a great fortune,
and was then in possession of property to the amount of about twenty
thousand dollars. In the prison he found no indulgence for age, no
compassion for the sick, no pity for the suffering, and he was
scarcely in it before he was put in punishment. There was at that time
a guard named French, who had been a soldier at Burlington, and who
said that he had been employed by Rowley, when he was not on army
duty, to cut corn stalks, and that he had cheated him out of his pay.
This he reported to the prisoners and keepers; and now he thought he
should have a good opportunity to be revenged. Accordingly he kept him
in the solitary cell, and wearing a block and chain, most of the time.
The old man could not look, speak, or walk, but French would report
him; and so well was it understood that he was suffering for this old
grudge, that when any one saw him going to the cell, the remark was
immediately made--"Rowley is paying French for the stalks."
The punishment thus begun, was carried on during the five years of his
sentence. He was the common mark for every little stripling, who
wished to get into the graces of his superiors, by doing some deed of
cruelty; and I presume he was in punishment three years out of the
five to which he was sentenced. No allowance was made for his
years--his want of sight--or his infirmities; he was in the power of
man, an unsocial crabbed old creature it is true, but _still_ a human
being, and entitled to the _common mercy_ of a state prison. But the
"_stalks_" were always green on the memory of his keepers, and they
could not endure to see him out of the cell. He lived, however, in
spite of them, to see the end of his sentence and to return to his
family, where he soon after died.
Much as French and others are to be blamed for their conduct towards
this man, the _burden_ of condemnation rests on those, who were bound
by the oath of their office, to protect the prisoners from "cruelty
and inhumanity" in the guard. Ought such personal feelings to be
indulged towards a prostrate victim? Can that man be worthy of any
office, who can stoop to such criminal meanness? I am told that French
has since become a christian, and I sincerely hope he has; for I am
well persuaded that it will require many years time, and many a bitter
tear, to purify his conscience from the iniquity of the "_corn
stalks_."