Here is remarkable document—the vivid recollection of a man who for thirty years was an inmate of the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing.
To say that the prison at Lansing was bad is hardly necessary. From its founding in 1864 through the decade of the twenties, Lansing was one of the most feared and hated prisons in the country. Men who had survived the ordeal of a sentence the called it The Devil's Front Porch—the nearest thing to hell. The system for handling convicted felons was tradition...