National Affairs: California Convicts

California sends her "repeater" convicts to Folsom Prison, a stronghold whose ashen walls command a desolate stretch of the American River valley laid waste by goldseekers. Prisons are gruesome places at best but Folsom ranks with the worst as a focus of human distemper and desperation. Last week, Folsom was the scene of the greatest prison revolt in California history.

The 1,200 pallid inmates of one of the cell houses were assembled for a Thanksgiving Day cinema. The silence was broken by a shuffling of feet and hoarse muttering. Seven or eight convicts had slipped...

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