Одноэтажная Америка / Little Golden America

Alas, we are occupied only with the punishment of criminals.”

We began to talk about life terms.

“I have a prisoner here,” said our guide, “who has been here for twenty-two years. Every year he files a petition of clemency and each time his case is considered his petition is decisively turned down, so beastly was the crime which he committed. I would let him out. He is now quite a different man. As a matter of fact I would liberate about half the prisoners, for they no longer present any danger to society.

We were shown the hospital, the library, the dental office, in fact, all the establishments of piety, culture, and enlightenment. We went up in elevators, we walked down beautiful corridors. Punitive cells and similar things we were not shown, of course, and out of quite comprehensible politeness we did not inquire about them.

In one of the yards we went to a one-story brick building, and the assistant warden himself opened the doors with a large key.

We noticed the chair at once.

It stands in a roomy chamber without windows, so the light comes through a glass lantern in the ceiling. We took two steps on the white marble floor and stopped. Behind the chair on the door opposite the one we entered is traced in large black letters the word: “Silence!”

The condemned are admitted through that door.

The condemned is informed early in the morning that his petition for clemency has been rejected and that the execution will take place that day. Then he is prepared for the execution. A small circle is shaved on his head to enable the electric current to pass without impediment.

Throughout the day the condemned sits in his cell. Now that the circle had been shaved on his head, he has nothing to hope for.

The execution occurs at about eleven or twelve o’clock at night.

“The fact that throughout the entire day a man experiences the torments of expectant death is very sad indeed,” declared our guide, “but we can do nothing about it. Such is the demand of the law. The law regards this circumstance as an additional punishment. On this chair two hundred men and three women have been executed.”

Nevertheless, the chair looks quite new.

This is a yellow wooden chair with a high back and arm rests.