The dining room windows were protected by wire netting; but there were many holes in it, as large as a man's head, through which the flies, in summer, entered in swarms; and there was no provision for keeping them out of the kitchen, which opened into the dining room. Complaints were constantly made, but the holes were never mended, and no means were taken to kill the flies. Food sometimes was placed on the tables hours before the men sat down to their meals, and the flies, not having the same delicacy of appetite as the men, feasted freely in the meanwhile. There was also frequent protest against the bits of loose enamel in the bowls; many of these were made direct to the doctor; but he did nothing. If a man whose digestion had given way called on him for help, a dose of salts was the only reply, and several deaths, while I was there, unquestionably had their beginning in this neglect. Upon the whole, contentment with starvation was the most prudent policy in Atlanta Penitentiary.
I am not a sybarite or an epicure. For fifteen years before I was sent to prison I lived on the hardest and most Spartan diet, eating as little food as possible and that of the simplest kind. Wheat, milk, a few green vegetables, and fruit made my menus. I was therefore better fortified against hardships than the majority of prisoners; I could hold out against starvation longer; but against the poison of rotten or bad food I had no protection.
The wardens and the chief clerks of prisons often wish, for motives of their own, to make an economical showing, and perhaps do not much care if it is made at the expense of the health or lives of prisoners. Some friends of mine in Atlanta prison and myself made an attempt to determine just what was paid out per man in the prison for subsistence; we quietly obtained statements from men in the kitchen and commissary departments, and made our calculations. After careful revision, the figures showed that we were being fed at the rate of from eight to eleven cents per head, a day.
About that time, a great scientific discovery was announced by the chief steward. Food, he had been informed, contained a certain amount of heat and power; and these heat units, called calories, could be estimated for any given article of diet. (As I write this, an editorial on the subject in a recent issue of a New York newspaper states the matter in terms which I am happy to reproduce.) "Physiologists have determined by repeated experiments that a definite quantity of certain foods furnishes a definite number of calories or heat units, which produce a certain quantity of energy in the animal or human body.... In twenty-four hours a normal man of about one hundred and thirty pounds at rest, needs 1680 calories or heat units, while a man doing severe physical labor would require sufficient food to produce 3000 calories.... Since the efficiency of labor depends upon the energy of the body and this energy or power is produced by the food, it is not difficult to calculate the actual outlay required for this purpose.... The household requirements of a family where two servants are kept would at this rate be from $1.00 to $1.40 a day, a sum sufficient to furnish all the energy for all purposes of normal maintenance."