The hospital is situated on top of the chapel, over the main entrance and hall of the prison.

Two spacious rooms are dedicated to that purpose. The smaller one with a bathroom faces the Brooklyn side and overlooks the mess hall, the keepers\' dining room and kitchen, and is usually kept apart for the consumptives. The larger room, also with a bathroom, contains a dozen beds, a closet for underwear and clothes, another for the crockery, two tables, two medicine closets, chairs, and some small tables for patients near each bed.

Six windows face towards East 55th Street on the Manhattan side. Two higher windows look over the roof of the prison, across the Queensboro bridge. The hardwood flooring, the small hospital cots, with[Pg 70] mattresses, white pillows and spreads, all spotlessly clean, made the place look quite cheerful and sunny. Every opening was heavily barred. A spacious, clean and airy prison, but still a prison, with a tantalizing outlook towards New York, which seemed so near that one could discern people on the other side of the river.
I

There are five sick men, plus three consumptives, in the two rooms; and our large room looks deserted.

The patients wear a cheap, white shirt, instead of the striped one, and slippers instead of shoes.

A bald-headed man with small, kindly gray eyes and a close-cropped mustache, keeps perfect discipline without raising his voice, using profane language, or bullying the patients. In character, breeding, morals, education, he is superior to the warden and[Pg 71] to most of the keepers. His name is Charles Noonan.

Between the hours of eight o\'clock in the morning and four in the afternoon a uniformed hospital orderly attends to the distribution of medicine, takes temperatures, and reports to the doctor. At night another orderly takes his place.

The cleanliness of the two hospitals, the distribution of bedding, laundry and food, is in the hands of a convict, usually a patient; all the unpleasant tasks and irksome duties which the orderly is too proud or too lazy to perform the trusty is obliged to do.

Servant and boss, scullion and diplomat, doctor\'s help and sick man, waiter and majordomo, the convict orderly is the last buffer in the line of authority, the expiatory goat of the penitentiary hospital, a suffering soul in a modern purgatory.

When a criticism drops from the lips of the supreme Prison Commissioner, the Warden passes it along to the "Dep," who[Pg 72] calls down the hospital keeper, who in his turn upbraids the orderly, who in the end roasts the trusty.

The present trusty is an old man suffering from an eczema on his fat legs. Tall, bloated, gray, pale, he is despised by the convicts for his avariciousness, his gluttony, his arrogant attitude. They suspect him of being a stool pigeon, and they revenge themselves by making his life miserable through a series of cruel persecutions.

Another trusty who sleeps in a cell downstairs, and eats in the keeper\'s kitchen, is a famous pickpocket.

Like all or nearly all the old timers, Ed, as he is called, never gossips about his private affairs; he may joke and talk about other prisoners, but never does he say a word about his life outside. He is an old offender, but obedient, useful and energetic; and he is always welcomed back as a trusty or a tier man.

Once inadvertently I asked him: "What[Pg 73] do you do outside for a living, Ed?" His laconic answer was, "Oh, everybody!"

But one evening several weeks later, when we had become quite chummy, at the psychological moment when even the most silent and sullen crooks will sometimes confess and bare their hearts, he unfolded his life, his methods, his cynicism and his mental make-up.

It was an amazing story, interspersed with slang, picturesque phrases, and a callous, sordid philosophy. Later, the testimony of other thieves proved that his story was true.

As he told his story, it seems that clever thieves organize themselves into trusts, or what they call "mobs," frequent the same "joints" and "hang-outs," and work in co-operation with detectives. When a fair, a holiday, or any extraordinary event is announced in any part of the state—or anywhere in the world, for that matter—they are "tipped off," or told about it by the "bulls."

[Pg 74]

Then when the event "comes off," and a great crowd is gathered, a whole gang of pickpockets, two or three score of them, arrive on the spot.

To save time one after another is sent to the fair authorities to inform them of the presence of pickpockets, and an official jumps on a platform or soap box, and shouts a warning to the crowd against thieves; and while this is going on the keen-eyed "dips" watch the astonished and frightened people place their hands on the pocket or the region which contains their valuables. With this knowledge they can work without blundering, and in teams of three or four, by rubbing or jostling against their victims, they soon relieve them of their money or jewelry.

Watches are seldom stolen, as they are too easy of identification. Often a prominent "sucker" discovers his loss before he leaves the fair, and starts kicking up a row. At[Pg 75] once a detective offers to find and return the stolen goods for a reward.

Then, after it is over, the result of the day\'s work is divided between the "bulls" and the "dips."

Ed became a pickpocket right after he left school. From the reform school to the house of refuge, from the house of refuge to the state reformatory, from the reformatory to the penitentiary, he has climbed all the rungs of the ladder of crime.

He soon discovered that "lonesome," single-handed thieves were crushed in the struggle, so he joined the Benevolent Association for Mutual Protection of "dips" and "guns," paid his dues, and then when he was caught, he got off with a light sentence. His return to prison was part of the game; he came back philosophically, as a travelling salesman returns to his favorite hostelry, as an intermittent but familiar visitor, recognized by the keepers and convicts, and [Pg 76]knowing all the ropes along the prison line of least resistance.

Ed barely looks his age, although his face bears the stamp of his dissipated life and the mannerisms peculiar to his breed. He is a perfect fruit of the criminal system. Sodden with all the sexual perversities acquired in prison, he has finally caught the white plague, is afflicted with several venereal diseases, and has become an inveterate dope fiend. Although keen of intelligence, he seems to be without moral prop or ideal of any kind; coldly and cynically he surveys society as his natural prey, his rightful enemy, and an object of his revenge.

Morally, intellectually and physically as crooked and shifty as a mountain trail, he seems utterly beyond redemption, human or divine.

[Pg 77]
II

The view from the hospital window shows the bridge on the right; in front, the row of cheap tenement houses and streets abutting on the river front from the forties to the sixties; and on the left, looming out of the city-scape, appears the Metropolitan tower. Behind the innumerable painted signs on the river front, the Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, the Plaza Hotel and the St. Regis can be seen distinctly; the Times Building is also vaguely outlined. In the daytime the sight is commonplace; but after the sun, like an enormous ball of fire, has dipped behind the city line back of the streets in the fifties, the scene becomes inspiring to a painter.

The shadows, full of greens and purples, cover as with a charitable veil all the ugly details of the river front; the skyline becomes darker, as if cut out with monster scissors; the sky appears more resplendent and luminous with gorgeous tints, until the[Pg 78] fiery blaze slowly dies out, and bluish tints, gray and purple predominate; and then the city lights, those on the bridge and in the Metropolitan tower, shimmer like innumerable stars.

Sometimes with a clear sky, sometimes in fog, in a snow storm, in rain or in clear moonlight, every night for ten months I have watched an ever recurring picturesque metamorphosis.

Through the north window I have watched the dawn come up behind the Queensboro bridge, and seen the sun appear like an enormous Japanese lantern of pure vermilion—a sight to gladden the heart of a Claude Monet.

Boats pass constantly by, day and night; they are the one great source of amusement of the patients. The little, swift-sailing tug-boats announce their passage by angry and piercing whistles; the graceful yachts of the multi-millionaires sound melodious notes; the large excursion boats announce[Pg 79] themselves by their stronger and more ringing whistlings; the largest ones, on their way to Portland, are heard in the distance grunting like sonorous leviathans.

But the most amusing of all is the tiny boat that plies between the dock of the penitentiary and the foot of 54th Street. The distance is about two or three minutes, but this diminutive craft goes two or three blocks up the river and comes back down the same number of blocks, to show that if it tried it really could navigate on the high seas.

Should any vessel larger than this microcosm be seen from a distance trying to pass our little boat, it would start a series of angry, piercing toots, repeated in quick succession. We used to wonder and laugh—oh, we laugh, even in prison; how else could we live?—at the impertinence of this minnow of the river of New York, until we discovered that after a large boat like the Yale passed by, the waves left in its wake almost[Pg 80] upset the little craft, and it took all the efforts of the brave pilot to bring it tossing like a champagne cork on top of the waves, back safe to the dock.

In summer time the excursion boats, returning home with crowded decks, with all the lights lit, and the band playing and the passengers singing, "The Island of Blackwell," make us home-sick and pensive with longing for life and the world we are shut away from.
III

The trusty in charge of the hospital is getting nervous as the day of his release approaches. A week before the release, no matter how disciplined and peaceful the prisoner may have been, he starts getting cranky and impertinent to the keepers. He acts like a man under great stress, and when he is disturbed he turns savagely round like an angry dog.

[Pg 81]

The old trusty acted like a drunkard, talking and laughing incessantly, and we thought it was for joy at the thought of his near release. But the real reason was soon discovered. The old thief, Fritz, had been operated on, and when the night orderly was ordered by the doctor to change the sick man\'s bandages every fifteen minutes, he bribed the old trusty with a long drink of whiskey to do the work for him.

The spectacle of the official orderly trying to do his duty was intensely amusing. In all the years of his work he had slept and snored peacefully and undisturbed. When the time came to change the bandages, he uncovered the patient and began gingerly removing the soaked bandages, holding them with two fingers, at a safe distance, and walking on tiptoe, as if expecting the whole thing to explode. When he saw the terrible, gaping wound he dropped everything back, saying: "I can\'t do it, it makes me sick!" and woke up the trusty to do the work for[Pg 82] him. The next day he reported sick, and he never showed up again until he heard that the patient was dead.

In the meanwhile the old trusty left and I had to attend to the sick man. Every fifteen minutes of twenty interminable days and nights I had to watch, and nurse, and answer the calls of that cranky old man. The wound was ghastly. The surgeons had made an incision twelve inches long right down into the bladder, wherein they had stuck a thick rubber tube.

The sight was sickening, the work exhausting and thankless, and if I had not known that the patient had only a few days to live, I think I would have applied for a job in the coal gang.

On the twentieth night, at about twelve o\'clock, I was awakened by the moans of the dying man, who was calling in a faint voice. His face was flushed and it seemed as if all the blood had gone to his head; but[Pg 83] he seemed suddenly to turn deadly white, and he lay back still.

A young boy sleeping next to him hid his head under the bed clothes in fright. I was sent to notify the doctor upstairs.

The young doctor declared him dead, and turning to me ordered me to dress him.

I looked at him puzzled and asked: "Dress him up in his striped suit?"

"No," answered the doctor, smiling, "put the shroud on and make him ready for the morgue."

"But I have never dressed a corpse in my life and would not know how to go about it," I protested. So the doctor kindly volunteered to teach me.

First he closed the dead man\'s eyes; then we put on the shroud, which looked like a night-shirt with frills at the sleeves, and attached to it a conical fool\'s cap to cover his head; then his hands and feet were tied separately.

When we had done, we laid the body on[Pg 84] an empty bed in the smaller hospital, very much to the dismay and terror of the three consumptives who slept there. But they kicked up such a row that they were allowed to sleep in our section.

The next morning when I went on an errand into the next room I stopped to gaze on the body of Fritz. The change that had taken place was startling. During the few months that Fritz had passed in the hospital, although disciplined and silent like most old convicts, he always wore a peculiarly shifty, sneering expression on his reddish face. Now it was wax white, the eyelids had opened, and the pale blue eyes were staring at me with a peaceful, angelic expression. For an instant I gasped at the thought that he might have come back to life, and I called out: "Fritz! Fritz!" but no answer came, and only the gentle, inscrutable smile persisted. I touched his cheek. It was cold and hard. But I could not explain the almost miraculous change in the expression of[Pg 85] the face. Suddenly it dawned upon me that death had released the unclean spirit, and left the body to go back to mother earth as clean as it had been conceived.

Soon four convicts came into the room; one, a gangster, with a broken nose, and beady, black eyes, asked me: "Where is the stiff?" As in prison language "stiff" is also the name used for newspapers, I looked at him foolishly and answered that I had none. He added in explanation: "I mean the guy that croaked last night."

Neither the keeper nor the convicts relished the post-prandial funeral.... Death had come so suddenly and informally, and had left his victim in the enemy\'s camp, to be carried to the morgue, and later to be buried on a convict\'s island without benefit of clergy.
IV

Before the old thief died the old trusty had gone, and I had to take his place. I did[Pg 86] so only with great reluctance, and with many misgivings as to my peace of mind and body.

I had noticed how the convicts nagged and harassed the old trusty with insults and petty, malicious persecutions to revenge themselves for his greed and his authoritative, arrogant manner towards them.

I realized that life might be made unbearable for me, and that I might be forced to go downstairs to the cells before I had completed my cure.

When the old trusty received fruit he had sold it promptly to the convicts for money. He asked five cents for an apple, ten cents for an orange, so much for tobacco or for a pipe, another price for suspenders, handkerchiefs, or whatever he might have to sell or barter.

After his release the Italian consumptive said that he had got only half portions of his special food that had been sent in for him,[Pg 87] as the trusty cut the portions in half in order to sell the remainder to others.

I unconsciously sensed that the only successful method of taming the ferocious, revengeful natures of the convicts was by kindness and patience; by treating them as friends in misfortune, and not as enemies or inferiors.

When I received tobacco or fruit I divided it among the men who seldom if ever had any visits or mail; the magazines were distributed among them and later were carried downstairs from cell to cell, until the whole prison had read them. To my intense surprise, English, German, Italian—even "high brow" magazines like the Mercure de France and La Revue were eagerly demanded and read by some of these strangely intellectual convicts.

The men who had considered me an aristocrat, and nicknamed me "The Count," soon began to discover that my sympathy was for their troubles, their unhappiness, their [Pg 88]helplessness, and not for the warden and the keepers.

I was fully repaid for my attitude. I was made their confidant, their confessor, the judge of their squabbles, a peacemaker and a go-between; when trouble and punishment were in sight, when some particularly unclean and revolting duty was to be performed, the convicts always asked to relieve me of it; and it came to pass that after a while I could devote most of my time to reading, and only attended to the less manual work, such as acting as assistant to the doctor.

Among the patients there was a one-legged negro who was suffering from a painful and unmentionable disease. His big lips, square jaw and scowling countenance made him resemble a big, black bull-dog. Even the keepers were in awe of him. In a fit of danger one day before the old trusty left he very nearly smashed the old man\'s skull with his crutch.

[Pg 89]

The first morning that I was left in charge of the hospital I felt some trepidation as to the outcome of my policy of kindness.

The test came quickly. During lunch the negro ordered me, in a loud, angry voice, to bring him something. I went over to his bed and told him gently I was surprised that he had forgotten his good manners; that he had evidently made a mistake in thinking that I was either his keeper or his valet; that we were both convicts, both in trouble, and should treat each other like self-respecting men, helpfully and considerately.

He looked at me with a frown on his face, as he was not quite certain whether I was deriding him; but soon the frown disappeared, and then I said to him: "Now, Davis, what can I do for you?" He answered in a gentle and friendly voice: "Excuse me, mister. I always been treated like a dog. Will you please bring me a spoon?"

From that day on he was tamed; he became more talkative, and even polite. [Pg 90]During the long winter evenings he broke the morose silences to tell us of his adventures, and to relate the story of his tragic and terrible life.

He had lost his leg in a railroad accident; and then he had spent several years in hospitals and more years in legal fights to try to collect a few hundred dollars which were never paid. Then, jobless, hungry, destitute, desperate, he had begun to steal. Always unlucky and awkward, he was invariably caught, arrested, and sentenced to jail. Twenty years of his life he had spent in jails and prisons all over the country, and he had even had a taste of the horrible chain gangs of Georgia. He described the punishments he had to undergo because of his inability to work in prison shops; the weeks passed in the "coolers"; the beatings, the tortures he had undergone at the hands of savage, ruthless wardens.

It was an awful, an almost incredible story! It seemed somehow impossible that[Pg 91] a human being could go through such an ordeal, such harrowing brutalities, and come out alive and tell the story.

One day he said, "I ain\'t no good since my accident. Never had a chance to learn a trade or be honest. If I don\'t come across to the \'bulls\' they send me back to the \'pen\' for a year. I\'m sick of this life. Next time I\'ll do something that\'ll send me to Sing Sing for life. This dump is rotten. I\'d rather go up the river for two years than stay in here for six months."
V

The orderly asks me to attend to the consumptive, as he hates to do it himself. I have to bring him his food, I have to clean the cup which he uses as a cuspidor, and be careful to wash it in a solution of carbolic acid, and wash my hands each time afterwards.

[Pg 92]

The poor boy flies into uncontrollable fits of anger over trifles; then his face becomes almost a livid green, and he seems to be foaming at the mouth—little flecks of foam and saliva—like a vicious horned toad. When in that state I usually speak to him in a low, monotonous voice, hoping to quiet him; and after a while he becomes calmer, his features relax, his body slowly unbends, and he finally slips under the bed sheets, going to sleep as if the effort had completely exhausted him.

It used to remind me of the snake charmers in India, taming angry and hissing cobras by the monotonous sound of a flute. Suddenly the hoods would fold, the terrible fanged mouths close, and the snakes would wag their heads slowly to and fro, with little red tongues playfully wiggling in sign of delight until placed, harmless and hypnotized, in a capacious basket.

I do not know if it was my arguments or my voice that attained the object with my[Pg 93] consumptive patient, but the result was evident after I had talked to the poor boy for a few minutes.

In great excitement he confessed to me one morning that he had made up his mind to commit suicide if his fine was not remitted, and he was not released after his one year term. I told the Sister of Mercy of his threat and she promised to see to it that the judge would remit the fine. When the day of his release came, much to my relief, he was freed.

I have reached some interesting conclusions as a result of my observations of the ways of the convicts and their attitudes towards one another.

Life in a prison, under ignorant and often vicious wardens and keepers, although seemingly leveling the men\'s standard to the most degrading and contemptible measure allowed by law, does not eradicate the convict\'s idea of class. A class, or perhaps it[Pg 94] would be better to say a caste system, exists here, as in all the jails all over the world, as well and as subtly graded as social life in Manhattan, London, or Benares.

The Camorra, of Naples, originated in the jails of the old kingdom of Naples during the rule of the Spaniards and Bourbons, being invented by the convicts to protect themselves against the greed of the prison authorities. Later it branched out and was organized outside. The same holds true in America, in the sense that convicts in prison plot and plan crimes before their release, and agree to continue their acquaintance and work on the outside. Boys and young men serving their first term are easy prey for older and wiser criminals.

Although the ideas of caste in prison are not the same, and are not formulated according to religious, financial, intellectual or aristocratic standards, nevertheless the principle is the same. In most societies the leaders are people with "blood," money, or [Pg 95]privileges of some sort. In India the high caste Brahmin is born to his station, and no amount of money or intellectual attainment can make one if he is not born to it.

In prison the ethical standard is as simple as the cave dweller\'s, or as that of savage tribes. Caste among convicts is a sop to their vanity, to their outraged and primitive sense of justice; society made them outcasts, and they retaliate by creating a society of outcasts wherein they strive to become the leaders, the greatest, the bravest, the cleverest among the Pariahs; and like the Pariahs they consider other castes outside as lower than their own.

Convicts admire physical prowess and brute strength, fearlessness, "nerve"; they look up to those who commit deeds of violence, such as gang men, bandits, burglars; men who will take their chances at killing or being killed rather than be arrested.

Next to these in the order of caste come the more intelligent but less courageous[Pg 96] types of crooks, such as confidence men, forgers, gamblers, dishonest bankers, embezzlers, lawyers, politicians. They represent the intellectual aristocracy of crime, to be approved of but not to be put on the same plane as the former.

To the third caste, even less brave, less cunning, belong the sneak thieves, the pickpockets, repeaters, bums; marking the border line on its downward course with such types as wife beaters, wandering tramps, bums, and dope fiends who steal only to satisfy their irresistible cravings for drugs. Those individuals who live on white slavery, professional degenerates, and their like, are ridiculed and nagged by the upper castes; the effeminate "sissies" are also a constant butt for the jests and abuse not only of convicts, but of keepers as well.

On the lowest rung of the social ladder stand the stool pigeons and the detectives who are so unlucky as to be sent to prison. These latter are hated, abominated, [Pg 97]despised, by their fellow prisoners with all the intensity, ferocity, and implacable hatred of which such men are capable. It sometimes happens, in spite of the vigilance of the keepers, that they are murdered in prison. In the minds of the other convicts these stool pigeons and detectives are their most dangerous foes, because of the intimate knowledge they possess of the technique of crime, and because of the similarity of their ways of living.
VI

The one-legged, bull-faced negro in the hospital was watching my assistant, who, of his own volition, and without being ordered to do it, was laboriously polishing the brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

"That boy ain\'t no thief," he remarked philosophically. "A thief is a thief \'cause he won\'t work, in or out of jail."

A crook will waste many days, nay, sometimes weeks and months, and take infinite[Pg 98] pains to plan a robbery, the result of which he imagines is getting something for nothing. Sometimes the prize is nothing, sometimes it is considerable; and then it is dissipated in gambling, dope, and riotous living. The fruit of legitimate work he considers a meagre result of foolish painstaking effort.

The mental calibre of these men is similar to that of naughty, precocious children, or of savages; they have streaks of yellow and streaks of insanity; they often have a strong will, but no morality; a keen intelligence, but no principle; a purpose, but no good or high-minded ambition. Almost without exception they are gamblers; they lack imagination, but they are possessed of an over-weening, childish vanity; they have great stubbornnesses, but no sense of proportion or responsibility.

Their ideals are wholly physical; they love fine clothes, jewelry, good food; they admire the fair sex, they crave money for all the[Pg 99] physical results it will bring. They are very proud of their criminal successes, of their reputations as "tough guys," bad men with terrible records, fierce and relentless in their loathing for "squealers" and "bulls."

They consider their gallery of Immortals as unique, and never sufficiently appreciated by those outside their world of life.

A complete lack of imagination prevents them from foreseeing the futility and the inevitable result of their lonesome battle against the united forces of society.

An almost unanimous characteristic is their cheap sentimentality, but at bottom they are nearly always kind hearted. They have, too, a keen sense of justice, and often they are willing to admit that they deserve their punishment; but they rebel savagely against the injustices, the inhuman treatment, the tortures, inflicted by prison authorities. It is the helplessness of these prisoners, and the indifference of the public towards them and their fate, that make prison[Pg 100] authorities so cowardly and brutal. A healthy publicity in prison matters, and a more charitable and sympathetic attitude on the part of the public, would very soon change the attitude of the wardens and the keepers.
VII

In the beginning the reticence of the convicts puzzled me, even after I knew that they regarded me as a political prisoner and not as a stool pigeon. Only after a long acquaintance, and then unwillingly, would they admit shamefacedly that their living was acquired by criminal methods. More than any other argument this proved to me that their criminal pride is only a bluff, their pose as "tough guys" only a pretence, and the supposed excitement of their profession only a misdirected and false energy. Their vainglorious, strutting behaviour is really the result of the insulting, [Pg 101]demoralizing, contemptuous attitude of the prison authorities, which seems to say: "We are virtuous men; you are only crooks and bums. We are paid by the authorities and the state to punish you and to break your spirit."

The convicts believe that few of the keepers are virtuous or honest men, and the constant revelations of prison graft only arouse their envy, and the galling thought that they are the helpless victims of a higher type of crooks. In seeming self-defense, therefore, they assume their attitude of revenge toward society, of stubbornness and pride and defiance toward the keepers. They soon discover, if they have not already learned, that humanity, charity, and justice are not to be expected from their oppressors; and that our justice is not Christian, nor scientific nor human; but only vindictive, wasteful, idiotic and indeed blind. And so in despair these misguided men become more vicious, hardened and corrupt than they were before prison took a hand in their shaping.

[Pg 102]

A prison term, which is supposed to reform them and to break their wills, is only a school for criminality, a higher school or university for the underworld, where confidences are exchanged, new alliances are formed, diseases and homosexual habits contracted. The spirit is tempered for future criminal records, instead of being broken, and the body strengthened for coming excesses.

The line of convicts which upon their release streams out of our prisons, is like a large sewer emptying its filth back into society; slowly corrupting, demoralizing and polluting everything it touches.

The stool pigeons are feared by the convicts as well as by the keepers. They keep the warden informed of the mysterious happenings, among the prisoners, and the illicit relations between the keepers and the convicts. In their turn the stool pigeons are rewarded with privileges, such for instance[Pg 103] as not being punished for infractions of the rules, which would mean the terrible "cooler" to the ordinary convict. The wardens\' greatest fear is that letters written by convicts relating some of the outrageous occurrences of every day in prison may reach the columns of a newspaper and bring about unpleasant notoriety, and even a more disagreeable investigation.

On very rare occasions some angry convict will write to a newspaper relating his unpleasant experiences, but the rule is that the sooner one forgets having been behind the bars the better it is.

A prisoner caught sending communications to the outside world by underground methods, without having his message read by the office, is punished with a few days in the dreaded "cooler."

This is what the "cooler" is: The convict is divested of all clothes except his underwear, and he is then taken to a cell which contains only a bucket and a wooden plank[Pg 104] on the floor as a place of rest and sleep. The cell is hermetically closed by a door which keeps out all light and air. A little ventilation, just enough to keep him from suffocation, comes through a small hole in the wall. The darkness is like a solid mass; it is so intense that the prisoner cannot see his hand near his face. Every twenty-four hours the cell is opened and the convict is given a thin slice of bread and about a thimble full of water, just enough to keep him alive. This performance is repeated according to the length of the punishment, that is to say, the door is opened only once in twenty-four hours, to permit the giving of food and water and the emptying of the bucket, whether the prisoner stays in that awful place one day or twenty-one. Many prisoners have been known to stay in the cooler for weeks at a time.

After having lived in complete darkness for a long time, coming out into broad daylight causes untold agonies, and very often[Pg 105] has tragic effects upon the eyes and eyesight of the prisoner; usually they have to be sent to the hospital to be treated for inflammation of the eyes or for partial blindness. Men kept long in the cooler sometimes become driveling idiots; others go violently insane and have to be sent to Matteawan for life.

The punishments are all inflicted by the warden, on the word of a stool pigeon, of a keeper, or of a man in charge of the workshops who seems to be a contractor of almost unlimited power in the prison, second only to the warden.
VIII

The prison authorities are not supposed to abuse, vilify or use blasphemous language towards the prisoners; it is forbidden under penalty of the law.

Of course, as far as the convict is concerned, such a law or rule is a dead letter.[Pg 106] Should a prisoner protest to the warden against vilification or profanity, he would only be laughed at; and should he insist on making his complaint to the prison commissioner, his letter would never be sent, and his persecution would begin at once.

The other day a quarrel broke out between two prisoners. A keeper tried to stop it by hitting one of the offenders with his stick, and at the same time calling him an unmentionable name. The convict retaliated with a punch on the jaw that floored the keeper.

The convict was punished with two days in the "cooler," but the offending keeper was not reprimanded by the warden. And when the man came out of the "cooler," the doctor found him suffering from an inflammation of the eyes which kept him in the hospital for two months.

When he asked for writing materials he was told that the punishment meted out to him automatically eliminated all the privileges of a convict; and he was not permitted[Pg 107] to write home or to receive visitors for two months. The electric light in his cell was cut off and he was not allowed to read books or magazines, newspapers being always barred.

In the beginning of my stay in prison the use of profane language was, to put it mildly, quite prevalent; but it became rare soon after the election of Mayor Gaynor. Even their sticks were taken away from the keepers for a while. And it was discovered that discipline did not suffer in the least from the lack either of foul language or the stick.
IX

The food, brought up by a convict from the keepers\' kitchen to the hospital, is distributed by us thrice a day, on a long table covered by white linoleum and standing in the middle of the room.

We have to clean the bathroom and the[Pg 108] spittoons, sweep the floor, empty the garbage can, get the ice, make the beds, give the medicine, take the temperatures, mark the charts, help the doctor, besides giving and receiving the laundry—in short, the immediate and dirty work of the hospital is in our hands. The one happy hour of the day is at nine in the morning, when we are privileged to empty the garbage can at the docks on the Brooklyn side or go to a nearby oven to burn its contents.

For a few minutes, while filling a pail with water from the river to wash out the empty garbage can, we watch the tug boats, the canal boats, passenger boats or yachts pass by, and the people on board always greet us with a wave of the hand or a merry shout. But never have the passengers of the aristocratic yachts even condescended to look at us.

No matter if it rains or snows, or if fog hangs over the whole landscape, the few minutes alone, untrammelled by the [Pg 109]presence of a keeper or the crisscross pattern of the bars, make us feel as if we were really free men; then we march reluctantly towards the ice house to the big chest containing the supply of ice for the different departments. The ice is cut and put into the empty and clean garbage can. When there are no keepers around we linger to talk to the "skin" gang, which is composed of a few convicts whose duty it is to peel potatoes, onions, carrots and cabbage for the kitchen.

It is a great place for the exchange of news of the day—of the gossip of new arrivals, the punishments, the petty incidents or the headliners of the most important events, the opinions of the convicts about the goodness or badness of the keepers; in short it is a sort of clearing house for information as to whatever is happening in the penitentiary.

One of the men in charge of the gang is a blond, powerful, fine-looking convict of German parentage. He belongs to the[Pg 110] high caste among the prisoners, and shows it by his manner toward the lesser castes.

In the beginning he answered my questions in monosyllables, but after several months of daily intercourse, when he had thoroughly satisfied himself of my status, my attitude, and my antecedents, and when he learned that I was an aristocrat only in thought but a democrat in manners, he became talkative, and piece by piece, incident by incident, he told me of his life, until I was able to construct it almost as a whole.

He was the son of honest parents, who had started him in life as a skilled workingman. He lost his position during a strike, and one of his children died of starvation. Fearing that his other child would meet a similar fate, and seeing no prospect of another job, he started on his career as a burglar. Being a skilled mechanic, he found it easy to fashion tools for his trade, which, as he claimed, brought immediate and satisfactory results.

[Pg 111]
X

One morning as a young convict was walking on an errand towards the shops, a letter dropped from his coat onto the ground in the yard. The warden, who was walking in the same direction, not far behind, picked up the letter and shouted to the man to stop. The convict turned back and appeared confused when he saw the warden with his letter in his hands. The warden flayed him with his heavy sarcasm, upbraided him for violating the rules about writing letters, and leered at him in malicious anticipation of the punishment to come. Finally he condescended to read the letter, so as to fit the punishment with a few quotations from the letter.

But strange to relate, after he had read the letter, his frown disappeared, and with it his terrible anger. In a voice which had turned from a broken falsetto of anger to a gentle, low pitch, he inquired where the[Pg 112] young man was working, how many more months he had yet to serve, and finally asked if he had a preference for any other place besides his present assignment. The young convict reluctantly admitted that he would prefer to work in the keeper\'s kitchen.

The same day he was transferred to his new duties, which are considered privileged by convicts because of the liberty and the better food they afford. The young convict, being disgusted with the prison fare, and the monotonous, unhealthy work in his shop, with a cunning almost Machiavellian, had hit upon the original and brilliant idea of writing a letter to an imaginary friend in which he praised the penitentiary and lauded the warden in fulsome, enthusiastic, unstinted praise. He dropped the letter purposely, knowing that the warden was only a few paces behind him. The acting was done to perfection, the trick worked without a hitch, and our youthful Ulysses got his job for a laudatory song.

[Pg 113]

The tale went round the prison, and although it made the warden the laughing stock of the penitentiary, he never discovered the deception.

The warden, unlike the deputy warden, is very much disliked by the convicts. Among themselves they call him the "old hyena." Convicts as well as visitors all seem to be united in accusing him of brutality, coarseness, and intemperance of speech. Visitors who have to support themselves with their daily work find that all kinds of difficulties are put in their way. They have to get a card at the commissioner\'s office at 20th Street, then they must take a special boat, and when they arrive at the prison they are forced to wait an hour before they are searched.

Thus nearly a whole day, from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon, is given just to see the object of all the trouble, and then, separated by a thick screen of wire, they are allowed only fifteen minutes.

[Pg 114]

Under the rules visitors are permitted only once a month, but twice by a card from the prison commissioner.
XI

One day a poor Italian woman, after overcoming all the difficulties in actually getting to the gates of the prison, happened to arrive a few minutes late. The iron gates were banged in her face and she was ordered away.

She had come a long way to see her son, and she could not tear herself away from the neighborhood of the prison. She was poorly dressed, without even a hat. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. In her ignorance she looked up to the barred windows of our hospital imagining that it contained her son. She waved her hand, smiling through her tears, hoping—perhaps thinking—that she could communicate to him that little, distant greeting. Then a keeper came[Pg 115] out, shook a stick at her and ordered her away.

She went back to the docks and onto the little boat that was to carry her back to New York. As the boat moved away she continued to wave a red bandanna handkerchief until she disappeared from view.

Miss M—— came to see me one day but she was refused admittance because I had had another visitor in the same month. The warden asked her: "What do you want to see him for? Are you his wife?" "No," answered Miss M——, "I wouldn\'t visit him if he was my husband."

The warden is very punctilious and severe towards infractions of the rules relating to visits and visitors. His strict regard for the rules, however, did not deter him from allowing two detectives, sent by agents of the Mexican government, to visit me without my permission; he even placed another detective on the line next to another visitor so that he could overhear our conversation.

[Pg 116]

I had written to a friend that, as it was not only unwise, but impossible in my situation to put on paper certain matters of importance and of grave concern to me, I would wait for the day of his visit to communicate it orally.

On that day a red-headed detective was placed next in line to my visitor, ostensibly to talk to a convict; but the prisoner told me afterwards that he did not know the alleged visitor and that he had never seen him before.

I had to whisper my message in French so as to prevent the spy from overhearing and understanding it.

This proved to me that my letters were copied by somebody in the Warden\'s office, and communicated to the American lawyers representing the Mexican government; and also that somebody was powerful enough politically to give orders in the Commissioner\'s office, which in its turn placed the detective at my visitor\'s side.

[Pg 117]

But when two newspaper men asked permission to see me I was informed that I would not be permitted to stay in the hospital if I allowed reporters to visit me.

One day I heard the warden upbraid a girl who had come for the first time to see her brother. Not being used to such ill-mannered treatment she began to weep, and that of course only made matters worse.

Half an hour later the Commissioner of Prisons arrived on a visit of inspection. In the hospital he called the warden to task for something—but the warden was as mute as an oyster. Together they went into the consumptive ward, where the warden began extolling the quality and quantity of the fresh air circulating in the room. The commissioner turned round and snapped impatiently: "And that\'s about all they ever get!" But the warden never said a word. This man, this mighty czar of the penitentiary, who is so brutal and so insolent to the convicts, so arrogant to the keepers, and[Pg 118] so uncouth to the visitors, in the presence of the man who could take his good job away from him, was as meek as a lamb.

A keeper who knew the warden well remarked: "He has the soul of a valet, insulting to his inferiors and fawning to his superiors."
XII

About a dozen women convicts come twice a week to scrub the hardwood floor of the hospital. The majority of them are colored; the white women are either old and faded, or young and dissipated-looking. Very few of them are either refined or good-looking. Petty larceny is the crime for which most of them are sent to the prison.

Two negro women, young and rather tough-looking, are scrubbing the floor. They are in prison for having held up and robbed a man in the streets of New York. The man never recovered his $800.

[Pg 119]

As the convicts always attempt to joke and to flirt with the scrubbing women, they are usually ordered into the bathroom until the work is done, with the exception of the bedridden patients.

I discovered that quite a correspondence goes on between the men and women convicts. A young convict became quite enamored of a blonde, sporty-looking girl, and they took great risks to communicate their love notes. I was made the confidante in their love affair. Some of the passages read thus: "I love you, I love you, where did youse put the tobacco?" ... "I dreams of you day and night.... Get me some butter." ... "You was the best looker I ever seen.... Don\'t forget to put the matches at the foot of the stairs."

The women do not get the weekly ration of tobacco allowed to the men, and as a consequence they must beg tobacco and matches from the men.

All the house work, such as making beds,[Pg 120] sweeping, cooking and waiting on table, in the house of the warden, in the apartment of the deputy warden, and in the dormitories of the keepers and matrons, is performed by the women convicts.

An old Irish woman while in prison took such loving care of the children of a former warden that whenever her time was up and she was discharged, her weakness was encouraged, and she was even purposely made drunk, then arrested and sentenced to the penitentiary again as an old offender, year after year, until the children of the warden grew big enough to take care of themselves.

Before the present system of having a physician live in the prison came into vogue, doctors visited the patients once a day; the surgeons came over only for the operations. The operating room is always shown with great pride to visitors, but never the "cooler."

\'Twas told that one night, in the earlier period, when there was no resident physician,[Pg 121] a woman convict startled the prison with piercing cries. She was in the throes of child-birth. The doctor and the warden being absent, the matrons did not dare to open the cell. Later a young doctor from the city hospital was called in. He peered through the bars, then turned and declared that the woman would be all right in the morning. When the cell door was opened next day the woman was found unconscious and the child was dead, strangled or suffocated.

The other day I went for the first time into the women\'s section to take some medicines and carry away our laundry. The women\'s section is under the same roof as the old prison wherein I passed the first two nights. A wall divides them, but the cells and the system of tiers are the same.

The cells measure about 3 by 7 feet, with gray, damp, greasy, massive walls, without any ventilation.

As I was looking around I noticed many women sitting in their cells, some working[Pg 122] outside, sewing or knitting, others sweeping or mopping the tiers or the floor.

My attention was attracted by two women with babies in their arms. A third, a young, quite delicate, fine-looking girl convict, was sitting on a chair sewing. Near her, as if afraid to move, stood a little girl three or four years old, with dark, curly hair, red cheeks, and big, black serious eyes. She looked at me with the sad, wistful smile of some of Da Vinci\'s women.

My imagination carried me back to the trial room where the little girl had stood near her mother to hear the sentence; I thought of how she had shared with her the cell in the Tombs; how she had been carried to the penitentiary in the "Black Maria," with her mother shackled to another convict; how every night she slept in the narrow, dark, foul cell, barred and locked; how she ate the prison food, and remained all day behind gray walls, without seeing the sun[Pg 123] or the sky or any flowers—only striped convicts, matrons and steel bars.

The innocent child must have seen all these strange happenings, and wondered what it all meant. And some day, when she is grown to womanhood, or motherhood, she will remember it all, she will know that she lived with her mother in a prison. She will recall the infamy, the degradation—and the shame of it will be branded on her soul as long as she lives.
XIII

Never a month passes but some convict is brought up to the hospital to be kept under observation to determine whether he is insane or faking insanity.

The warden and the keepers always suspect prisoners of faking sickness or feigning insanity. As a rule ............