After some moments, during which I presume my unseen friend was preparing for bed, I heard again a different sound; rap-rap, rap-rap, rap-rap. It said as plain as possible, “Good-night, good-night.” So I returned it in the same way. Then turning over in my narrow bed I fell asleep, and although my sleep was neither deep nor continuous it was much better than the night before.

CHAPTER VIII

The new acting Captain starts in this morning—Captain Kane. He is a handsome, neat and soldierly appearing officer, with cold blue eyes and a forceful quiet manner. Promptly on time he unlocks the levers, and George, the trusty, follows close after, pushing them down. Around the corner there is a slight delay, as the long bar on that tier seems to be somewhat out of order and will not rise far enough to allow the doors of the cells to swing open. I’m glad I’m not in one of those cells or I should be afraid of being shut in for the day. The Captain soon gets the bar raised, however, and the usual routine happens; walking along the gallery with our heavy buckets, descending the iron stairs, waiting in the passage at the door of the north wing, and marching down the yard to the sewage disposal building. Then the rapid cleaning of the buckets, leaving them to be aired and disinfected at the stands; and the march back to our cells. It is, as I supposed, a gray, cloudy day, with rain likely to come. If it does, there is no change of clothing whatever in my cell, and no way of getting one that I know of; so I hope it will not rain. But what do these poor fellows do after marching through the yard in a real drenching shower? Work until they’re dry, I suppose, if they get wet on the way to the shop; or go to bed in their cells if they get wet on the way back. This holds out to me a cheerful prospect of wet clothes all day and fourteen hours in bed in case it rains hard; for the distance from the cell block to the basket-shop would be a long walk in the rain.

What an admirable system! Excellently calculated, I should imagine, to produce the largest possible crop of pneumonia in the shortest possible space of time.

Upon my return to the cell I do my morning sweeping. I do not know where all the dust comes from, as no one else uses the cell, and I can’t see where I collect any; but dusty it is every morning.

Then I have a call from Dickinson, the Chaplain’s assistant. The poor fellow has a letter from the man who had promised him work, saying that the factory is running slack and there is no knowing how soon his job will be ready for him. He had counted on Saturday being his day of release, his wife was coming to meet him, and all his plans were made for a joyful family reunion. Now it must all go by the board. It is a heart-breaking disappointment, but he bears up bravely.

As it happens I may be able to help him. At any rate I promise to write a letter to his proposed employer. The poor fellow grasps at this slight comfort and expresses his gratitude most fervently. Then I turn my attention to breakfast.

Wednesday’s breakfast consists of hash, with the usual accompaniments of boot-leg and punk. I was told in the shop yesterday what to expect. The smell of the mess-room is beginning to be unpleasant, perhaps owing to the change in temperature. If so, what it must be on a moist warm day in summer, or on a wet day in winter when the steam is turned on, I hate to think.

The hash is not so good as yesterday’s porridge. Moreover it is rendered distinctly less appetizing by the amount of bone and gristle which I find chopped up in it. I hope I am not unduly fastidious in such matters, and an occasional inedible morsel I should not criticize; but an average of two or three pieces of bone and gristle to a mouthful seems to me excessive.

Back in my cell I write my promised letter on behalf of Dickinson; but the minutes before shop time pass so quickly that when the lever is pressed down I am not ready, and so have to make a grab for my coat and cap and fall in toward the end of the line on the gallery. During the halt at the door, however, I regain my place—third in line on the left. The rain has come, but, fortunately, it is little more than a mist. It gives me a chance, however, to venture a mild pleasantry. When the Captain is out of hearing I whisper, with as English an accent as possible, “Oh, dear me! Where did I leave my umber-rella?” a remark which causes unseemly snickers from those within hearing. The joke is quite in character, as those I hear turn largely on the various hardships and privations of prison life; although the one huge, massive, gigantic joke, which is always fresh and pointed, is the current rate of payment for a prisoner’s work—one cent and a half a day. Before this monumental and gorgeous piece of humor all other jokes seem flat and pointless.

On the march down the yard to the shop we pass the Warden. He lets us go by without any sign of recognition, which gives me another chance to get a laugh from my comrades. I whisper, “So that is the way my old friends treat me!” Apparently the prisoners can appreciate a joke better than an official; I am still a bit resentful at the way that excessively bored Bertillon clerk received my attempt at humor.

Arrived at the shop I go directly to my bench, and turning around am greeted by the cheery face of my partner. He comes up behind me, for he marches somewhere in the rear. “Well, Brown, how did you get by last night?”

“Better, thank you, Jack!”

“Well, of course you will find it hard for the first week or two, but after that you will be O. K.” By which it will be seen that my partner likes a joke as well as the next man. Then as we hang up our caps and coats and get ready for work he continues, “A new man always does find it hard to sleep when he is thinking of a wife or mother or someone else at home; but as soon as the mist clears away he begins to see and think more clearly.”

I am about to answer when a warning whisper, “Look out! Here comes the screw!” tells me that our new Captain is approaching.

“How many bottoms do you two men make a day?” asks that officer.

I look at Murphy and he promptly answers, “Five.”

“Then continue making five for a day’s work, just as you were doing under your regular officer,” says the Captain; and moves on to the next pair of men. Our new officer evidently does not propose to have the work slack off during his management of the shop.

My other shopmates have greeted me warmly, and presently I have pleasant conversations with some of them. To-day for the first time the ice is thoroughly broken, and I am quite made one of them. It happens in this way.

As we are working away, Jack and I, trying to accomplish our morning’s task with very stiff material to work with, the P. K. shows up. He has come, I suppose, to see how the new Captain is getting on with the toughest bunch of fellows in the prison. After he has conversed awhile with the Captain he walks slowly over to where we are working and remarks, apparently addressing the world in general, “Don’t you feel the draught from that door?”

As he has not spoken to anyone in particular, I look at Jack and wait for him or somebody else to answer; but Jack is bending over his work and no one seems inclined to say anything.

“Thank you, sir,” I begin politely; “as far as I am concerned I don’t mind it, for I like fresh air. It doesn’t trouble me any.”

“Well now,” says the portly and dignified dispenser of law and order, “I don’t want you men to catch cold. I think you’d better have that door shut and perhaps the windows farther open. I’ll just speak to the Captain about it. You mustn’t work in a draught if you feel it too much.”

As the P. K. steps back to the Captain I glance over at Murphy and catch an answering gleam in his eye. “It’s all right, Jack,” I remark, in a cautious undertone, “I’m wise.”

He grins. “Well, did you ever see anything so raw as that?”

I chuckle, and glance sarcastically over toward our highly respected officers. Jack continues, “Does he think he can put that over on us?”

“Not this time,” is my reply; and when the Captain, upon the P. K.’s departure, comes over to shut the door I tell him that if he doesn’t mind we should prefer to have it left open, to which suggestion he kindly yields. It is a large double door and gives light as well as fresh air to all our part of the shop.

This little episode has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the men; I almost instantly feel that I have risen several pegs in the esteem of my comrades. Several of them who have hitherto held aloof come over for an introduction to Tom Brown. If I am on the side of the convicts against the officers, in short if I am “ag’in the government,” I must be all right. I am perfectly conscious of the barriers giving way. Of course the game I am playing has its dangers, but I believe it is the wise one. If I am really to gain these men’s confidence, I must be on the convicts’ side and act the part completely. I must look at matters from the convicts’ point of view; and scorn of all forms of hypocrisy and double dealing on the part of those in authority as well as good faith with your pals seems to be the platform upon which all the best men stand. And these are mighty fine qualities outside prison; why then are they not equally fine inside? Are not truth and courage and devotion to be welcomed wherever found? And are not falsehood and hypocrisy always hateful? A certain man who is serving time here, although innocent of the crime for which he was sent, because he could not escape conviction without implicating two of his friends is a type. “But then,” he once explained to me, “you see, I had done a good many things for which I had not served time. And our code of ethics is based upon the rule that you must never squeal on a pal.” It was the same man who, when he once started to complain of the injustice of some term he had served and I had said, “Yes, but you must consider the other side of it,” broke into a smile and answered:

“You are entirely right. I’ve calculated that I still owe the state of New York two or three hundred years.”

But all that is another story.

Before the morning is over George, the trusty, comes along saying: “Shave, Jack?” “Yes.” “Shave, Brown?” “No, thank you.”

So my partner goes under George’s hands for his semiweekly barbering, and in due time reappears, looking his best. If anyone should ask me how good is Jack’s best, I should have to answer that I have not the least idea. By this time I am becoming so attached to my open-hearted, whole-souled partner that I can only look at him with the eyes of affectionate and indiscriminating friendship.

While Jack is getting shaved I work on steadily, chatting with Stuhlmiller, “Blackie,” whose name I find is Laflam, and Jack Bell, who marches second in line on the right, and who has a pleasant voice and seems like an exceptionally intelligent fellow.

We return to the cell house at the usual time; and fortunately the rain has ceased, so I do not have the experience of a wet day—an experience I am quite willing to forego.

At dinner we have pork and beans, the beans not at all bad. We also have tea instead of coffee. I can make out but very little difference in these two beverages. I should say they must both be prepared in some such apparatus as is described by the boy in “Mugby Junction”: “A metallic object that’s at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork.”

After dinner I have a long talk with Roger Landry. He grows confidential, telling much about himself—completing the story, part of which he gave me yesterday. It interests me greatly. And it is just this vital human element that is making my experiment so much more absorbing than I had expected.

At the usual time we march back to the shop, where I have two new experiences.

The first is a glimpse of the school. I am working away steadily with Jack when an officer suddenly appears at my elbow. “Is this Thomas Brown?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Professor wants to see you at the school.”

Meekly putting on my cap and coat, I follow the keeper out of the shop. At least I prepare to follow—I wait for him to lead the way, but he motions me to go ahead of him. Then I realize that an officer escorting a convict always walks just behind, where he can keep a watchful eye on every move of his charge.

The school is only a few steps away, in fact in the second story of the very building of which our shop occupies the ground floor. I ascend the stairs, and passing through a hall find myself in the principal’s office. Here I am told to wait until the Professor is at leisure. I wait a long time. When he arrives he gives me a single sheet of paper, and tells me to write a composition on the subject of My Education.

I sit down and quickly fill two pages with a succinct account of my stay at different institutions of learning, ending with my graduation from the university. Then I simply add that, while this has been the end of my schooling, I hope my education is still going on.

The Professor having left the room again while I am writing, I have another considerable wait. The school appears to be much larger and more important than when I saw it last, some years ago. I should like to see more of it. After a while the Professor returns and reads over my paper. His only comment is one regarding my university degree. The Chaplain has already told me that there are twenty college graduates confined in prison here, but I am pleased to have the Professor add the information that I am the only Harvard graduate in the institution. I repress the inevitable impulse to say, “I suppose the others come from Yale,” and simply express gratification at what the Professor has told me. I have already decided to reserve all jokes for my comrades.

“That is all, Brown.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I cannot even be trusted to go down one flight of stairs and walk not more than thirty steps to the door of the basket-shop; so another wait is necessary until the keeper who brought me up is ready to take me back. He in time reappears and returns me, like a large and animated package, to Captain Kane. I appear to have satisfied the authorities with my mental equipment.

My second new experience to-day is the bath. The order to fall in comes soon after my return from the school. We are lined up and counted—35 of us—each man with his towel, soap and bundle of clean clothes. My fresh apparel appeared yesterday in the shop and George kindly took care of it for me until to-day. We march in due order to a large bathhouse where are rows of shower baths with small anterooms for dressing, arranged about three sides of a large, oblong room with a raised promenade for the officers down the middle. I am for plunging at once into my section, heedless of the careful instructions Jack has given me, but one of my companions stops me, and I wait like the others with my back to the door until we have all been counted and placed. Then the word is given, and I enter. Here is a very small space where I undress, handing the shirt, socks, and underclothes I take off to an attendant who sticks his hand under the door to get them. Then I enjoy a good warm shower for a few moments, but cut it short, having been warned that I must not waste any time. The drying and dressing are rather harder than the disrobing in such confined quarters, but are successfully accomplished, and I am among the first to emerge and take up my station outside, with my back to the door again. The officer, who has been walking up and down his elevated perch, keeping close watch of our heads while we bathed, counts us all carefully when the space in front of every man’s door is occupied. We then are marched back to the shop, are again counted, and then disperse to our work.

But the excitements of the day are not yet over. As Jack and I are working hard to make up for lost time, I suddenly see over to the left, out of the corner of my eye, a familiar figure. It is my nephew. He is followed by another familiar figure and another and another. The Warden is showing over the prison a party of visitors, among them several of my intimate friends.

I fear that the remark with which I explode will not bear repetition.

“What’s the matter?” says Jack, looking up from his work.

“Nothing,” I reply, “it’s only my nephew, confound him, and some other rubbernecks. For Heaven’s sake, Jack, work away as usual and don’t attract any attention if we can help it.”

My eyeglasses are in my pocket; and fearing that my ring may catch the light I hastily drop it also into another pocket. Then I put on my cap and continue my work as naturally as possible, without looking up.

Certainly, so far as appearances go, the prison system is a success in my case. In arithmetic, as I recall it, we used to seek for the greatest common denominator and the least common multiple; but in prison the apparent object is to find the least common denominator—the lowest common plane upon which you can treat everyone alike, college graduate and Bowery tough, sick and well, imbecility and intelligence, vice and virtue.

In appearance, as I started to say, I am apparently all that could be desired. Just as happened yesterday, the Warden leads this party through the shop; they are all looking specially for me; they have been spurred on by the failure of the newspaper men yesterday and are one and all determined to find me. Yet they one and all pass within twenty feet, look straight in my direction—and go on their way without recognizing me. I must have the marks of “the Criminal” unusually developed, or else criminals must look a good deal like other folks—barring the uniform. If I had the ordinary theories about prisons and prisoners it might seem rather mortifying that, in spite of every effort, not one of these intimate friends can spot me among the toughest bunch of fellows in the prison.

Certainly something must be wrong somewhere.

This appears to be an afternoon of excitements. Down comes the P. K. again, for what purpose I do not know. The afternoon is cloudy and it is getting somewhat dark and gloomy in the shop. After the P. K. has spoken to the Captain he comes over and tells us fellows that we can quit work if we want to, as it is too dark to see well. He points to the north windows, where a car of lumber on the track outside interferes somewhat with the light in that part of the shop. After he is gone we continue working, as we can see perfectly well; and Jack is still more scornful than he was this morning. He expresses the opinion that this proceeding is even more raw than the former one. “I should like to know how long it is since they was so careful of our eyes, so awful anxious about our health!” is his sarcastic comment.

My answering comment is this, “I dare say, Jack, it’s all right; but, so far as I am concerned, they can’t come it over me that way.”

“Well, I guess not!” is Jack’s hearty response.

After we have washed up and just before we separate for the night my partner comes up to me in his engaging way. “Say, would you mind if I called you by your first name?”

“Mind! I should like it; and I wish you would.” As a matter of fact I had been intending to ask him to do so.

So now it is “Good night, Tom,” “Good night, Jack!” when the time comes to fall in.

As we turn into the yard, I see a group of men gathered about the entrance of the main building. I suspect it to be the same party of rubbernecks the Warden conducted through the shop this afternoon—including my friends. They are evidently waiting for us to march by. As we draw nearer I find that my suspicions are confirmed. I conclude that they failed to discover me in the shop, and so are taking this means of gratifying their curiosity. They are welcome to do so. I look as unconscious as possible; go swinging by the group, eyes front; pick up a slice of bread and regain my cell as usual.

It seems that this time two or three of them, recognizing my walk, spotted me at last. I should think it was about time.

Soon after I am in the cell my friend Joe, the gallery boy, comes along with the hot beverage called tea, which is a little later than usual to-night. He halts at the door.

“Tea, Tommy?”

One of the prisoners has sent me a letter in which he addresses me as “old pal.”

I think there is no doubt that the barriers are down now.

CHAPTER IX

The twenty minutes of musical pandemonium come and go, the violinist as usual being the first to begin. Perhaps he may be the fortunate possessor of a watch. Then, also as usual, a silence follows, rendered all the more profound by reason of the previous discord. The cell-house has settled down for the night. Only a few muffled sounds make the stillness more distinctly felt. Then——

Suddenly the unearthly quiet is shattered by a terrifying uproar.

It is too far away to hear at first anything with distinctness; it is all a confused and hideous mass of shouting—a shouting first of a few, then of more, then of many voices. I have never heard anything more dreadful—in the full meaning of the word—full of dread. My heart is thumping like a trip hammer, and the cold shivers run up and down my back.

I jump to the door of the cell, pressing my ear close against the cold iron bars. Then I can distinguish a few words sounding against the background of the confused outcry. “Stop that!” “Leave him alone!” “Damn you, stop that!” Then some dull thuds; I even fancy that I hear something like a groan, along with the continued confused and violent shouting.

What can it be?

While I am perfectly aware that I am not in the least likely to be harmed, I am shivering with something close akin to a chill of actual terror. If anyone near at hand were to give vent to a sudden yell, I feel as if I might easily lose my self-control and shout and bang my door with the rest of them.

The cries continue, accompanied with other noises that I cannot make out. Then my attention is attracted by whispering down at one of the lower windows in the outer wall of the corridor opposite my cell. It is so dark outside that I can see nothing, not even the dim shapes of the whisperers; but apparently there are two of them, and they are looking in and commenting on the disturbance. Their sinister whispering is very unpleasant. I wonder if they can see what is going on. I feel inclined to call out and ask them, but I do not know who they are; and I do know that such an act would be entirely against the rules and liable to provoke severe punishment, and I am not yet ready to be sent to the jail.

The shouts die down. There are a few more vague and uncertain sounds—all the more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere an iron door clangs! then stillness follows, like that of the grave.

It is useless—I can make nothing of it all; so I sit down again and try to compose my mind to write, but the effort is not very successful. Presently, just after the bell at the City Hall has given its eight o’clock stroke, the Warden appears quietly at the opening of my cell.

“Something has happened,” I begin breathlessly, “I don’t know what it is, but it ought to be looked into——”

I come to an abrupt stop, for I am suddenly aware of the figure of a man standing in the shadow just behind the Warden.

“Who is that?” I ask, and he steps farther along the gallery, but not where the light from the cell can strike him.

“Only the night officer,” answers the Warden.

That is all very well; but why was the night officer lurking in the dark behind the Warden? I decide to ask him a plain, direct question; for he has already heard what is uppermost in my mind.

“Captain,” I say, politely, “what was that noise I heard a short while ago?”

The officer, pretending that he has not heard my question, turns to the Warden with some perfectly irrelevant remark, and moves off, along the gallery.

It strikes me as a curious proceeding.

“Warden,” I begin again, after waiting until the man must be out of hearing, “I heard shouting off in the corridor somewhere, not very long ago; and I am afraid something bad has happened. Would it not be well to find out about it?”

This the Warden promises to do, so I stifle my fears as best I can and turn to the events of the day. I report progress; and we again debate whether or not I had better make a change of occupation. Last evening we decided that I should remain still another day in the basket-shop; for it seemed as if I were getting as much out of my experience there as I could anywhere. The Warden is inclined to agree with me that we have been singularly fortunate so far, in the working out of our plans, and that it might be a mistake to change. Jack Murphy, when I talked with him about it to-day, said, “What good would it do you, to go and work in a shop where you can’t talk? You can learn everything there is to know about such a shop by spending ten minutes there, any time.” Then he added, with a smile, “You know, Brown, we don’t want to lose you here.” I hope this last is true, and I think it is; but, aside from that, his reasoning impresses me as good.

So the Warden and I agree that I am to stay in the basket-shop at least another day, and he leaves me to my thoughts and my fears.

I shall now put away this journal, and prepare my bed for the night. I fear that my sleep will be haunted by echoes of those dreadful sounds.

It may be well to interrupt my journal here, and explain the noises of Wednesday evening. As will be seen in Thursday’s journal, I heard many of the details the next day, but it was some time before I learned the whole story. I have examined personally several eye-witnesses of the occurrences and am convinced that the following statement is accurate.

There had lately been sent up from Sing Sing a young prisoner named Lavinsky. He is physically a weak youth; pale, thin, and undersized. His weight is about one hundred and twenty pounds; his age, twenty-one. On the charge of being impertinent to the officer of his shop, he was sent down to the jail, as the punishment cells are called, and kept there for five days in the dark on bread and water. Then he was allowed to go back to work. He did so, but was of course utterly unfit for work. The next day he was ill and remained in his cell, which was on the fourth tier on the south side of the north wing. This was on the opposite side of the cell-block from where I locked in, and a considerable distance down toward the western end of the wing; which accounts for my not hearing more distinctly the sounds which aroused in me such feelings of terror.

The day that Lavinsky returned to work was Tuesday, my second day in prison. On Wednesday he was afflicted with severe diarrhea all day, but for some reason, in spite of his repeated requests, the doctor was not summoned. The reason probably was that Lavinsky was in the state known in prison as bughouse—that is to say, at least flighty if not temporarily out of his mind. He himself, as I have subsequently found in talking with him, has no very distinct recollection of the events of that Wednesday evening. If not out of his mind, he was certainly not fully possessed of it.

In the evening, after his failure to get the doctor, Lavinsky created some disturbance by calling out remarks which violated the quiet of the cell-block. I understand that the form this took was something of this sort: “If you want to kill me, why don’t you do it at once, and not torture me to death?” He seemed to be possessed with the idea that his life was in danger. I do not know in what condition he was when first placed in jail, but I do know that the time he spent down in that hellhole, five days, was quite sufficient to account for his mental condition when he came out.

Now here was a young man, hardly more than a lad, in a sick and nervous condition that had produced temporary derangement of mind. What course did the System take in dealing with that suffering human being? Two keepers opened his cell, made a rush for him, and knocked him down. One eye-witness says that they black-jacked him, that is, rendered him unconscious by striking him on the head with the instrument of that name. During the brief scuffle in the cell the iron pail and the bucket were overturned. Then, after being handcuffed, the unresisting if not unconscious youth was flung out of his cell with such violence that, if it had not been for a convict trusty who stood by, he would have slipped under the rail of the gallery and fallen to the stone floor of the corridor four stories below, and been either killed or crippled for life.

Then the two keepers, being reinforced by a third, dragged their victim roughly downstairs, partly on his back, kicked and beat him on the way, and carried him before the Principal Keeper, who promptly sent him down to the jail again.

Let it be remembered that this poor fellow is a slight, undersized, feeble specimen of humanity, whom one able-bodied man ought to have had little trouble in handling—even if any use of force were necessary.

This scene of violence could not pass unnoticed; and the loud protests and outcries of the prisoners whose cells were near by, as they heard and saw the treatment accorded to their helpless comrade, were the sounds I heard far away in my cell. One of the trusties who, having the freedom of the corridors, was enabled to see most of the occurrence, so far forgot his position as to venture the opinion that it was a “pretty raw deal.” This remark was overheard by an officer; and the trusty at once received the warning that he had better keep his mouth shut and not talk about what didn’t concern him.

If it is realized that these officers have what almost amounts to the power of life and death over the convicts, it can be understood that such a warning was not one to be lightly disregarded.

Lavinsky, having been landed again in the jail, was kept there from Wednesday evening until Saturday afternoon. What special care or attention was given him during that time I am unable to state, but there is no reason to suppose that any exception was made in his case. Like the other denizens of the jail, he was fed only on bread and a very insufficient quantity of water—three gills in twenty-four hours—and also experienced the intolerable conditions of that vile place.

On Saturday afternoon, three days later, he was still down there, and still bughouse. Then as there was a disturbing rumor among the officials that I was planning to be sent to the jail, he was taken away about an hour before my arrival. His cell was the very one which I occupied, after it had been thoroughly cleaned.

He was removed from the jail to a special cell, where his case was taken up personally by the Warden, and where the poor youth was at last put under the care of the doctor, and received some humane and sensible treatment. When I first saw him, some three weeks after my term had ended, he had not become entirely rational, although he has since recovered himself. As I have already said, he had at first no clear recollection of the brutal treatment of which he had been the victim, nor in fact of anything that occurred at the time. Perhaps it was all the better that this was so.

An exceptionally intelligent convict, whose term expired soon after these events, and who could have had no earthly object in misrepresenting the matter, described to me after his release the episode in detail. He had been an eye-witness of the entire occurrence, as he was standing on the gallery where he could see everything that happened. He summed it up in these exact words: “Mr. Osborn, it was one of the most brutal things that I have ever seen, in all my experience in prison.”

His story is fully corroborated by what I have learned, upon careful inquiry from other men.

Doubtless some will say that the statements of convicts are not to be believed. That touches upon one of the very worst features of the situation. No discrimination is ever made. It is not admitted that, while one convict may be a liar, another may be entirely truthful; that men differ in prison exactly as in the world outside. It is held, quite as a matter of course, that they are all liars, and an officer’s word will be taken against that of a convict or any number of convicts. The result is that the officers feel themselves practically immune from any evil consequences to them from their own acts of injustice or violence. What follows from this is inevitable. Our prisons have often been the scenes of intolerable brutality, for which it has been useless for the victims to seek redress. They can only cower and endure in silence; or be driven into insanity by a hopeless revolt against the System.

Not so very long ago one of the prisoners at Auburn, on a hot night in summer, as an officer was shutting the windows in the corridor outside, called out from his cell, “Oh, Captain, can’t you let us have a little more air?”

The officer promptly went to the tier of cells whence the voice came and made a chalk-mark around the keyhole of one of the locks. When a man is “round-chalked” he is not released when the rest of the prisoners are let out of their cells, but reserved for punishment. In this case the officer mistook the cell from which the voice had come, and round-chalked the prisoner who was locked in next to the one who had dared to ask for more air.

The next morning, finding that his neighbor was about to receive the punishment intended for himself, the culprit promptly told the officer that he was the guilty party, and if anyone was to be punished, he ought to be. This honorable action was allowed no weight. He had some of his hard-earned money taken away from him, three days of his commutation cancelled, and the disc removed from his sleeve as a mark of disgrace; in short, he was severely punished—as his innocent neighbor would have been, had he not prevented it by taking the punishment upon himself.

The point is this: that no convict has any rights—not even the right to be believed; not even the right to reasonably considerate treatment. He is exposed without safeguard of any sort to whatever outrage an inconsiderate or brutal keeper may choose to inflict upon him; and you cannot under the present system guard against such inconsiderate and brutal treatment.

I should not like to be understood as asserting that all keepers are brutal, or even a majority of them. I hope and believe that by far the greater number of the officers serving in our prisons are naturally honorable and kindly men, but so were the slave-owners before the Civil War. And just as it was perfectly fair to judge of the right and wrong of slavery not by any question of the fair treatment of the majority of slaves, but by the hideous possibilities which frequently became no less hideous facts, so we must recognize, in dealing with our Prison System, that many really well-meaning men will operate a system in which the brutality of an officer goes unpunished, often in a brutal manner.

The reason of this is not far to seek—a reason which also obtained in the slave system. The most common and powerful impulse that drives an ordinary, well-meaning man to brutality is fear. Raise the cry of “Fire” in a crowded place, and many an excellent person will discard in the frantic moment every vestige of civilization. The elemental brute will emerge, and he will trample down women and children, will perform almost any crime in the calendar in his mad rush for safety. The truth of this has been demonstrated many times.

In prison, where each officer believes that his life is in constant danger, the keeper tends to become callous, the sense of that danger blunts his higher qualities. He comes to regard with mingled contempt and fear those dumb, gray creatures over whom he has such irresponsible power—creatures who can at any moment rise in revolt and give him the death blow. And as they undoubtedly possess that power, he is always fearful that they may use it, for are they not dangerous “criminals”? And undoubtedly there is basis for his fear, for some of those men are dangerous, rendered more so by the nerve-racking System.

I can conceive no more terribly disintegrating moral experience than that of being a keeper over convicts. However much I pity the prisoners, I think that spiritually their position is far preferable to that of their guards. These latter are placed in an impossible position; for they are not to blame for the System under which their finer qualities have so few chances of being exercised.

But I have been betrayed into rather more of a discussion than I intended, a discussion out of place in this chronicle of facts. I have inserted so much by way of explanation both of what I have narrated in the foregoing chapter and of what I shall have to tell in those that are to come.

Since the above was written I have run across a passage in a book on English prisons which confirms so strikingly one of the statements just expressed that room must be made for it. “The real atmosphere of Dartmoor,” says the author, Mr. Albert Paterson, writing of Dartmoor Prison, “so far as the men responsible for its well-being and discipline are concerned, is that of a handful of whites on the American frontier among ten times their number of Apache Indians. ‘We stand on a volcano,’ an officer said to the writer in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘If our convicts here had opportunity to combine and could trust one another, the place would be wrecked in an hour.’”

Aside from the author’s ridiculously belated simile of the American frontier, we have here an accurate and forcible statement of the prison keeper’s constant nervous apprehension of danger and the necessity of being prepared at any moment to sell his life as dearly as possible. And, of course, this feeling of the keeper increases his severity and the severity increases the danger, and so we have the vicious circle complete.

I am not now in any way disputing the necessity of a keeper being constantly on his guard, I am not saying whether this view of things is right or wrong, and when I use the word fear I do not mean cowardice—a very different thing, for a brave man can feel fear. I am simply trying to point out that in prison, as elsewhere, when men are dominated by fear, brutality is the inevitable result.

CHAPTER X

My first visitor is Officer X, the man who wouldn’t answer my question last evening when he was standing back of the Warden and I asked him what that noise was. This morning he is exceedingly bland and also, like the weather, oppressive. He is so very anxious to know how I passed the night; and I tell him. He then says that a thousand people have inquired of him about me; and I remark that I’m glad my experiment is arousing so much interest. He then says that several men have said to him that I must have something special in mind, that I must be here for some ulterior purpose, and they believe the result will be some dismissals among the officers; to which I say that doubtless there are many people who, not having taken the trouble to read my address in the chapel last Sunday, although it was printed in the newspapers, are quite ready to believe anything except the simple truth.

He then enters upon a long rigmarole, the gist of which is how necessary it is for a man to do his duty; with which novel sentiment I express my entire agreement. Then he adds that he has always been careful to do his own duty; upon which I make the startling comment that it is in the long run the best course to pursue. Then he casually turns the conversation around to show how closely connected he is to various admirers of my father and myself, and gracefully insinuates that he also shares these feelings; to which I can answer nothing, as this sort of thing always reduces me to embarrassed and wrathful silence. I hate to tell a man that he’s a fool, and I hate quite as much to have him take me for one.

As the officer stands there talking, it is borne in upon me that he not only knows all about last night’s disturbance, but that he was probably concerned in it, and is now deliberately trying to switch me off the track. He would not answer my question last night, and he avoids all reference to the matter this morning, substituting for the explanation which he knows I want, for he heard me speak to the Warden about it last evening, all this stuff I have outlined. Instead of being frank and telling the plain truth about last night’s occurrence, he is trying to flatter me and pull the wool over my eyes.

He walks away and the taste in my mouth is not pleasant.

Soon Captain Kane unlocks the levers, and George presses them down to release us for a new day. I regret to say that I again create some confusion on the gallery by being late; but, as there is trouble with the lock on the tier around the corner, I catch up while the front of the line is held back by the delay.

Marching down the yard, my interest is aroused by a long, whispered conversation between Roger Landry at my side and Jack Bell who is immediately in front of him. Neither is farther than a foot or so away, yet my ears are not sensitive enough to catch a single word of what they say; and when I glance toward Landry I am unable to detect the faintest motion of his lips, although the talk is still going on.

Upon return from bucket duty I sweep out the cell, finding it for some reason especially dirty. Soon after I have finished this task, I come into possession, through a channel it is best not to specify, of an account of last night’s performance, including the names of most of the actors. I judge that it is a bad business. This is the story as it comes to me.[9]

Three of the officers, among them X (just as I suspected), went into the cell of a young prisoner on one of the upper tiers of the south side, hit him over the head, handcuffed and dragged him downstairs very roughly. His offense seems to have been that he is bughouse through confinement in the jail. So in their enlightened wisdom they have sent him back there; to cure him, I suppose, on the homeopathic principle, similia similibus curantur.

Before the march to breakfast George kindly brings me another package of sugar. It is evidently of distinct advantage, in more ways than one, to stand well with the trusties; I wish I knew them all, but possibly some may be afraid to show themselves at the door of my cell. I have a vague feeling that it is being closely watched.

Breakfast to-day consists of some kind of porridge, with the usual bootleg and punk. Thanks to George, I do not need the sugar which Landry again offers me; and, having more than enough for my own portion of porridge, I silently pass what I have left to my neighbor on the other side, who receives it without daring to express any evidence of gratitude.

Arrived back in my cell, George stops to have a pleasant chat with me, and tells me a little about himself and his experiences. Then, after the usual operations attendant upon our release from the cells, we march down the yard and arrive at the basket-shop, ready for the business of the day.

Murphy is on hand with his usual cheerful smile:

“Well, good morning, Tom.”

“Good morning, Jack.” And upon this more intimate footing we commence our fourth day’s work together.

As I left a bottom incomplete last evening, I begin work with vigor in order to finish it; but unfortunately the rattan we are now using is so stiff and rotten that it not only breaks constantly and is very hard on the fingers, but makes good workmanship quite impossible. Finally we are compelled to stop altogether, while the withes are taken and soaked in hot water, instead of the cold water in which they have been lying over night. Once in a while we have been getting soft and pliable withes that make work easy and pleasant, but most of them have been very brittle and difficult to handle.

While we are waiting for material, I hear the name of Brown called out; and find that I am told off, along with Jack and a number of others, to help pull up another car. This time it is lumber and not coal; the identical lumber, in fact, that stood in front of the north windows and caused the P. K. such anxiety about our eyesight yesterday afternoon.

The gang is duly counted and handed over to the officer charged with the job; and soon we are enjoying the exercise of successive tugs of war with the block and tackle, similar to those of Tuesday. It is not so hard a job as that was, however, there being but one car and that a comparatively light one; so Jack and I regret that our spell of exercise is not longer and stronger. It is far better than nothing, however, and we return, refreshed and invigorated, to our basket-work.

While we are waiting for working material, Jack approaches me cautiously, leaning against the table with a very listless air, as if nothing were further from his thoughts than a subject of serious import.

“Did you hear anything last night, Tom?” he asks, turning his face just enough in my direction to reach me with his voice, which is subdued to its lowest tone.

“Did I? I should think I did,” is my low reply. “What can you tell me about it?”

Jack repeats the story substantially as I have already heard it. The affair happened in one of the upper tiers almost directly over him, but he could see nothing of it, and he only heard the details through others. He thinks it is a bad matter, and adds one new item of information. He says that a certain trusty has threatened to go to the Warden about the case; he told the P. K. to his face that he would do so, and the P. K. threatened the trusty with retaliation if he did; but that the man feels so outraged by the brutality he witnessed that he intends to do it in spite of the P. K.[10]

I know this particular trusty and should be sorry to have him get the ill-will of the P. K., or any of the prison authorities. So I decide to try to take steps to prevent this. Convicts, as I have already hinted, have underground means of communication of which the officials do not always know.

The truth of this last statement was demonstrated in an interesting way this morning. Strict orders were given by the Warden when I first came here that there was to be no photographing. We cannot prevent publicity about this affair of mine. But at least we can, and have, cut out the moving pictures; and discouraged other attempts to exploit and emphasize the personal side of it. It is not our fault if many of the newspapers print ridiculous statements which are not founded upon fact.

I have, by the way, been seeing a number of newspapers, as the men in the shop are all keenly interested and are anxious to share with me any “Tom Brown dope” that comes their way. Every day half a dozen papers reach me in roundabout ways. I always read them, taking care to lurk behind a post or otherwise screen myself from the eye of the Screw. Captain Kane, like Captain Lamb, evidently feels that it is well to temper discipline with tact and discretion. He is firm in manner, quiet and self-contained, allowing no liberties from anyone, but evidently bent upon doing his duty and at the same time being kindly and fair in his treatment of the men.

What I started to say was that the order against photography was obeyed until to-day. There is doubtless a good reason for this morning’s exception—I have to leave that for the Warden to explain; but while Jack and I were talking, one of the convicts passing behind me said in an undertone, “Look out, Brown! Camera inside.”

In due course of time, Grant makes his appearance, showing around a visitor who carries a kodak. He makes no attempt to exercise the machine in our neighborhood, and is simply shown through like any other visitor. Not long after he is gone the hour of noon approaches. We form in due order, and, while awaiting the signal to start, for the first time I dare to turn my head sufficiently to get a good look at the dapper young prisoner who leads the right line of our company, the back of whose head and manner of marching had so pleased me. And whom should I discover him to be but my own boss, Harley Stuhlmiller. Here have I been three days marching behind him ten times a day, and seeing him at frequent intervals all day long in the shop; and now for the first time I am able to match his face and the back of his head together. This gives a good idea of the remoteness of man and man in this unnatural place.

We make our usual march down to the stands, where each man secures his bucket, and then back up the length of the yard.

Sure enough—there he is. The camera fiend is standing with Grant and some others just outside of the main door. Evidently he has not been told that at noon we turn aside to the door leading into the north wing; it is only at night that we march directly into the main building in order to secure our bread for supper. The men quickly catch the humor of the situation, and there is a deal of quiet enjoyment of the photographer’s disappointment. He hastens down toward us, but only succeeds in snapping our rear ranks as we enter the building. Tom Brown has escaped him.

It is certainly wonderful how news gets about in this prison. From what the Warden tells me this evening, it could not have been more than half an hour after the man with his kodak entered the front gate before the warning of his camera was received by me, over at the farther end of the yard. The Marconi system hasn’t very much advantage in speed over the wireless telegraphy of the prison.

My first action upon getting back to the cell is to get my own telegraphic system in working order, so as to get word to that trusty who has threatened to go to the Warden about last night’s occurrence. I want him told not to attempt to go over the head of the P. K., but to leave the whole matter to me. I send two messages through the secret channels and then get ready for dinner.

That meal, when we reach the mess-hall, turns out to be corned beef, potatoes, an excellent pickled beet, and the usual bread and coffee. I eat with more relish than usual, and find the time allotted for the meal altogether too short for a proper enjoyment of it. Or perhaps the word enjoyment is a little too strong—let us say, for a proper disposal of it.

Upon returning to my cell I find a piece of paper folded up to its smallest capacity lying on the floor. It is a note from one of my fellow prisoners—a kite, to use the proper term. I have been receiving such documents ever since I came. They reach me in all sorts of ways; all of which ways are of course forbidden. Some of the notes are business-like, some are rambling and incoherent, some are sad, some are humorous, all are characteristic and good tempered. The majority contain requests to see the writers, after I get through my bit. Some go into long accounts of themselves and their experiences. One has written a good-sized pamphlet, telling his life-story in considerable detail. All of them are filled with a pathetic sense of gratitude toward Tom Brown, their new pal. They seem to think that I am making an unheard-of sacrifice for their sakes.

It is curious how far away is the feeling of dread of this place that I used to have; that I must confess to have had even when I decided to come here. Exactly the same, I imagine, as one would feel about entering a den of wild beasts, except that these were capable of being talked to and reasoned with. I suppose I did have some little, a very little, notion of personal danger, which now seems wholly absurd. I have at present a sense of companionship and sympathy with these men, as warm and strong as I have ever felt anywhere. It is accompanied, of course, by a great feeling of pity for their mistakes, the bitterness of their expiation, and the well-nigh hopeless difficulty under present conditions of regaining their hold upon life.

After the regular period of rest in the cell after dinner, and my usual calls from the trusties, we march back to the shop. The routine is always the same. Again I hear the clicking far away to the left around the corner. Whereupon I rise from my shelf-table, unhook and drop it down, put away my writing materials in the locker, and don my coat and cap. Again the Captain passes by, unlocking the levers as he goes. He quickly finishes the remainder of the cells on this side of the tier, then repasses, pressing down each lever just long enough to allow the grated door to be pushed open by the prisoner waiting inside. Again I shove my door open as quickly as possible and follow immediately after the Captain; for all the men who belong in front of me in the line lock in farther along the gallery. When we reach their cells I drop behind enough to give them their proper places, and thus there is a minimum of disorder when we have descended the flight of iron stairs to the door and are lining up in double column for our march down the yard.

The marches too are always the same—day after day—with only slight variations; as for instance the one after breakfast when, as it is unnecessary to visit the sewage disposal building, we march directly to the shop. But this afternoon it is the same as all afternoons; short-step at first until all the company have reached the walk; then a rap of the keeper’s stick and full-step down the yard; swing around to the left; through the sewage disposal building for the benefit of the few who bring down their buckets in the afternoon; a momentary pause at the stands and then away to the shop. As we go down the half dozen steps into the building we break ranks and Jack Murphy comes up from his place, somewhere in the rear, with his usual pleasant greeting.

“Well, Tom, how did you enjoy your dinner?”

“It was all right, only to-day I didn’t have time enough to eat it.”

“No, they cut us pretty short sometimes at dinner.”

No incident of particular interest happens this afternoon. My fingers are getting rather stiff and sore, working with the hard and brittle rattan that they give us. It is discouraging to attempt good work with such material, but we do the best we can. Stuhlmiller has taken the matter up with John, the citizen instructor, whose last name I have not yet learned, and with Captain Kane. They are thinking about repairing an old vat where the withes can be properly heated and softened by steam. That is all right, but it won’t help my fingers much, as I shall be out of here long before it is done.

About my going out there is a little joke. Every man wants to know how long I’m going to stay here. I tell them I don’t see how I can remain beyond Sunday, as there is business I have to attend to in New York City next week. Whereupon Jack winks his eye and, speaking to the questioner in a loud whisper, says, “Oh, these new guys are always thinkin’ they ain’t going to stay long. New trial, or pardon or something. He’ll be here for some time yet, so don’t you worry. He’s a little bug about going right out, you know.” A joke which has its non-humorous side; founded, as it undoubtedly is, upon many a grim fact. As the Scotch saying runs, “A true joke is no joke.”

In the course of the afternoon, talking again of last night’s occurrences upon which no further light has come, I retail to Jack my visit from Officer X this morning, and that gentleman’s conversation. At the conclusion Jack looks over to me with scorn on his honest face and blurts out, “Say! I wonder what they take you for anyway!”

“For a damn fool, evidently; that is, some of them do,” is my answer. “But fortunately, Jack, they can’t be all like that. Probably these officers last night were afraid that I should hear the disturbance that young fellow was making, and felt that they must hustle and get him out of the way on that account. At least that’s how I am inclined to figure it out.”

“Well,” says Jack, “some of them seem awful anxious to know all about you. They come around to my cell every night and ask after my partner’s health, and want me to tell them about everythin’ you say and do. But you can bet I throw ’em off the track. Say,” he continues, “I just wish you could have seen one of the screws last night when he asked me how long you were goin’ to stay here, and I told him that from what I heard you say I judged it wouldn’t be much over two months. Gee! but you should have seen his face! He was just horrified.” And Jack laughs heartily at the recollection.

“Too bad to give the poor fellow a jolt like that. But after all, Jack, the keepers act a good deal as most any of us would in their places.”

This kindly view is not perhaps altogether sincere on my part; but I do not wish to use my influence to stir up trouble between the keepers and the prisoners. Without standing up for the keepers when they are wrong—to do that would be to forfeit the confidence of my companions, I shall do my best to make the men feel that resistance to authority is both foolish and useless. Prisoners cannot expect to have things to their liking; but neither can keepers expect their charges to be blind to hypocrisy, or to acquiesce in brutality.

In the course of the afternoon I have a long and pleasant talk with Jack Bell. A convenient post is just at my right, behind which Bell stands, screened from the view of the Captain. I can talk low without turning my head, and the officer cannot tell that I am not talking to Murphy. As everything else is going on as usual and the men working near pay no attention, not even looking at us, we are able to enjoy quite a prolonged conversation. Finally, however, the Captain seems to suspect something and steps down from his platform, but Bell glides off quietly and with an admirable innocent air of business. The Captain returns to his seat, apparently satisfied.