Part 4

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."

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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.

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. 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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