Part 5

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, 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.

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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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, 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, 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 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 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 the convicts do not like to stay very long in the hospital, as they are not allowed to smoke, and the time is very slow and tedious without any kind of work.

A small, stocky, bearded, wild-looking Italian was brought over from the Tombs before his trial. He would not touch food, and the Tombs keepers were afraid that he might die on their hands.

It took six men and one doctor, sitting on his arms, legs and stomach, to feed him a glass of milk by a rubber tube through his nostrils. It was a nauseating performance, and luckily it was not repeated.

We have to dress and undress him every morning and night. About six o'clock every morning he starts walking up and down from the bathroom to the bay window, a distance of about twenty-five paces; and he continues it all day long, without rest or pause, until nine o'clock at night. Every fifteen minutes or so he calls out in a sing-song, southern dialect: "Oh! Giorgio Washington! Warden of this great prison! My dear wife! My beautiful little children!" And then he looks up at the clock and adds: "And the Holy Ghost of the clock!"

After he has been put to bed he covers his head with the bed sheets, but every hour he sticks his head out and like a cuckoo bird in a Swiss clock he repeats his monotonous story.

Everybody is kept awake, the patients as well as the keepers. The first night an old keeper who was on watch tried to hush him up, but without success; so he stood at the head of the bed watching for the moment when the man would uncover his head again and sing out.

We waited breathlessly, looking forward to the expected minute. Suddenly the head appeared and the old keeper swiftly hit it a stinging whack with a wet towel, which cut the "Giorgio Washington" in two; the head went right back under the bed sheets for the rest of the night.

After two weeks the man was finally sent back to the Tombs. Although he had eaten only once in that time, it took half a dozen sturdy men to dress him up and turn him over to the sheriff.

Once in a moment of lucidity he asked me to get him some food, for which he was willing to pay. Then he begged me to write to his wife, and when the letter was written and addressed, he became mad again and tore it to little bits, and resumed his peripatetic, insane round.

A young Pole, about twenty-five years old, is brought over from the workhouse. His face is blue and his lips are bleeding from blows. We have to dress and undress him also like a child. Whenever food is brought, and he is told to eat, he weeps; whenever anybody speaks to him he weeps; and he whines and carries on like a frightened baby in a strange place. He has the body of a powerful longshoreman and the mentality of a new born baby.