Seventeen Years in the Underworld

The question of what to do with the prisoner during the period of his confinement has always been a difficult one. The system of leasing the labor of the prisoner to the highest...

The State prison at that time was situated in the capital of the State. A collection of old and dilapidated buildings, expressive of the misery and the suffering inside, stood w...

Punishments for escaping were usually severe. I was put in what was called the lockup. Each cottage possessed one. It was a narrow closet of a room about five by seven feet. The...

Every lane, the philosopher will tell you, has an ending. Mine stopped abruptly. A check of mine was returned to the one who supposed me a Carnegie. Having a good description of...

I entered the reform school when a few months over sixteen years of age. The following twenty-eight months in this institution marked the crucial period of my life. The things t...

The life of the school for the first six months or so was uneventful. I spent the time in learning the routine, getting acquainted with the boys, etc. My first punishment came w...

Soon after leaving prison I fell in with an old “stir” (prison) acquaintance. He was an older man than I was, wise as to the methods of the underworld, and cunning in crime. He...

The “con man,” the bank sneak, the counterfeiter (of notes) and his allies, the forger, the big dip, and the badger man are what might be called the aristocrats of the underworl...

I left prison with the determination to make good. Association and correspondence with my two friends had brought to me the full realization of the folly of the other life. As t...

I do not remember my very first act denoting criminal tendencies. The act which first brought me into the clutches of the law must have been the culmination of a passion nurture...

I was born thirty-three years ago in one of the small cities of an Eastern State. The family from which I came was well thought of, and what it lacked in the possession of money...

My sentence had been for a period of fifteen years. Allowing for a commutation for good conduct of two years and six months, I would still have to serve twelve years and six mon...

The Saturday preceding the Sunday of my arrest was one of rain. I was reading in my room when a knock sounded at my door; I opened it and found one of my acquaintances of the un...

In contrasting my life of the present with that of the underworld I am struck by the similar characters inhabiting both. The men of the underworld are little different from thos...

The professional criminal is a type little understood by the vast majority of people. Most people imagine him a type of man inherently and thoroughly vicious, with no saving gra...

One night as a group of us lolled about a camp fire I was asked to join a gang of yeggs then about to start out on a trip. I accepted the invitation, and the following two years...

I left the prison with my moral sense warped and twisted. I do not mean to say that I had lost the faculty of differentiating between right and wrong entirely. No, not that, but...

I have already mentioned the fact that I am possessed of a defective vision. I believe, and believe sincerely, that this defect of vision is a handicap to its possessor in the l...

During my career as a yegg I was arrested four times and stood trial in two of the cases and “beat” (was acquitted in) both. One case never came to trial, the other one brought...

I would fain, before concluding this story, lay before my readers the cause of the discharged prisoner. I would ask the world to take him on his promise once again. If not to fo...

The underworld weaves about its citizens a sort of magic spell. I little thought, determined as I was to lead a different life, that I would ever again listen to its call. But I...

One of the surprises of my life I received here in this same institution. It was a disappointment as well as a surprise. It was in the character of the chaplain--a minister of t...

I was taken to the county seat wherein the assault took place, and lodged in jail. My experiences in this jail were similar to my first experiences in such a place. I found ther...