Part 7

It occurred to me that the officers of the institution would do well to study the rule of the Board which directs that "no irritating language" be used to the prisoners. The provision was a good one. It needed an additional quality, the oversight which compelled it to be carried out.

"If I were to get angry and scold I could hardly have confidence to teach you to be gentle and good-tempered. Now, Sarah, as you are only here Sunday, let us talk about the crime that brought you into this place."

"It wasn't a crime, ma'am. I'm sure I only took from the rich. I never lifted from any but the big stores where they lie and steal and make fortunes. I never went into any of the little small places, where they are trying hard for a living. I wouldn't be guilty of such a mean thing."

"Honor among thieves," says the old proverb.

"But it did not belong to you, without regard to the way they got it. You gave nothing in return for it."

"It did not belong to them, either. It belonged to me as much as it did to them. It would be hard telling who the right owner is. I thought I might as well have my share."

"I do not see that you had any share in it. You were taking that for which you made no return to any one, and that was stealing."

"If it had belonged to them it would be stealing. They take it, and dress their children up, and make a great show on it. My children are as good as theirs. Don't you suppose I want them drest up as nice when they go to school, and look like other children? I can't earn the things if I work ever so hard, so I lift from those that cheat out of others."

"Do you see what examples you are setting them? You are bringing them up to be thieves; and instead of the fine things which you covet for them, they will be drest in the same uniform that you are."

"Never, ma'am; never! my children shall never be thieves!"

"But they will do as you do."

"No, ma'am, they will not do as I do. They shall not. They go to day-school, and to Sunday-school, and say their prayers at night. They will never do as their mother does!"

In saying that she choked down the sobs that rose in her throat, and brushed off the tears that were gathered in her eyes, just ready to run over the hardy old cheeks.

"If they grow up to think differently from what you do,--to look upon the sin of stealing as it really is,--they will be greatly grieved that you have committed such acts. They will be ashamed of the clothes you have stolen for them. Every time they look at them they will think, my mother stole this dress. They will think everybody knows that she stole it. They will be ashamed to look any one in the face. The other children will taunt them with it, and they will be miserable, and they will turn it back upon you. They will blush for their mother; then, how can they respect or love her!"

If there were a tender spot in that mother's heart I meant to probe it, and I succeeded. She covered her face with her hands, and her chest heaved. The big tears made their way through her fingers. She was determined to brave it out. In a very few moments she mastered her emotions, and answered me,--

"They don't know what I do, and they never shall know it."

"Don't they know where you are now?"

"No, ma'am!"

"Where do they think you are?"

"Gone a journey."

"You may deceive them that way for a time; but you are only adding sin to sin. God says 'the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon the children.' You may be sure that they will know it in the end. It was put in the papers when you came here. It is impossible to conceal what you have done, and where your sin has brought you."

"I didn't come here in my own name."

"Every one in here knows your real name; so do all of your acquaintances outside. You cannot save your children the knowledge and disgrace of your crime. Then, consider what you suffer from it."

"I don't care what I suffer, if I can only get the things for them. Talking is one thing, and living another. My children shall look as well as the best of them they go with."

That one idea had been ground into her mind by the force of her associations--the one idea of dress. It was in those above, around, below her. She had adopted it unconsciously, irresistibly.

The mother's love and pride were in that woman's heart in all their strength, and they had been developed by the circumstances around her. She did not care what she suffered if they could only be supplied with the good things which she valued because she saw the whole world setting the high price upon them. Body and soul might be the sacrifice; no matter, so she obtained them. Into what a strangely perverted channel had that mother's love run. Was that noblest, best of woman's instincts to destroy that woman's human life, and ruin her soul? God knows! He also knows how much of her sin rests upon those who profess to be following after better things; but have set her the example to make the obtaining of dress the business of her life; and placed the temptation in her way to do it dishonestly.

How much of the guilt he who causes his brother to offend ought to bear, must be decided by the Higher Judgment.

"If God had seen fit to gratify your pride, in your children, He would have provided a way for you in which you could have done it honestly. As he did not, you ought to have submitted to your lot, and done the best that you could."

How hollow those words sounded to me as they came from my lips. How easy it is to preach sound doctrine. How hard to make an impression, with it, upon minds and hearts established in their own opinions of right and wrong, and persistent in the determination to follow the wrong! If I could have had that woman under my influence a year, I might have led her into different views and ways. She was not wholly hardened, as her tears showed.

"God did intend that I should have it, and that was His way of giving it to me. He made me light-fingered, and gave me a chance to help myself. I'm willing to leave it to Him. I don't believe He will judge me any harder than He will those I took it from."

She fell back again upon what others do. I had made no progress in dispossessing her of the idea that the wrong of another mitigated her own.

"The command reads, '_Thou_ shalt not steal.' If the men that keep those large stores steal, you are not responsible for it. It is only for what you do that you will be called to give an account."

"Line upon line," I thought. "I hope you will never come in here again."

"I never mean to," and she nodded her head as much as to say, I'll be bright enough to avoid that.

"I hope you will never again do the things that brought you here."

"I shall, ma'am. For every day I'm in here, I'll have five dollars out of 'em."

She did not say this so vauntingly as she had made the assertion at first. Still there was the spirit of retaliation, of revenge, upon some one for her punishment.

"In doing that, who do you think you will spite?"

She stopped to think a moment. The question had taken her at unawares.

"I don't know. Them that put me here."

"But if you go into their store, they will know you, and watch you, and you will get caught again."

"Then I'll have it out of some of the rest of them."

"How will that spite the ones that sent you here?"

"They're all alike. It won't make any difference which I take it from."

"They are not all alike, any more than you and I are alike because we, just now, happen to be in the same place. If you go out of here and steal again, you spite yourself, and the punishment for it will fall upon your own head, and on the heads of those poor children that you have brought into the world. Those poor little things that are bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh. Does not the mother-heart melt within you in pity for those children when they come to find out that their mother is a thief? O Sarah, if you are not afraid of God's judgment, which is the most fearful thing that can overtake you, let your children be in your thoughts when you go to take what is not your own, and turn you from your wicked purpose."

"She tells ye the truth," said McMullins. "And only think of me! Here I am, the mither of five beautiful chilter as ye ever set eyes on. And me heart is sick after them. The lads are with the father, and the little girls are in the alms house. Only think what a mither I am! I have ruined meself for life, and damned me soul to hell forever."

"I don't believe anything about a hell," said Lissett. But she moved uneasily on her seat. It was easy to shake off the terror at the end of her tongue; but it was to be seen that she was haunted by a fear of it in a conscience not quite seared.

"Indade, there is. The praist has always told me that, and I've got it already whin I think what a mither I've been. God pity! God pity me!" This she said amidst sobs and tears.

"What kind of a wife were you, McMullins?"

"I don't care so much for the old man, he used to bate me sometimes, and he says he'll never live wid me any more. The minister went to see him for me, and he told him I had disgraced him; that he was fond of me once, but I had disgraced him, and put the chilter in the almshouse, and he would live wid me no more. Do you think he will? Only think what a miserable wife I've been! God pity me!"

"What did you come in here for McMullins?"

"It was all for a gallon measure, and a pint of beer. I wint in a store, and there stood a gallon measure, and a pint of ale widin it. An' sure I drank the beer like a sinsible woman; but I didn't know what to do wid the gallon measure, and I carried it to a policeman, and told him to take it. An' sure he brought me wid it to the watch-house, and thin, to the court, an' sure they gave me a year. Wasn't it too bad to give me the making of a year in here for jist a pint of beer and a gallon measure? Wasn't it a long sintence for a pint of beer, and a gallon measure?"

"I think you must have had something before you took the pint of beer and the gallon measure?"

"An' sure I had; but it was on that I lost my sinses, and got me sintence."

"You have been here before, havn't you?"

"An' sure I have."

"You were put here, probably, to keep you out of the way of temptation. If you were out you would, probably, take another pint of beer and gallon measure the first thing you did."

"I don't believe I could help it."

"I don't think you could."

I turned to one of the other women and asked: "What are you in here for, O'Sullivan?"

"For a home," said the slide woman, sharply.

"You must have a curious taste to choose this for a home."

"I had no other. The man what's the father of my child told me to steal a dress, and get in here, and be taken care of. I stole the dress, and he informed on me, and I came here."

"Why didn't he take care of you himself, after bringing that trouble upon you?"

"He couldn't. He give me all his earnings; but couldn't get work enough to do it all."

"An' sure he's nothing but a miserable drunkard hisself," said McMullins.

"It don't become the likes of you to say much about it if he is!" snapped back O'Sullivan.

A poor, old reprobate, from the wash-house, whose hair was once red, now gray, sat next.

"What are you here for, granny?" I asked.

"An' sure they swore a theft on me. I didn't desarve it. I lived with a German family on Rust Street. They missed a solid hundred dollars, and I never saw it no more nor a child unborn. But they got the sintence of ten years on me."

"How long have you been here, granny?"

"Since seven years last Christmas."

A long sentence, if it is the first one. I was sure it was not. A long life full of transgressions of the law stretched itself upon her past history.

"What are you here for, Nellie?" I asked a girl not twenty.

"A handsome Balmoral skirt took my fancy, and I'm here for it. I took a sup of liquor, and I was as rich as a Jew. I thought the Balmoral and all that I saw was mine."

"It is glorious to feel so rich!" said Lissett. "I mean to get a sup of liquor before I get back into the city."

"And be brought directly back here again."

"I shall have that one time on them."

"On yourself, you mean. It is all on yourself. The law does not suffer, nor do those who execute it, for your being here."

It was evidently a new aspect of the subject that they were the greatest sufferers for their misdoing.

"It plagues them, or they wouldn't put me here."

"It is not because you plague them; it is because that you injure others that you are put here."

The spirit of revenge, upon some one, for the punishment they were receiving, was the one that was uppermost in their minds. Revenge against those whom they had injured in the beginning; against those who made the laws, or the officials who executed them. Their idea of revenge was to commit the same deed again.

"Don't you all feel ashamed of what you have done," I asked, "when you think of it?"

"Yes, we do, that's the truth," said Annie O'Brien. "But's of no use. Nobody will ever think anything of us again, after we have been in here, and its no use to try to do any better; and we just do as bad as we can."

"But the All-seeing Eye is watching you, and, if you try to do right, will help you along. And in the life to come, where all hearts are known, you will get your recompense. Then, if you are really trying to do right you will be thought of and loved."

"It is a great while to wait for that, and it is hard."

"I know it is hard; but it cannot be long. It may be that we go at any moment; and then, it is forever and forever."

"If we could only keep that in our minds--but we forget it."

"You cannot of yourself. But if you ask the Father of your spirit to take your thoughts under his control, He will, and help you to think."

Poor things! They were ignorant of the way to control themselves. They had few to teach them in it, and none to help them in their personal efforts to overcome the evil dispositions so long indulged in.

That night, when I went into the hospital, for the closing inspection, the nurse was grumbling about the trouble one of the women had given her.

"Indeed, ma'am, this is the awfullest place a woman can get into!"

I thought I would give her a hint that it was her own misdoings that brought her there.

"What brought you in here, Mary?" I asked.

"I made my fingers too nimble with a man's pocket-book."

"You did! then you don't deserve a very good place, do you?"

"I have got my pay for it."

"How came you to do such a thing?"

"He left some money with me to keep, and I did keep it so as he couldn't get it again. He got drunk, and I thought perhaps he wouldn't remember it again."

"Men don't forget their money so easily."

"So I found to my cost."

"What did you do with the money?"

"I spent it for things that I wanted."

"You will hardly try that again if you ever have the chance."

"No, ma'am! I could have earned the two hundred and eighty dollars that I took in half the time I have been here, and had my liberty too."

"You knew it was wrong when you took the money and used it?"

"Yes, ma'am; but I wanted the things, and the money was in my hand to buy 'em. The things would be of use; and I knew that drunken fellow would waste it if he had it."

Another specimen of specious reasoning; nor is that kind of reasoning confined to convicts.

"It was not yours; you had no right to it, and that ought to have been sufficient for you. If he wasted it in drunkenness that was his sin, not yours. You could have restrained him through the laws that punish drunkenness. You could have told him how wrong he was doing, and set him a better example. Instead of that you stole, and he got drunk. You made yourself as bad as he."

"I did not think of that."

"I hope this has taught you a lesson that you will never forget,--one that will make you think. Before you had this punishment you had not the strength to resist the temptation to take the money. Now you will always remember what you have suffered here, and you will not be likely to do it again."

"No, ma'am, I don't think I shall. This is harder than working for a living outside, besides the rough handling we get. A poor living at that, and poorer clothes. And you officers don't fare much better. You get a little better feed, and a better bed, and a little pay; but not so much rest; and you are in as close confinement as we are."

"But we are not prisoners; we can go if we like."

"What do you stay here for; you don't seem fit for such work, and you might earn a great deal more outside, and not work so hard?"

"I may be able to teach a few of you, poor things, to live right when you go outside, and that will be better to me than money."

"God bless you! that is what we want. There is many a one of us would be glad to live right if we knew how."

"There are some that only grow harder for coming here, and do as bad again, and come back."

"O, yes! they think they're prison birds, and there's nothing more for 'em in this world, and they don't care. Nobody likes to have such as we about 'em."

"But there are people that would help you to lead a better life, and earn an honest living, if you could find them."

"They might find us, but it is hard for us to find them."

That was a very true remark. Our prisons are prominent institutions in the land. It is easy for any one who is interested in the cause of humanity to find them; but to get access to them is a more difficult undertaking, as many can testify who have attempted it. I leave them to tell their own tale, and let it bear its own testimony. It is easy to find the poor wretches who are compelled to take up their abode within them, and do them good if one wills.

What a page of life was revealed to me in that one day! What a work is there here for you to do, O women of this broad land, for your fellow woman, if you will address yourselves to it!

XIV.

INSPECTION OF PRIVATE APARTMENTS.

It required the exercise of a large share of physical courage to enter, and examine into the condition of the private apartments of my boarders.

I shrank away from the task in loathing. Low, narrow, confined, they were like the cages of wild animals.

The human odor of the occupants had penetrated the walls and made the air noisome. They were ventilated through the bars of the door, and an aperture of five or six inches in diameter in the inner wall of the cell; but being used for all purposes, they would have remained uncleansed had every care been taken.

I went to the door of one, and looked in. I shivered, dreaded to enter, turned away. I went along to another. It looked comparatively tidy. A little white cloth embroidered around the edge with gay-colored thread, was laid carefully over the box. I stood and looked in while I reasoned with myself to screw my courage to the sticking point.

I put my head within the door, the bugs were crawling along the walls, and the white-wash was spotted with marks of the violent death which had befallen many of them the night before. Again I shrank back in disgust. I called the white-wash woman to come with her brush and cover up the filthy sight, if she could not cleanse the dirt away.

If the sight is so revolting, what must it be to sleep among them, to be lodged with, and fed upon by them. I worked up my feelings of pity for the poor prisoners till my disgust was partially overcome.

The rats and mice can come in at the open doors, and there is no obstacle to such ingress of bed-bugs. Indeed such armies of them as I beheld could hardly have made their entrance in any other way. There they were in swarms, and had planted their colonies upon the solid brick and mortar, granite and iron, industriously, as the busy bee prepares her dormitory.

There is no ill to which the flesh is heir which has not been endured by the flesh. What has been endured by one flesh may be by another. In this case under modifying circumstances. Truly I can bear the sight of these vermin, and attend to their destruction with much less suffering than those poor women can be made their prey night after night.

My indignation was aroused against those who had charge of this place, and who, in their neglect, had allowed these dens for the confinement of human beings to become breeding nests of vermin. That indignation gave me courage and energy for my task. I set one of my sweeps to the work of slaughter. I stood by and directed the cleansing with shivers of disgust creeping along my flesh, and thrills of indignation stirring my heart.

When the Deputy came round, I gave vent to my feelings in a side-thrust of sarcasm. I stated to him the condition in which I found the cells, and then asked,--

"Did these bed-bugs get a sentence here for life; or did they come, a special beneficence to the prisoners, by an order approved by the Board?"

"We have the beds taken down, and filled with new straw in the spring, and the cells white-washed, and the frames washed. It has just been done, you know."

"To what purpose you can see. It could not have been properly done. If it had they would not have recruited so quickly."

"I will give you a bed-bug woman, whose special business it shall be to look after and exterminate them."

"Some poor old cripple, I suppose, who would be an additional care. It is no matter about the woman."

I was vexed that the cells had been allowed to get into such a condition. "It is very disagreeable to make them clean. I can keep Berry at the work. If I do not keep her hands busy her tongue is hatching mischief. If I do not keep her at work I can't keep the track of her. She is over to the wash-house, down to the shop, or hospital, gossiping, and carrying news."

Berry was the white-wash woman. After the other two "sweeps," or prison chambermaids, had swept the cells, and walks, her work was to go around with her white-wash brush, and cover up any soil or stains which had been left upon them.

"Suit yourself. I will do all I can for you."

"Thank you! If I could have one smart, healthy woman in the kitchen, it would help me very much."

"O, a smart woman! we must have the smart women in the shop. We can't spare you a shop hand."

"I have enough that are maimed and halt, and blind, now."

"You know a greenback covers every bundle of contract work that is done in the shop," he said, with a knowing wink.

"And the women must be made to help support the institution. There may be various ways of doing that. Greenbacks may look very nice to you men; but will not the health and reformation of those woman be as much money in the treasury of the state as the greenbacks which cover that contract work?"

"That is the Master's order. He is bound up in that contract work. He knows just how much each woman does. He examines the tickets himself, every morning."

"Would you work the women in that way if you were Master here?"

"I am not."

"Just let me tell you what an able-bodied corps I have in the kitchen. Old Allen, the steam woman, has a broken wrist. The cook is lame in one of her hips. One of the sink women has fits; the women say, the other is a 'poor weak thing.' One of the slide women is in that condition which some women, of the class that are here, find themselves without a lord, and always demands consideration. Another has just got up from her confinement. One of the sweeps is blind of one eye, and can't see with the other. The only able-bodied woman that I have complains that I put every hard thing upon her to do."

The Deputy laughed good humoredly at my description, and said,--

"I will see what I can do for you; but I'm sure the Master will not be willing to spare you one of his shop hands."

To get a large amount of contract work done, and show the figures that were received for it, was the Master's way of recommending himself to the Board of Directors; and it was what enabled him to keep his place.