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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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 A MODERN PURGATORY
 
 By CARLO DE FORNJRO 
 
 CARRANZA AND MEXICO 
 A MODERN PURGATORY
 
 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 BY 
 CARLO DE FORNARO 
 
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 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, 1 9 17, BY 
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 PRINTED IN AMERICA
 
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 'It is believed in this country that a poor 
 man has less chance to get justice admin- 
 istered to him than a rich man." 
 
 — Woodrow Wilson, in a speech in 
 Chicago, January 11, 1913,
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS book is a record of the prison experi- 
 ences of Carlo de Fornaro, artist, writer, 
 editor, revolutionary. It is a record of experi- 
 ences in the famous Tombs Prison, in New York 
 City, and in the New York City penitentiary on 
 Blackwell's Island — a record of the daily happen- 
 ings of life in a prison, of brutalities and stupidi- 
 ties and abominations ; a sordid record, from the 
 pages of which gleam many fine human things, the 
 sj'mpathies and kindnesses and sacrifices of men 
 thrust by society into the dark of prison because 
 society was afraid of them. 
 
 The book begins with the author's imprison- 
 ment, and ends with his release or discharge from 
 prison. It is the tale of his punishment, but it 
 tells nothing of the "crime" that brought the pun- 
 ishment upon him. 
 
 It is a strange story, that of the circumstances 
 that brought him to prison and an unprecedented 
 proceeding in the United States, a prosecution 
 for libelling an official of a foreign government. 
 
 Carlo de Fornaro came to America wlien he 
 
 vii
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 was a young man. He was born in Calcutta, 
 British India, in 1871, of Swiss-Italian parents; 
 and, determined to be an artist, he studied, first 
 architecture in Zurich, then painting in Munich. 
 But when he came to America he found a dearth 
 of art, and when his talent for caricature was 
 recognized, he turned to a newspaper career. 
 
 He began in Chicago, with the old Times- 
 Herald, but the greatest part of his work was 
 done in New York, on the Herald, the Telegraph, 
 the World and the Evening Sun. In 1906 he 
 went to Mexico to visit a friend — and he stayed 
 three years. 
 
 Mexico first interested him — the people, the 
 problems, the smouldering fire of revolution — and 
 then absorbed him. Porfirio Diaz was President 
 of Mexico, and approaching the end of his long 
 reign of power. Fornaro, always a revolutionary, 
 became interested in politics — a dangerous inter- 
 est, especially for a radical opposed to the Diaz 
 regime. Assassination and murder and life im- 
 prisonment in dungeons immured from the world 
 were commonplace methods used in that day to 
 defeat the purposes of the opposition to the 
 undermined Diaz dynasty. 
 
 But Fornaro, undeterred, went into politics.
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 He chose the way best known to him ; he organ- 
 ized a company and estabhshcd a daily news- 
 paper in Mexico City, of which he was Director. 
 This was late in 1906. He continued with this 
 newspaper for over two years, doing his share of 
 fomenting the revolution that brought the Diaz 
 government to its fall a few years later. Then, 
 in 1909, he came back to New York, to continue 
 the work in another form. 
 
 He wrote, and early in 1909 had published in 
 New York, a book entitled "Diaz, Czar of Mexico." 
 It was translated into Spanish, and thousands of 
 copies were smuggled across the border into Mex- 
 ico. It created an immediate sensation; it was 
 forbidden and interdicted ; copies of it were con- 
 fiscated and destroyed ; people selling it, distribut- 
 ing it, giving it away, or having it in their pos- 
 session, were subject to punishment. But in the 
 face of this it was widely distributed ; it was 
 passed from hand to hand, secretly, clandestinely ; 
 and the demand for it was so great, and the in- 
 terest in it so intense, that in many cases where 
 it was difficult to procure it, single copies were 
 sold for as much as five dollars and ten dollars. 
 
 When the efforts to stop its distribution among 
 the people of Mexico failed, other measures were
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 tried. Agents of the Diaz government came to 
 New York; they sent messages to Fornaro; they 
 came finally to see him; and they offered him 
 $50,000 for the entire edition and to suppress all 
 future editions. But they were true to the prac- 
 tices of the system that had so long exacted 
 tribute from the people of Mexico. They knew 
 the amount of money that would be paid to sup- 
 press Fornaro's book — and a proposition was 
 made to Fornaro offering him $50,000, and ask- 
 ing him to sign a receipt for .$150,000. 
 
 They failed. Fornaro told them the book was 
 not for sale except for distribution ; it would 
 not be suppressed for any price. 
 
 It took these agents of the Diaz government 
 some time to realize this fact. They could not 
 believe there was a thing their money could not 
 buy. But when they realized it they gave up and 
 departed. And then other tactics were begun, 
 and this time they were more effective. 
 
 Fornaro was indicted for criminal libel. This 
 was a logical proceeding, and not unexpected. 
 Agents of the Diaz government, acting ostensibly 
 for Rafael Reyes Espindola, a Mexican Congress- 
 man, and Editor of the government paper El Im- 
 parcial, presented complaints to the Grand Jury.
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 Grand Jury proceedings are secret, and Fornaro, 
 of course, had no opportunity to present his case 
 before that tribunal. It was set forth that in his 
 book, "Diaz, Czar of Mexico," Carlo de Fornaro 
 had criminally libeled Rafael Reyes Espindola, 
 and Fornaro was duly indicted. One of the ac- 
 cusations brought against Espindola in the book 
 was that as Editor he used the government paper 
 with impunity to murder reputations. 
 
 Fornaro was arrested on April 23, 19C9. He 
 pleaded justification. He was admitted to bail in 
 the sum of $1,000. On June 21, 1909, a post- 
 ponement of the trial was granted, to permit the 
 defendant in support of his plea to secure, by 
 Rogatory Letters, or Depositions, the testimony 
 of witnesses in Mexico as to the truth of the 
 allegations against Espindola contained in the 
 book and complained against. 
 
 Some of the most prominent men in Mexico 
 were among those Fornaro sought as witnesses to 
 prove his cause. There were Francisco I. Ma- 
 dero, who led the revolution against Diaz, became 
 President of Mexico and was killed when Victo- 
 riano Huerta assumed the Dictatorship of Mex- 
 ico ; F. Iglesias Calderon, the head of a political 
 party, for thirty-five years a consistent opponent
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the Diaz system, and the man who had fur- 
 nished most of the material for Fornaro's book; 
 Heriberto Barron, a member of the Mexican con- 
 gress and a prominent journalist in Mexico City, 
 and during the latter part of the Diaz regime 
 an exile from Mexico ; and others of equal promi- 
 nence. 
 
 But the plan to secure this evidence failed. 
 The witnesses in Mexico were "not allowed" to 
 testify in Fornaro's favor; there was no oppor- 
 tunity to secure the testimony required by For- 
 naro, or, even if it had been secured, to get it out 
 of Mexico ; and his witnesses were threatened with 
 punishment and retaliation if even by speaking 
 the truth they gave aid to Fornaro. 
 
 What testimony was offered in his behalf from 
 witnesses in Mexico was not allowed ; his lawyer 
 in Mexico City, Diodoro Battalia, a Mexican who 
 had offered to take this case at the risk of his 
 life, was not permitted to represent him. But a 
 representative of the District Attorney of New 
 York was sent to Mexico, and he was permitted 
 to represent the state of New York in such hear- 
 ings as were had in Mexico City in an endeavor to 
 secure the evidence necessary to establish For- 
 naro's guilt.
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 On October 27, 1909, Fornaro was put on 
 trial. The result was inevitable. Fornaro was 
 con\'icted. On November 9 he was sentenced to 
 one year at hard labor in the city penitentiary on 
 Blackwell's Island. 
 
 After his conviction, Fornaro was held for five 
 weeks in the Tombs prison, first awaiting his 
 sentence, and after his sentence, during a stay 
 pending a decision on his application for a Cer- 
 tificate of Reasonable Doubt, which was denied ; 
 and on December 4, 1909, he was taken to the 
 penitentiary on Blackwell's Island to begin serv- 
 ing his term. 
 
 Two weeks later, when the news of the sen- 
 tence had reached Mexico, Rafael Reyes Espindola 
 went to a bull fight. As soon as he was seen 
 entering the stands there was a great outcry 
 against him from the spectators — there were over 
 twenty-five thousand of them ; they were calling 
 him "Assassin of reputations." They pelted him 
 with missiles and drove him out of the bull ring 
 in confusion and ignominy. The Mexican news- 
 papers, commenting on the incident, called it 
 "Brutal Justice." 
 
 On October 3, 1910, Fornaro was discharged. 
 He had served ten months in prison, which was
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 the full term of his sentence, except for two 
 months off for good behavior, which is provided 
 by the laws of New York. 
 
 Within a few weeks after Fornaro's discharge 
 from prison, after the revolution against Diaz 
 broke out in Mexico, on November 20, 1910, For- 
 naro was offered $25,000 to leave the United 
 States if there was an investigation of the manner 
 in which evidence in his behalf was suppressed or 
 kept from the court. 
 
 Fornaro refused it, as he refused the bribe for 
 suppressing his book, and as he refused a pardon 
 which he was told would be granted him uncondi- 
 tionally after his appeal to the Supreme Court 
 had been lost. There never was any investiga- 
 tion into his case. 
 
 But the book that caused all the trouble went 
 on. The first edition of "Diaz, Czar of Mexico" 
 had been exhausted, and a second edition was 
 printed. The revolutionists in Mexico still say 
 that this book, in conjunction with Francisco I. 
 Madero's "The Presidential Succession in 1910," 
 were the greatest influences in bringing about the 
 fall of Porfirio Diaz.
 
 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 THE TRIAL 
 
 IT is the second day of my trial. The 
 whole performance is tiresome and 
 monotonous in the extreme. On one side — 
 the side of the prosecution, the side against 
 me — the case is legally perfect, on my side 
 there is practically no defense; and sur- 
 rounded as I am by powerful and subtle 
 political influences, I have come to the con- 
 clusion that I have as much chance of suc- 
 cess — or escape — as the proverbial snowball 
 in Hades. 
 
 Considering my hopeless predicament 
 and my helplessness, I am astonished at the 
 sneering and insulting manner of the prose- 
 cuting attorney. Why this unseemly desire
 
 2 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 to swat as insignificant a gnat as I?* 
 During lunch at recess I hear that my victim 
 and accuser is very much embarrassed and 
 annoyed at the pertinent questions asked by 
 the prosecutor and translated by an inter- 
 preter. 
 
 "Are you a picaroon?" queried the Dis- 
 trict Attorney. 
 
 "No," protested the blushing Mexican, 
 "I am only a congressman." 
 
 Insults are sometimes the making of a 
 man's reputation, but ridicule always kills, 
 as my Mexican opponent confessed to me 
 once in Mexico City, adding that he never 
 paid the slightest attention to insults or libel- 
 ous attacks of the Mexican press. In this 
 case they made him change his mind and he 
 was sent twice three thousand miles from 
 Mexico to prosecute as libel that which he 
 could not even read. 
 
 *In justice to the Prosecuting Attorney it must be added 
 that over two years after the trial he apologized to the 
 writer in the presence of Judge John J. Freschi, at the 
 Press Club.
 
 THE TRIAL 3 
 
 Finally the case is concluded and I am led 
 through a maze into the Tombs prison to 
 await the deliberation of the jury. 
 
 The keepers inquire as to the real mean- 
 ing and equivalent in slang of the word 
 "picaroon," and they seem disappointed at 
 its commonplace meaning as compared to 
 the phonetic redundance of a word which 
 promised so much. All seem quite certain 
 the jury won't convict, but I am of a differ- 
 ent opinion. 
 
 After waiting more than two hours I am 
 brought back to court to hear the decision of 
 the jury. I notice tlie foreman, a gray- 
 haired, lean person with a long neck two 
 sizes smaller than his collar. He is speaking 
 in a low voice. I cannot hear what he says, 
 but when he stops, and I see two Mexican 
 friends and refugees come towards me with 
 tears in their eyes, then I know my fate. 
 They pat me on the back and say encourag- 
 ing things as to the effect the publicity of 
 this conviction will have on the cause of lib-
 
 4 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 eral Mexico. Newspapermen and friends 
 surround me. An adverse verdict was ex- 
 pected; nevertheless I am somewhat dazed. 
 They ask for a declaration, but adequate 
 words fail me. I can only smile and say 
 awkwardly: "It's all in the day's work. I 
 believe what is to be, will be." And the 
 keepers lead me through the bridge of sighs.
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 
 
 THE next tiling I remember is being 
 "frisked," as they say in prison par- 
 lance, when the keeper looks through the 
 prisoner's pockets for contraband. 
 
 They lead me to my cell and the iron 
 doors clang beliind me. A deep sigh of 
 relief escapes me. The terrific mental strain 
 of the last ten months, the long and sleepless 
 nights of vigil, the knowledge of impending 
 danger, have been blown away like an un- 
 healthy mist, and I feel calm, secure, safely 
 barred beyond the reach of the Mexican 
 Czar's sicarii and thugs. 
 
 The necessary things for comfort are sent 
 by kind friends, and I inspect my future 
 abode. 
 
 The cell is spacious, enclosed on three 
 sides by solid steel ; air, light and ventilation 
 come through the bars ; two iron beds are at-
 
 6 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 tached to chains on one side and let down at 
 night; there is running water for washing, 
 drinking and sanitary purposes. An electric 
 bulb and a small wooden bench complete the 
 furniture. 
 
 The first thing in the morning I make the 
 acquaintance of a prisoner who eagerly of- 
 fers to become my guide and monitor. 
 
 We walk around the spacious corridor 
 which surrounds the prison proper like an 
 ellipse, and by a connecting gallery cuts 
 it in half like number 8. Three tiers of steel 
 cages go up to the ceiling and can be ob- 
 served by standing close to the wall opposite 
 our cells. 
 
 The men in the tiers above us walk 
 around, some one way, others the opposite, 
 like restless animals in captivity. Some 
 young prisoners hang on to the bars and 
 make faces at us downstairs, reminding us 
 of monkeys in a gigantic cage. 
 
 Side by side with tough "mugs" and coun-
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 7 
 
 tenances worthy of the gallows, we notice the 
 apparently refined and well-mannered aris- 
 tocrats of crime, dissipated looking boys, 
 confidence men in pious demeanour, election 
 repeaters, dandified "cadets" and "sissies." 
 There are also sturdy looking laborers, a 
 few black banders, a tramp or two, several 
 negroes, two Chinamen. 
 
 A chauffeur with leggings, cap and auto- 
 mobile suit, tramps around with a dapper 
 young pickpocket. They shout, laugh, talk, 
 sing, whistle; and above all is heard the 
 shuffling of several hundred feet walking, 
 walking unceasingly. 
 
 A look upward to the superposed steel 
 cages suggests their similarity to the circles 
 in Dante's Inferno ; the picture is completed 
 by comparing my mentor to Virgil, but the 
 sarcasm is lost on him, as he is only a very 
 prosaic forger. 
 
 He informs me that the circle above con- 
 tains the murderers, awaiting trial; higher 
 up those on charges of grand larceny; and
 
 8 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 then follow the petty larceny men, and so 
 on. 
 
 We who are on the ground floor have 
 more walking space than those above us. 
 The side walls have four rows of barred 
 windows which give poor ventilation and 
 poorer light. The air has a pungent, mouldy 
 smell. The rumbling noise of the city traf- 
 fic on the Centre Street side is heard plainly 
 through the din in the prison. 
 
 My companion is a voluble and incessant 
 gossip ; his knowledge of jails, penitentiaries, 
 and court procedure is amazing; he is a per- 
 fect walking prison encyclopedia. Nearly 
 forty years old, he has passed twenty years 
 behind the bars, either in Sing Sing, the 
 Island Penitentiary or the Tombs. Very 
 pale, clean shaven, rather plump, he speaks 
 in a harsh whisper which gives a disagree- 
 able impression of his uncanny knowledge; 
 when he inquires or talks about the outside 
 world he is like a child seeking knowledge 
 about a strange, far-away land.
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 9 
 
 My next door neighbor is a southerner. 
 He shot a man who cheated him out of all 
 his money, and he spent several months in 
 Sing Sing; now he has been brought back 
 to the Tombs for retrial. Dark, with pas- 
 sionate eyes, black hair and sallow complex- 
 ion, thin, calm, deliberate in manner and 
 speech, he tells me of his case, and what led 
 to his murderous assault, which he claims 
 was done in self-defense. When I asked if 
 he was resigned to return to Sing Sing, he 
 answered with gleaming eyes: "I'll kill my- 
 self before I'll go back to that hell hole." 
 
 As we are forbidden to keep knives or 
 razors in our possession, those who require 
 a daily shave climb to the circle above to the 
 barber shop. 
 
 On the waiting line there is a familiar 
 face, a j^oung man who had been a waiter in 
 a Broadway cafe. He has not lost his red
 
 10 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 cheeks and boyish manner while awaiting 
 trial on the charge of seduction. 
 
 Those who can afford it and cannot eat 
 the common prison fare have their meals 
 ordered from outside restaurants. A young 
 man with a capacious basket offers us our 
 breakfast in the shape of bread, pies, coffee ; 
 and he also sells cigars, cigarettes, writing 
 paper, stamj^s and various knickknacks. 
 
 About nine A. M. we are locked in and 
 are allowed to buy newspapers from a boy. 
 I scan the daily papers and notice that they 
 are beginning to pay attention to this libel 
 case. There are several editorials, one 
 signed by William Randolph Hearst, whose 
 championship in my case was a brave act, as 
 it endangered his interests in Mexico. The 
 mail is voluminous ; scores of clippings come 
 in from out of town papers. An unknown 
 doctor in California sends a check, a laboring 
 man in St. Louis sends a dollar bill, to help 
 in the fight. 
 
 My first visitor appeared to me like a
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 11 
 
 vision from a strange planet. I felt clumsy 
 and impatient behind the cold and angular 
 bars. 
 
 I am informed that two witnesses saw the 
 president's brother and a prominent Mexi- 
 can lawyer waiting for my verdict on the 
 ground floor of the Criminal Court building. 
 Those two lawyers were the king pins work- 
 ing the wires behind the scenes, and when 
 the glad tidings were brought they hastened 
 to telegraph it to Mexico. 
 
 After the visit we are let out of our cells 
 for exercise, which takes place three times a 
 day, morning, noon and evening. 
 
 All visitors are permitted to see the pris- 
 oners, but not twice in the same day. Keep- 
 ers and matrons search the visitors, and I 
 hear repeated complaints of the arrogant 
 and rough behaviour of these men who seem 
 to have no power of discrimination; they 
 treat everybody on equal terms of brutality 
 and incivility — those found guilty by the
 
 12 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 courts, those awaiting trial and the innocent 
 visitors. 
 
 Newspapermen are ahnost daily visitors. 
 
 My friend and lawyer, K , visits me 
 
 every day in the barred chamber set apart 
 for that purpose. As I descend to see him 
 some one points out to me a special room 
 wherein I recognize the banker Morse con- 
 feri'ing with his lawyers. My friends on 
 the New York World send an ambassador, 
 in the person of a reporter, offering their 
 good will and assistance. I am touched by 
 their kindness and loyalty. 
 
 The days pass swiftly as if on wings while 
 waiting for the sentence. My trial-lawyer, 
 
 J , visits me one evening and informs 
 
 me that somebody has told the judge that I 
 had boasted that I would get off with a fine. 
 A strenuous denial is made, but the futility 
 of the protest is apparent. The purpose of 
 these underhand tactics is to prevent the
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 13 
 
 imposition of a fine which could be paid by 
 friends. 
 
 Criminal libel is a misdemeanor, and the 
 limit or maximum sentence is one year in 
 the penitentiary or a fine of $500, or both. 
 
 The prosecuting lawyers hope, by the im- 
 position of a prison sentence, to frighten me 
 into accepting either a pardon or a commu- 
 tation of the sentence, thus forcing me to 
 accept their favors and preventing further 
 investigation into certain proceedings. 
 
 A suggestion is made to enter a protest 
 with my ambassador. Such a procedure 
 would empower the judge to offer me the 
 choice between going back to Europe or 
 serving one year in the penitentiary. The 
 Mexican government would prefer to get rid 
 of my agitation in this country and does not 
 relish the idea of assisting the publicity of a 
 willing martyr. 
 
 My suspicion of these tactics is aroused 
 when I learn of the case of a young cockney 
 valet who stole from his employer, and who
 
 14 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 was offered the alternative, when the judge 
 sentenced him, of going back to England or 
 serving five years in Sing Sing. The young 
 valet took great pains to inform me of his 
 case and the advantage to be derived from 
 accepting the lesser of two evils. I mused 
 over the incident, and wondered if the valet's 
 case was not a gentle hint emanating from 
 the Machiavellian brains interested in my 
 
 case. The trial lawyer, J , suggested 
 
 the advisability of appealing to the governor 
 for clemency in case of loss of the appeal. 
 A protest to the ambassador was also pro- 
 posed. I declined both suggestions. 
 
 II 
 
 I have become acquainted with a prisoner 
 a few doors from my cell, next to the shower 
 baths. Small of stature, almost a boy, 
 deathly pale, dark, with strong features, this 
 young English pickpocket is a new type in 
 my limited experience with criminals.
 
 THE TOMES PRISON 15 
 
 Every afternoon we sit together at a five 
 o'clock tea in his model cell. The walls are 
 covered with half-tone pictures of famous 
 stage beauties. He offers me the place of 
 honor, wliich is an old, rickety, but comfort- 
 able armchair which belonged to Harry 
 Thaw. 
 
 The bed, the bench, everything, is deco- 
 rated with paper, cut out with infinite pains. 
 The tea is excellent and there are also con- 
 densed milk, Huntley & Palmer's biscuits, 
 butter and orange marmalade. Mine host 
 seldom talks to prisoners ; he says the place 
 is filled with stool pigeons. When asked if 
 he does not suspect me, he smiles and re- 
 marks that in his profession a deep and 
 varied familiarity with human nature is nec- 
 essary, as well as a cool head, an impassive 
 mask, and great dexterity with hands and 
 fingers. 
 
 Very good-naturedly he answers my ques- 
 tions as to his early life and the influences of 
 which brought him to steal ; he tells me also
 
 16 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 of his philosophy of life. His father and 
 mother were both thieves, and he was 
 taught to steal as soon as he could walk. The 
 whole of Europe was the field of his opera- 
 tions. 
 
 Soon after he came to New York he was 
 arrested, and although the detectives could 
 not find any stolen goods on him, neverthe- 
 less he was sentenced to seven years in Sing 
 Sing on his past criminal record, which was 
 sent over by Scotland Yard. 
 
 Considering this man's record and nation- 
 ality, the question comes to mind as to why 
 he was not sent back to England, instead of 
 burdening the taxpayers of the state of New 
 York with his maintenance for seven years. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the evening I was interrupted in my 
 conversation with a confidence man by the 
 entrance of Lupo and some of his black hand 
 confederates. Standing against the wall
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 17 
 
 while being searched he refused to answer 
 any questions either in Enghsh or in Ital- 
 ian. 
 
 A dark mustache aggravated his vil- 
 lainous look, while his black, restless eyes 
 surveyed his surroundings. One of his 
 cronies muttered something, but he only 
 growled, lifting the corners of his mouth and 
 baring his teeth in angry contempt. Verily 
 he gave the impression of a wolf caught in 
 a trap, but still defiant and ferocious. 
 
 We stop at the cell of a poor German who 
 is locked up on the charge of attempted sui- 
 cide. He weeps disconsolately, like a child, 
 the tears running down his haggard and 
 gentle face. His clothes and linen are poor 
 and as dirty as his face ; his hair is unkempt. 
 He wrings his hands in despair and moans : 
 "Why did they not let me die in peace?" 
 He was out of a job, friendless and penniless 
 in a foreign country, and when he tried to 
 end his misery they put him in jail. It
 
 18 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 seems a hopeless task to try and cheer him 
 up. 
 
 A harmless looking old man with white 
 hair and beard attracts every one's attention 
 by the ferocity of his deed. He has killed 
 his own daughter, a school teacher, as she 
 was coming out of school surrounded by her 
 young pupils. Nobody seems to know the 
 reason for his act. The judge has just sen- 
 tenced him to the electric chair, and he ap- 
 pears the least concerned of all as they search 
 his cell for hidden weapons and put an extra 
 guard to watch him for the night. An Ital- 
 ian priest hears his confession in his cell. 
 When asked the reason for his inconceivable 
 act he answers slowly that he prefers his 
 daughter's death to her life as a prostitute. 
 "My life is in the hands of God," he whis- 
 pers, as he folds his hands in prayer. In the 
 morning he will be taken to Sing Sing.
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 19 
 
 IV 
 
 The trusties who clean up the floor and 
 the cells and make up our beds are mostly 
 short term prisoners from the i)enitentiary. 
 In spite of his stripes, one of them looks like 
 a Greek athlete; his dark, cm-ly hair, pow- 
 erful chin, strong nose, the muscles showing 
 through the striped shirt at the neck and 
 arms, excite the respect and admiration of 
 his fellow prisoners. 
 
 My trusty is a weak-faced individual, who 
 is always fawning for a tip with which to 
 gamble with his companions upstairs. His 
 wife had him arrested for non-support. Al- 
 though quite competent to make a living 
 and to support his wife and three chil- 
 dren, he confesses himself unable to resist 
 the lure of the games of chance. Imprison- 
 ment has not reformed him in the least; on 
 the contrary, indeed, for now he can gamble 
 to his heart's content! 
 
 The detective who arrested me on a war-
 
 20 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 rant asks to speak to me, and gives as a 
 pretext his friendship for me. He feels 
 neither rebuked nor offended when he is told 
 that I am careful to choose my friends 
 among my equals. Quite modestly he ad- 
 mits being only a petty larceny detective, 
 but he is now anxious to discover who and 
 what is behind the political game played in 
 my case. He leaves in disgust when advised 
 to adopt Sherlock Holmes's method of de- 
 duction. 
 
 Next morning, handcuffed to a young 
 prisoner and accompanied by a score of 
 men, I am taken to a pen. The place can- 
 not be described in decent writing, but I can 
 safely assert that a more filthy, disgusting 
 place does not exist in New York. The 
 stench is so sickening that I suffer the rest 
 of the day from a splitting headache. 
 
 After an hour's wait I am brought into
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 21 
 
 the presence of a kindly faced probationaiy 
 officer who asks me for addresses of friends 
 who might ^yT'lie to the judge, and inquires 
 for certain facts concerning my case which 
 did not come out dm-ing my trial. She also 
 begs me to write a letter giving these facts, 
 so that she can show it to the judge before 
 sentence is passed on me. The result is nega- 
 tive, as the judge has already made up his 
 mind about my case. 
 
 The young man who was handcuffed to 
 my wrist goes into court to get his sentence. 
 He returns, pale, trembling, almost fainting, 
 and can only whisper hoarsely that he is 
 going to state's prison in the morning for 
 four years. 
 
 Another companion in misery is an Ital- 
 ian waiting for trial. He is indignant, even 
 furious, at his treatment by the District At- 
 torney. His case is a record breaker ; he has 
 been brought up for the two hundredth time 
 without being tried. This is done to wear 
 him out and force him to plead guilty.
 
 22 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 A lean, dark-haired, young man with un- 
 pleasant features, suspected of having mur- 
 dered a pal, tells a story of a third degree 
 at headquarters. 
 
 After two days and nights, passed in a 
 cell without food and water, he says he was 
 brought in to the presence of several masked 
 detectives. Stripped to his bare skin, he was 
 forced to stand on a metal rack with burning 
 hot points until he attempted to jump off, 
 when the whole gang of sleuths assaulted 
 him, beat and kicked him, and forced him 
 back. 
 
 Without rest or halt, questions were yelled 
 at him in quick succession ; when the answers 
 did not come fast enough, they battered 
 him unmercifully with their fists ; when the 
 answers were unsatisfactory, the vilest and 
 foulest of insults were shouted at him, taunt- 
 ingly, sneeringly, to arouse his anger and 
 loosen his tongue. 
 
 No opportunity was given him to con- 
 centrate his mind. He was racked by a
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 23 
 
 gnawing hunger, a parched throat, a de- 
 lirious thirst; by painful stinging wounds of 
 cut lips, bleeding teeth, two half closed black 
 eyes and a constant hopping on the radiator 
 to keep the soles of his feet from burning. 
 
 Then they tempted him by bringing a 
 table covered with luscious, steaming food, 
 sparkling drinks and expensive cigars. Like 
 Tantalus, he was intercepted and derided 
 when he attempted to partake of the food 
 or the drink. Meanwhile the detectives ate 
 and drank with relish almost imder his nose; 
 thev drank to his health, and blew into his 
 face the fragrant smoke of their cigars. 
 
 They continued this torture for several 
 hours, until his body and mind could bear 
 the strain no longer; and then he fell to the 
 floor in a dead faint. 
 
 VI 
 
 At last I am told to appear before the 
 judge who is to pass sentence on me. They
 
 24 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 handcuff me to a negro and we climb into 
 the "Black Maria," an omnibus with facing 
 seats, tightly locked, and with small holes 
 for ventilation. A mob collects in the streets 
 to witness our humiliation. The room in 
 the court house is crowded with people. 
 Several men are sentenced, one after an- 
 other, in rotation. I espy some of my loyal 
 friends there; they look pale and uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 My name is called. I am freed of my 
 handcuffs and I stand at the bar, facing 
 the judge. 
 
 Instead of listening to the learned judge 
 deliver his wise sentence, I am watching in- 
 tently a lonesome fly buzzing in a vibrating 
 aureole frantically round the top of his 
 head. I am wondering what the judge had 
 for luncheon. My absurd cogitations are 
 suddenly interrupted by a phrase spoken 
 in a louder tone than the rest of the sen- 
 tence. 
 
 ". . . Fornaro, that you be imprisoned
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 25 
 
 for one year at hard labor in the peniten- 
 tiary. . . ." The fly stopped buzzing as the 
 judge hfted his head to look at me. 
 
 My lawyer, K , runs out. He is to 
 
 try to get a certificate of reasonable doubt, 
 which acts as a stay of sentence; otherwise 
 I would be taken early in the morning to 
 the penitentiary. 
 
 While these proceedings are going on, I 
 am temporarily transferred to the old pris- 
 on, which is full of crawling parasites. 
 Luckily, however, in a few hours I am re- 
 turned to my cell in the Tombs to wait until 
 the certificate is either granted or denied. 
 But the certificate is refused, of course, as 
 I knew it would be, and as I think my law- 
 yer knew it would be. It was a forlorn 
 hope. 
 
 In the evening a letter is brought to me 
 and I am asked to sign for it. It is written 
 in Spanish and is an attack on Vice-Presi- 
 dent Corral of Mexico, who is accused of
 
 26 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 having furnished me with money to publish 
 "Diaz, Czar of Mexico," and then of leav- 
 ing me in the lurch. This piece of Spanish 
 fiction is inspired by a bitter enemy of Cor- 
 ral in the hope of eliminating Corral as a 
 Vice-Presidential candidate. But I refuse 
 to sign the letter. 
 
 Another fairy tale comes directly from 
 the District Attorney's ofRce; I am told 
 that they know that President Cabrera of 
 Guatemala, a bitter enemy of Porfirio Diaz, 
 has furnished me with $5,000 to publish my 
 libelous pamphlet. 
 
 A friend arrives from Mexico and brings 
 an oral message from Ramon Corral, who 
 inquires if I have empowered an agent to 
 negotiate the sale of my book for $50,000, as 
 he doubts the statement. A letter is written 
 advising the Vice-President that he is right 
 in his surmise, and that the alleged agent is 
 only trying to get money under false pre- 
 tences. 
 
 A labor leader visits me offering financial
 
 THE TOMBS PRISON 27 
 
 help in my fight. As money will not be 
 needed in the penitentiary, I suggest that 
 an investigation might be started in Con- 
 gress into the persecutions of Mexican lib- 
 erals by American officials in this country. 
 The promise is made and fulfilled seven 
 months later. 
 
 VII 
 
 Two sisters of mercy come to see the pris- 
 oners during the hours of exercise ; they dis- 
 tribute fruit, and walk freely and uncon- 
 cerned among the men, who seem to think a 
 great deal of them. One of them has kindly 
 and intelligent looking eyes behind large, 
 gold-rimmed spectacles, and speaks in the 
 well modulated and authoritative voice of 
 the woman of the world. Unlike other pris- 
 on missionaries, they do not make religious 
 propaganda by distributing tracts and 
 pamphlets; their attitude is one of charity, 
 humility and usefulness.
 
 28 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 Protestant clergymen, rabbis, and even 
 a theosophist, come to save us in spite of our- 
 selves. Their attitude is one of aggressive 
 virtue and militant religious contention — 
 or contagion. A certain missionary is very 
 indignant because I refuse to look at his 
 tracts or listen to his childish twaddle; and 
 finally becomes so arrogant and insulting 
 that I have to order him away from my 
 cell door.
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 
 
 /tS long as a nation harbors a body of 
 -^J- men atithorized to inflict punishment, 
 as long as there are prisons in which such a 
 body can carry out these punishments, that 
 nation cannot call itself civilized." 
 
 Message written on his prison wall, 
 
 by Francisco Ferrer, 
 
 It was a clear December morning when, 
 from the little boat which carried me across 
 the river, I spied the outline of the peniten- 
 tiary squatting on the lower end of Black- 
 well's Island. It was my first view of it 
 and the impression made on my mind was 
 so ominous and sinister that my heart almost 
 sank within me as I entered the fateful gates. 
 
 "Hey, there! Where do you t'ink you 
 
 are? Take dem gloves off!" shouted a 
 
 tough, strong voice as I stood waiting in 
 
 29
 
 no A MODERN PURGATOKY 
 
 front of the office window, recounting my 
 pedigree and giving up my private belong- 
 ings for safe keeping. In the old prison, I 
 found six new prisoners waiting in line. 
 
 Our hair was clipped by a convict barber, 
 and we were ordered to divest ourselves of 
 our civilian clothes and take a shower bath. 
 While we were trying to dry ourselves with 
 two small hand towels, prison underwear 
 and striped suits were thrown at our feet. 
 
 The trousers were decidedly too long, the 
 coat, and the rag — unjustly named a vest — 
 both too short; a cap which came down to 
 my eyebrows made up this uniform of deg- 
 radation and infamy. Harlequin's cos- 
 tume never looked more ridiculous than our 
 own, which was mended, patched and re- 
 patched from long use by generations of 
 long-suifering convicts. 
 
 The prison authorities, I suppose, are to 
 be commended for their thrift ; but I cannot 
 help feeling that by putting on those frayed
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 31 
 
 and wornout caricatures of uniforms we are 
 endangering our health. 
 
 In the photographer's house behind the 
 shower baths we are "mugged"; our Bertil- 
 lon measurements are taken, even to "beauty 
 spots" and pimples, by a red-haired, 
 freckled-faced young man. A sign twelve 
 inches long, black, with white nimierals, is 
 hung round my neck over a black cotton 
 coat, and I am told to look pleasant until 
 the camera has focussed my profile and 
 full face. 
 
 Sitting on benches, waiting for their turn, 
 are a dozen prisoners. They are all old, 
 white-haired, naked and shivering; old of- 
 fenders, recidivists, tramps, bums, drunken 
 louts; lean, pale, bruised, with anemic, un- 
 healthy skins, red noses, fishy eyes, bloated 
 faces, large hands, knotty, ungainly feet, 
 purple with the cold. 
 
 A very old man attracts my attention by 
 his immobility, his general paleness, and his 
 extraordinary gauntness, which shows the
 
 32 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 perfect outline of his muscles, and reminds 
 me of the statue representing San Bartol- 
 ommeo in the cathedral of Milan, holding 
 his whole skin over his arm like a bath robe. 
 
 Squint-eyed and almost blind, this old 
 man, of more than the allotted span of 
 seventy years, seems unable to recollect his 
 name, occupation or social status. 
 
 "A bum, I guess," remarks the keeper. 
 
 It appears that he is deaf, and his neigh- 
 bour nudges him with an elbow and shouts 
 in his ear: 
 
 "Say yes!" 
 
 "Yes, sir!" hastily answers the old man. 
 
 These derelicts of society are going to 
 the workhouse on Monday. 
 
 Later we are ordered to clean and wash 
 the small glass panes in the windows of the 
 main prison. Trusties in smart, new, striped 
 clothes, with creased pants and caps, rushed 
 by eyeing us with curiosity. "Whatcheh in
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 33 
 
 fer?" "Wliat did the judge hand yeh?" are 
 the leading whispered queries. 
 
 A pungent, musty, sickening smell per- 
 vades the old prison, which is barely lighted 
 by a dismal and gray reflection filtering 
 through the small windows. An inscription 
 on the wall shows the date of construction 
 to be 1864. The cell where Boss Tweed died 
 is pointed out to me. 
 
 Suddenly the electric lights are switched 
 on and a bell starts ringing in a loud, metal- 
 lie, persistent note, not unlike the subway 
 starting bells. A heavy, automatic, dull 
 noise in the distance announces the ap- 
 proaching footsteps of the convicts return- 
 ing from work. In measured step, each 
 gang followed by its keeper, more than a 
 thousand men march past the head keeper's 
 desk. 
 
 All the varieties of ages, figures, pliysiog- 
 nomies, expressions, are illustrated to my 
 astonished eyes. Young men witli red 
 cheeks and simple faces; strong men with
 
 34 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 bullet heads, broad shouldered, surly or im- 
 passive; fat men with wabbling bellies and 
 cheerful faces; old men bent and hoary 
 with age; slow and listless young men with 
 effeminate gestures ; a few cripples on sticks 
 or crutches, and wobbling along behind the 
 lines, a paralytic led by a companion. They 
 all file by, stamping their feet in German 
 military fashion. 
 
 At moments the order is given to slow up 
 or stop, and the convicts continue to move 
 the legs in rhythmic step, their bodies al- 
 most touching, and giving the appearance 
 of an enormous centipede dancing a grue- 
 some, macabre saraband. 
 
 Finely shaped heads are rare; it looks as 
 if an almighty sculptor had left his handi- 
 work unfinished, or purposely kept it in 
 rude outline. Foreheads are either too 
 bulging or too retreating, eyes too sunken 
 or too protruding, noses too large or too 
 small, mouths too sensual or too cruel, chins 
 too powerful or too weak.
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 35 
 
 Smiling or frowning, aggressive or indif- 
 ferent, surly or pleasant, all the different ex- 
 pressions and gestures are sketched out in 
 violent chiaroscuro, and compose a cartoon 
 worthy of a Frans Hals or a Michelangelo. 
 
 JNIy eyes absorb the kaleidoscopic, ignoble, 
 unbelievable pageant. As an artist I am 
 fascinated, hypnotized by this fantastic pro- 
 cession of human zebras, slashed with broad 
 stripes of gray and black, with the four 
 prison tiers as a background, and the dark 
 blue uniforms and gold buttons of the keep- 
 ers adding a touch of color. 
 
 As a human being I am shocked and re- 
 pelled by this grotesque, degrading parade. 
 
 Is this really the Inferno or only the last 
 Judgment, I ask myself? 
 
 "Get in line, you loafer!" shouts a red- 
 faced keeper, shaking his stick at me. Thus 
 I am awakened from my dreams.
 
 36 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 I am locked in the old prison for the night 
 — ^my first night in the penitentiary. 
 
 A bed made of an iron frame with coarse 
 canvas stretched across it, two cheap cotton 
 blankets, a straw pillow, a large covered 
 pail and a drinking cup, complete the total 
 of my furniture. It is the simple life with 
 a vengeance. The bed takes up the whole 
 length of the cell ; there is no room for walk- 
 ing except sideways from the bucket to the 
 cell door. Sitting in a lateral position on 
 the couch, with my back touching the wall, 
 I can place my legs on the opposite wall only 
 in a bended posture. 
 
 A tier man comes to the cell shouting 
 "Water." While pouring it into my cup 
 from a large can I peer at his face through 
 the bars. His pale features, beaked nose, 
 cruel mouth and yellow eyes make him seem 
 like some tropical carrion-eating bird. I 
 am so fascinated by his depraved and satanic
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 37 
 
 look that I allow water from the cup to drop 
 onto the floor. 
 
 He utters curses, "not loud, but deep," 
 and returns to mop the floor. 
 
 I try to interest myself in an old maga- 
 zine, but my mind seems unable to concen- 
 trate in a continued effort; I read, but my 
 imagination wanders away in an intermin- 
 able circle without beginning or end. 
 
 The cold is intense ; the blankets, thin and 
 gray, afford no protection. My whole body 
 is shivering and shaking uncontrollably as 
 if in high fever, my teeth rattle like castanets 
 accompanying a Spanish fandango. I light 
 a cigar and watch the smoke curl slowly, 
 lazily across the cell until it appears like a 
 veil between the ceiling and the floor and 
 finally settles over my couch like a pale, 
 transparent shroud. 
 
 Evidently there is no ventilation, but I 
 continue to puff away, hoping to fumigate 
 and kill the fetid odor in the cell. 
 
 Everything is still except for the occa- 
 
 em0<~^ 
 
 %3*3'
 
 38 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 sional moaning of a sick man. Finally the 
 electric light at the foot of the bed is ex- 
 tinguished, and I am left in the dark. 
 
 I turn into bed with all my clothes, includ- 
 ing cap and shoes, trusting in this manner to 
 warm myself and in the hope of forgetting 
 my troubles in blissful sleep. 
 
 But there seems to be no rest for me. 
 
 As soon as a little heat radiates from 
 my body, scores of bedbugs are attracted 
 and start a vicious, incessant campaign. 
 When I am deceived into sleep by a lessen- 
 ing of their attacks, I am awakened by the 
 cold air under the canvas, which freezes my 
 back and forces me to shift my position. 
 
 Horrible nightmares shake me with a 
 start as soon as I am lulled into slumber. 
 My throat is parched as if sand had been my 
 last meal, and I pick up the tin cup to get 
 a drink; to my intense despair the rusty, 
 filthy cup has a leak, and all the water has 
 trickled to the floor. 
 
 I dream that the cell, with its massive
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 39 
 
 walls reeking with stench and humidity, is 
 growing smaller, closing upon me like an 
 accordeon, until the cell door is as small as 
 a keyhole from which I get the last gasp of 
 air; then instead of air, an endless cool, re- 
 freshing flow of water rims down my throat. 
 But, unluckily, my intense thirst awakens 
 me and I start toward the cell door calling 
 for water in a faint, hoarse whisper. 
 
 A keeper silences me with a gruff, impa- 
 tient voice: "Where in hell do you think I 
 can get it?" 
 
 And I can hear the water dripping lustily 
 from a faucet into a full barrel on the 
 ground floor! 
 
 I try philosophically to force my thoughts 
 into past and pleasant memories, but the 
 present distress is so tyrannical and over- 
 powering that all the physical, moral and 
 intellectual suffering of the world seems to 
 be centered within the few square feet of 
 this dungeon. My via crucis has begun. I 
 reflect with terror that my mind may not
 
 40 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 withstand the strain of uninterrupted agony, 
 and suicide appears as an easy solution. 
 
 The absurdity of the impulse is evident, 
 for my death in this filthy cell, like a rat in 
 a hole, would delight those responsible for 
 my presence here ; and furthermore it would 
 shock and sadden those dearest to me. 
 
 What is all my fortitude and philosophy 
 worth if it cannot steady and concentrate 
 my will at the most crucial, heart racking 
 and desperate moment of my life? 
 
 Why should my trained mind crumble like 
 a match box and be destroyed under physi- 
 cal torture, mental distress and moral hu- 
 miliation? 
 
 Is not suffering the greatest of all tests, 
 necessary, purifying and regenerating? 
 Why not wait patiently and courageously 
 for the day of reckoning, worthy of the gods 
 on Olympus? 
 
 I count my heart-beats to get an idea of 
 the passing of time. The minutes seem to 
 have frozen on the fountain of time; they
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 41 
 
 drip laboriously as if each and every one of 
 them represented eons of memories and ex- 
 periences ; as if each was attempting to dem- 
 onstrate that in the accounting of eternity 
 they were as significant as centuries. In a 
 supreme physical effort of my will I grip the 
 bars and grit my teeth to stop the impending 
 and foolish disintegration of my mind. 
 The waves of despair, the racking pain, the 
 insane delirium are slowly beaten back into 
 submission, like a defeated army. The im- 
 agination is disciplined, the will has thrown 
 the switch and illuminated the real inward 
 self, as I stand watching, through the steel 
 bars, the windows on the opposite wall. I 
 feel cahn, serene and strong. 
 
 Of a sudden, as if to illustrate my state 
 of mind, out of the gray, blue mist, a large, 
 luminous, rose disk slowly arises beyond 
 the opening. 
 
 The sun, the glorious sun! Silently it 
 looms up, magnificent through the haze, like
 
 42 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 a mirage announcing the advent of better 
 things and more hopeful days. 
 
 The same sun I had seen arise in India, 
 Egypt, Italy, Mexico, in many frames of 
 classical and tropical beauty; but never has 
 it seemed to me so divine, so perfect, so pre- 
 cious as on that awful morning. 
 
 n 
 
 At 6 A. M. a quick, metallic carol an- 
 nounces a new day — and a Sunday. With 
 a clanking noise and in swift succession the 
 cell doors are unlocked and on every tier 
 the whole line of convicts walks along the 
 galleries and down to the ground floor, to 
 a long iron sink, divided into small dirty tubs 
 that are filled with murky water. 
 
 Our ablutions are performed in rapid mili- 
 tary style; those not strong or nimble 
 enough to get near the crowded trough, be- 
 fore the command, "Back out," is shouted, 
 have to return to their cells half-washed or
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 43 
 
 dirty. Sometimes a laggard insists on fin- 
 ishing his washing ; and then an angry voice 
 assails him rudely: "Come on, you God 
 damn bum, didn't yeh hear me? Back out!" 
 And a guard "fans" him over the back with 
 a club, pushing and shoving him all the way 
 to the galleries, as a reminder to quicker 
 obedience. 
 
 Back at the cells, every man stands at 
 attention behind the door with hands on the 
 bars, waiting for the keeper to count the 
 men until he orders, "Close," and with a 
 deafening noise every iron door bangs in 
 unison. Then after a short rest the bell 
 rings for breakfast, and we march into the 
 mess hall. 
 
 What a depressing, fantastic assemblage 
 there unfolded itself before my eyes! Row 
 after row of cropped gray heads, the black 
 and gray stripes, moving unceasingly in a 
 rippling pattern, giving the semblance of 
 an enormous, ghostly, shivering tiger skin. 
 The faint light from the barred windows
 
 M A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 forces the tonality to a low pitch and adds 
 to the vagueness, uneasiness and consterna- 
 tion of my mind. 
 
 The benches and narrow tables seat fif- 
 teen to twenty in a row; and the two mess 
 halls over a thousand convicts. 
 
 Breakfast is served in dented low pans, 
 filled with potato and corn beef hash, alter- 
 nating every other day with oatmeal and 
 syrup. The rusty tin cups are half filled 
 with an unsweetened, brownish, transpar- 
 ent concoction called coffee, which the con- 
 victs long ago nicknamed "bootleg." 
 
 But the bread, made of wheat and corn- 
 meal, is very good. The raising of the hand 
 is the signal for an additional slice of bread, 
 which is distributed by a convict, and when 
 it reaches you it has usually been handled by 
 ten or fifteen different, not to say unclean, 
 hands. 
 
 The men eat voraciously and in great 
 haste, coughing, chewing, smacking their 
 lips; grunting and snorting like pigs with
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 45 
 
 their snouts in tlie trough. ]My poor appe- 
 tite is not improved by their disconcerting 
 exhibition, and mj^ portion is quickly swal- 
 lowed by my neighbours. 
 
 On both sides of the hall we are watched 
 by keepers standing against the wall, or 
 perched on high stools, swinging their sticks. 
 
 On my right there is a goodnatured-look- 
 ing keeper with a bullet head and sleepy 
 eyes; on the other hand a small, wiry, thin- 
 faced, long-nosed, white-mustached keeper, 
 with wicked eagle eyes, who uses not only 
 the foulest of language, but also his stick, 
 on the slightest provocation. 
 
 After the "feed" comes the bucket pa- 
 rade. Each man carries his own bucket into 
 the yard beliind the prison building, facing 
 the Brooklyn side. The Queensboro bridge 
 on the north, with two feet on the island 
 uniting Brooklyn and New York, appears 
 gigantic on tlie horizon. 
 
 The air is cold, crisp, exhilarating, after 
 the oppressive night. The whole prison is
 
 46 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 marching line after line to a well-shaped 
 opening, wherein the dirty water and ex- 
 creta are dumped in succession by the men, 
 while an old convict belabors its interior with 
 a long pole to prevent the opening being 
 clogged. The clear morning air cannot blow 
 away tne overpowering stench of a thousand 
 dirty buckets, intensified by the acrid smell 
 of chloride of lime which is thrown into the 
 hastily washed pails. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The resting day without reading or oc- 
 cupation or exercise of any sort is agonizing ; 
 intolerable in the extreme. 
 
 From four o'clock on Saturday afternoon 
 until Monday morning at eight, except for 
 the short freedom for meals, we are locked 
 up in our cells. There is no exercise, no 
 work, for almost forty hours. Most of the 
 cases of insanity in prison are due to this 
 enforced inaction, and the accumulation of
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 47 
 
 foul air in the cells. Even the keepers who 
 have to inspect the top tiers run swiftly 
 along the galleries with their noses closed 
 tight. 
 
 Hoping to break up this dreadful mo- 
 notony, I attend the Catholic mass in the 
 morning and the Protestant service in the 
 afternoon. The one delightful and exquisite 
 balm to our jaded minds is the music of the 
 organs, which accompanies the singing of 
 hymns by convicts. 
 
 The chapel on the second floor is crowded 
 with prisoners; and on one side there are a 
 few women, with large poke bonnets cover- 
 ing their faces to prevent their flirting with 
 the men. 
 
 A convict informs me that I would have 
 been punished "against the wall" if I had 
 been caught going to the two sei*vices. At 
 tlie slightest infraction of the rules, I learn, 
 the offender is dragged towards the main 
 prison and kept standing, facing the wall, 
 sometimes all day without food or water —
 
 48 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 and there is no way of finding out what and 
 how many rules there are. 
 
 On week days the warden stops to inquire 
 and punishes according to the state of his 
 mind or his stomach, or perhaps the weather. 
 
 The dinner consists of a soup of beans, 
 carrots, lentils or potatoes ; meat with vege- 
 tables, or cornbeef and cabbage; and "boot- 
 leg." For supper there is unsweetened tea, 
 bologna sausage or red gelatine with bread. 
 
 The anticipation of another night like the 
 last one fills my mind with uneasiness and 
 dread and fright. The memory of it is 
 burned forever into my consciousness. But 
 fortunately it was not so full of terror. It 
 was bad; but no other night ever could be 
 as horrible as the first night I spent in that 
 place. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the morning we are ordered into the 
 new section of the prison. The old bums go
 
 THE PEXITENTIARY 49 
 
 to the workhouse, and we await our turn to 
 be placed in the shops, according to our 
 sentences and our work or profession. The 
 distribution of labor among us is strange 
 and mysterious. A butcher, for instance, 
 is sent to work in the stone quarry, a smug- 
 gler into the kitchen gang, a lawyer in the 
 "skin gang," a "sissy" into the coal gang, a 
 waiter into the garden; a burglar is sent to 
 make socks, and I am sent into the tailor 
 shop. 
 
 In this simple distribution of labor we 
 shall learn many things which will be highly 
 useful and remunerative when we go out 
 into the world again. 
 
 I am finally alone in my new cell, whicli 
 is spacious, clean, airy. I can walk seven or 
 eight paces up and down, like an animal in 
 a cage. 
 
 The steel beds are chained to the walls; 
 instead of the filthy canvas, a steel wire is 
 stretched across the frame, but there is no 
 mattress or sheets as there were in the
 
 50 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 Tombs. There is also a covered bucket in 
 the lower corner, and a tin cup. The bars 
 are strong, but nevertheless plenty of air 
 and light come in from the large windows 
 opposite our cells. Two small hand towels 
 and a piece of scrubbing soap are added to 
 our simple belongings. 
 
 The number of my cell is 23, the last one 
 in our row, and on the second tier, which 
 contains men who work in the tailor shop. 
 The shops stand together, in a separate 
 building between the prison and the river, 
 on the Brooklyn side. The shops where 
 they make brushes, shoes, beds, and the tailor 
 and repair shops, are under one roof, and 
 under the control of a contractor. In the 
 shops all kinds of work are performed: re- 
 pairing, cutting and making clothes for out- 
 going prisoners ; there are machines turning 
 out underwear and socks; mattresses are 
 made, stuffed and sewn up. At one end of 
 the large room a keeper sits on a platform, 
 while another surveys it from the other end.
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 51 
 
 Although the prisoners are forbidden 
 to talk, nevertheless they communicate as 
 freely as if the rule did not exist. When I 
 attempted to ask my neighbour a question, 
 he hushed me up with a hissing noise — but he 
 answered my question. His lips did not 
 move, but I could hear him talk in a faint 
 murmur which would have been inaudible 
 ten paces away. 
 
 It is very hard at first to follow this new 
 method of carrying on conversation, as in 
 everyday life one is used to watching a man's 
 eyes and lips while listening to his voice. 
 But after a while the hearing becomes used 
 to it and is trained to listen and catch these 
 slightest sounds, which escape the untrained 
 ear of the keeper. 
 
 The convicts never glance into the speak- 
 er's face or at his lips; they look straight 
 ahead and talk in the manner of ventrilo- 
 quists, but instead of using a loud and clear 
 tone they whisper in a low murmur. Men 
 who have passed years in jail can always be
 
 52 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 recognized by their monotonous, whispering 
 manner and their almost expressionless 
 faces. This form of speech is necessary in 
 order to avoid punishment. 
 
 Under the pretext of helping me, a young 
 convict comes over to my side of the shop. 
 He shows me the intricate workings of the 
 machine which turns out the uncut cloth for 
 the prisoners. Later it is cut and fashioned 
 into prison underwear. 
 
 On top of the machine the spools feed the 
 thread incessantly. Care has to be taken 
 not to use "sabotage" methods, as punish- 
 ment is meted out unmercifully by the con- 
 tractor, who seems to have as much power 
 over us as the warden. 
 
 My other companion is a young Russian 
 sailor, healthy looking, fair and quite peace- 
 ful when let alone. He warns me that my 
 anxious instructor is a "stool pigeon," who 
 proves his status by giving me very detailed 
 instructions as to how to manage to escape 
 successfully.
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 53 
 
 I ask why he has not put his own methods 
 into practice ; and he gives as an excuse that 
 he is going to be released in a few days. 
 
 Then he furnishes me with paper, pencil, 
 and soap ; and he even offers to send out let- 
 ters for me. "When I answer that I have no 
 letters to write he recites an endless list of 
 rules, and tells me how to evade them, and 
 how to keep the friendsliip of the keepers. 
 
 He reveals to my astonished ears the un- 
 derground system of communication with 
 the outer world. With money and friends 
 a convict can get all the contraband he de- 
 sires: dope, newspapers, matches, letters — 
 coming in and going out — whiskey, writing 
 paper and pens, stamps, delicacies, tobacco. 
 ]My mentor has passed a year in the peniten- 
 tiary for the offense of "repeating," or of 
 voting many times on election day. The 
 gang leader who paid him for his work is 
 looking out for him from his Brooklyn 
 haunts. 
 
 Facing us there is a long table at which
 
 54 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 old convicts are sitting, without making a 
 pretence at working. As long as they keep 
 quiet nobody notices them. Some of them 
 look over seventy years old; sad- faced, pal- 
 lid, curved, almost venerable in their old age. 
 They are mostly old sneak thieves and pick- 
 pockets, the wrecks and failures of their pro- 
 fession. They sit like graven images, si- 
 lently, patiently, hour after hour, year in 
 and year out, until some fine day one of 
 them will be found rigid in his cell, and then 
 four striped convicts and a keeper acting as 
 a pallbearer will carry him away in a large 
 black coffin to the morgue. 
 
 To-day for the first time since my incar- 
 ceration I beheld the reflection of my face 
 in a mirror. The sight was humiliating and 
 shocking in the extreme. My keen sense of 
 caricature lowered my well fed conceit half 
 way down the ladder of vanity. 
 
 Then I consoled myself by thinking of all 
 the good-looking, impressive, well-groomed 
 men friends, enemies and acquaintances of
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 55 
 
 mine; and I tried to imagine them with 
 chpped hair, togged out in ill-fitting, 
 patched, striped garments and cap; collar- 
 less and tieless; with a week's growth of 
 beard on their cheeks — and the comparison 
 made me laugh and cheered me up consid- 
 erably. 
 
 The Deputy Warden comes in on his 
 daily visit. His approach has been tele- 
 graphed in some mysterious manner and the 
 whole shop takes on a lively bustling appear- 
 ance. Second in rank as an officer of the 
 penitentiary, the "Dep," a tall, good-look- 
 ing man, strides into the room like a Prus- 
 sian officer. He is not disliked by the con- 
 victs, as he seems just in his dealings with 
 them. 
 
 Going back from work through the yards, 
 a fat German convict who had been working 
 in the brush shops, broke away from the line 
 and, before he could be stopped, jumped in- 
 to the river in an attempt to drown himself. 
 A few shots were fired. A negro and two
 
 56 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 white convicts jumped in after him, and with 
 the help of a keeper who patrols the island 
 in a row boat, they fished him out. They 
 laid him flat on the ground and worked to 
 revive him. 
 
 His fat belly stuck out like a barrel, his 
 face was livid, his lips purple. Finally he 
 opened his eyes, and sputtered and mur- 
 mured: "Let me die! Let me die!" "Shut 
 
 up, you s !" yeUed an angry keeper, and 
 
 he was dragged feet first to the hospital. 
 
 My skin has been itching for two days, 
 and I attribute it to the coarse underwear 
 and ill-fitting clothes. In my cell after the 
 day's work I make a careful inspection and 
 am quite frightened to find my whole body 
 covered with red spots. Evidently I have 
 caught some skin disease from those tattered 
 old rags which have been worn by genera- 
 tions of unclean and diseased convicts. The
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 57 
 
 thought of having to pass a year in a prison 
 hospital is anything but cheerful. 
 
 I turn my thoughts to other things by 
 trying to read a novel from the prison li- 
 brary. A slip had been left in the cell to 
 be filled out with the name of any book that 
 I might desire to read. In my innocence I 
 put down "Shakespeare's plays or the 
 Bible." A novel entitled "Truthful Jane" 
 was left in their stead. 
 
 But I cannot read. And so I start in- 
 stead to inspect my surroundings. The new 
 cells compare very favorably with the cells 
 of the old prison, which are really holes in 
 the wall and reeking with the mysterious 
 unwholesome smell of rat holes and grave- 
 yards. 
 
 At one end of the cell opposite the door 
 are two small openings for ventilation; one 
 at the top on the right liand side and the 
 other at the bottom on the left. In trying to 
 find out the depth and direction of the holes 
 I plunge my arm into the opening, and my
 
 58 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 hand feels a square object. It is a small 
 bible ! I am delighted by the discovery. On 
 the fly leaf there is some handwriting in pen- 
 cil in a careful, intelligent hand: "To my 
 successor: May this book while away your 
 long and weary hours and make you forget 
 your troubles and worries as it did to me. 
 Don't forget to replace the book where you 
 found it when you leave." 
 
 A tier man comes to the cells with a light 
 for those who care to smoke. He is a pleas- 
 ant-faced individual, quite polite and ready 
 to do any small services within his limited 
 powers. I find out that he has been con- 
 demned to a year for keeping back mail in 
 the post office. The tier man who had made 
 such a disagreeable impression on me that 
 first night in the old prison, is a church thief. 
 
 My battered and rusty cup has been filled 
 up with water. I am afraid to drink from it, 
 as it might have been used by some con- 
 sumptive or syphilitic convict. Necessity 
 being a great inventor, I press some paper
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 59 
 
 to the rim of the cup to prevent my lips from 
 touching it. 
 
 As I walk up and down the cell I am al- 
 ways unconsciously trying to put my cold 
 hands in my trousers pockets, only to dis- 
 cover over and over again that there are no 
 pockets there, only one on the inside of the 
 coat. 
 
 The clipping of my hair so close to the 
 skin at the height of the cold season has 
 brought a cold in tlie head. I have no hand- 
 kerchief, and shall have to wait a whole 
 month until they allow me to write to have 
 a few sent by mail. 
 
 These apparent trifles, and all the nag- 
 ging, idiotic rules, invented by senile com- 
 missions and wardens to torment the help- 
 less captives of society, are always magni- 
 fied by men brooding in the solitude of cells. 
 But I have made up my mind not to permit 
 anything to ruffle my equanimity, so I pick 
 up some letters from friends and read and 
 reread their cheering contents. If people
 
 60 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 who wi'ite to their unfortunate friends in 
 prison only guessed how they yearned to re- 
 ceive those familiar scrawls, and how they 
 are treasured and memorized, they would 
 write oftener. 
 
 A night keeper walks by like a shadow, 
 flashing a bull's eye lamp into the cells to 
 catch us in any infringements of the rules. 
 
 There is only one rule tacked up on the 
 walls, but the other 999 we have to guess or 
 learn from fellow convicts. The list of rules 
 which we have to find out at our own expense 
 or from wiser convicts would fill up a small 
 volume. 
 
 As there are no written rules, and nobody 
 informs us of all the unwritten rules on our 
 entrance here, as is done in Sing Sing, the 
 thought comes to my mind that this appar- 
 ent forgetfulness is really meant to give the 
 warden and the keepers an unchallenged 
 power of persecution over suspected and un- 
 ruly convicts. 
 
 Most of the punishments inflicted by the
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 61 
 
 warden are for infractions of rules which 
 the newcomers are in entire ignorance of, 
 and these infractions occur no matter how 
 obedient and willing the new arrivals may- 
 be to keep within bounds of the prison laws. 
 The foreigners, Italians, Slavs and Teutons, 
 all those who do not know English and who 
 cannot learn the rules from their fellow pris- 
 oners, are the greatest sufferers from this 
 carelessness, whether it is intentional or 
 otherwise. 
 
 VI 
 
 After breakfast I was watching from my 
 cell some sparrows that had nested inside 
 the prison walls, high up on top of the large 
 windows facing the tiers. I dropped some 
 bread crumbs on the floor of the gallery, and 
 some on my cell floor, to induce the little 
 birds to come in. 
 
 At first they were afraid to trust them- 
 selves inside the bars of my cell; but they
 
 62 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 kept fluttering about nervously outside, 
 keeping up an incessant twitter and chatter 
 that sounded quite musical to my ears. 
 
 Finally they grew bolder, and recklessly 
 they flew into my cell, first peeping at me, 
 with bended heads as if they would ask: 
 "Are we really safe here from capture or 
 treachery of any kind?" And hastily pick- 
 ing up the crumbs, they flew out to inform 
 their companions of the god-send of fat 
 bread crumbs in a large, barred room, in- 
 stead of the poor himting in the prison court- 
 yard. 
 
 Then they came back fearlessly, and 
 thanked me with quick little nods of their 
 pretty heads, and sidelong trusting looks 
 from their black beads of eyes; with low, 
 graceful courtesies and a cheerful piping 
 song. 
 
 And then one morning a keeper who had 
 been attracted by the noise, shooed the birds 
 away and swore in a grufl" voice, warning 
 me that it was against the rules to throw
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 63 
 
 crumbs on the floor, as well as to keep bread 
 in my pockets or in my cell. 
 
 Once a week the prisoners are privileged 
 to wait in line to see the warden, to protest 
 against any injustice, to recount a grievance, 
 or to ask a favor. 
 
 Like a dozen or more I stood waiting for 
 the quick-lunch justice of the Czar of the 
 penitentiary. After a while he appeared, 
 accompanied by a tall young secretary who 
 jotted down our names and the details of 
 the business on hand. Walking slowly, with 
 bent shoulders, hands behind his back, the 
 warden seemed to be about seventy-five 
 years old. His face was furrowed with ir- 
 regular, meaningless wrinkles, and he had 
 small shifty eyes, with white hair and a 
 white beard. He had a habit of staring at 
 the convict who was speaking to him, and 
 suddenly bending one ear toward the speak- 
 er as if he were partially deaf. 
 
 The warden's answers came quickly, in
 
 64 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 the jerky, high pitched voice of the Sistine 
 Chapel cantors, and often breaking under 
 the strain of anger. A convict suffering 
 from locomotor ataxia, leaning on a walking 
 stick, hanging on to a companion, begged 
 for permission to get a pair of crutches . . . 
 his mother would get them for him. 
 
 "What for?" queried the warden, inno- 
 cently. 
 
 "Because I can't walk with this stick," 
 answered the convict. 
 
 "Then why don't you get a cab!" said 
 the warden. And he snickered and then 
 coarsely guffawed. 
 
 Again he fui'iously upbraided another pe- 
 titioner. 
 
 "Where do you think you are? At the 
 Waldorf-Astoria? Next thing they'll be 
 asking me to get them flowers, candy and 
 theatre tickets. I am here to see that you 
 are punished. See?" 
 
 After having thus vented his spleen he 
 uttered some alleged witticism at the ex-
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 65 
 
 pense of the helpless convict, and showed a 
 great appreciation of his own humor, un- 
 covering a row of yellow, brown, half-de- 
 cayed teeth in a sneering grin most unpleas- 
 ant to behold. 
 
 ]My turn came, and I asked for an extra 
 blanket, as the cold was intense and the 
 metal springs of the bed offered no protec- 
 tion against it. This it seemed was also 
 against the rules. When I suggested that 
 as he was the warden he could make and 
 unmake the rules, he did not answer, but 
 asked irrelevantly how I liked his hotel? 
 
 I answered that it was preferable to the 
 castle of San Juan de UUoa in Vera Cruz. 
 
 He looked puzzled, then he smiled as if 
 he saw the point. 
 
 "We'll take care of you," he repeated 
 twice, waving a thin, wrinkled, old hand.
 
 66 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 VII 
 
 At lunch time the sick convicts ask their 
 keepers for permission to see the doctor. 
 They are kept waiting in line near the head 
 keeper's desk. The head keeper is a person 
 of great power in the prison, only third in 
 importance of rank, but as he comes in daily 
 contact with the convicts, his good or ill will 
 is felt more keenly than the warden's. The 
 discipline of the prison, the distribution of 
 the mails, of the clothes, underwear, shoes, 
 all the details of management, are carried 
 on through him. 
 
 As we were waiting for the doctor, the 
 head keeper came along to look us over. He 
 had a big brown face, and a large mustache 
 covered his mouth; two piercing gi*ay eyes 
 gave the impression of an unlimited reserve 
 of pent-up bile, anger and contempt, which 
 at times flowed in a torrent of choice and 
 rare blasphemies. 
 
 "Damn you, wop! I'll cure you! You
 
 THE PENITENTIARY 67 
 
 s !'* he shouted, and with both hands he 
 
 clutched the neck of an Italian, and shook 
 him as savagely as a terrier shakes a rat. 
 His face red and with sickness in his eyes, 
 the unfortunate man tried to explain that 
 he had a sore throat and a fever; but with- 
 out success. He onlv aroused another fit 
 of anger. 
 
 "You're a faker, that's what vou are! 
 You're all fakers, every one of you!" he 
 yelled at us, and finished up by spitting on 
 the floor. The next moment he punished 
 a convict for doing the selfsame thing. 
 
 A young doctor hardly out of his teens 
 entered the old prison, escorted by a convict 
 carrying a tray filled with medicine bottles. 
 
 Sick prisoners are cured in the simple, 
 old-fashioned way of having mixtures ad- 
 ministered to them, the medicine bottles be- 
 ing labeled according to the contents, and 
 the most prevalent ailments, which do not 
 require the remanding of the sick man to 
 the hospital. Cough mixture seemed to be
 
 68 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 quite popular, fever mixture less so, then 
 followed constipation and diarrhoea mix- 
 ture, toothache mixture, court-plaster, some 
 pills, and various ingredients for venereal 
 diseases, some cotton gauze, and the indis- 
 pensable large bottles containing salts and 
 codliver oil. 
 
 The visit did not take long. Those who 
 had come twice on the line without having 
 been found sick were punished "against the 
 wall." 
 
 After a short inspection the doctor 
 ordered me to the hospital, without allaying 
 my fears by any diagnosis or declaration of 
 a disease, but cautioned me to take a hot 
 bath every day, and to rub the skin with sul- 
 phur ointment.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 
 
 THE hospital is situated on top of the 
 chapel, over the main entrance and hall 
 of the prison. 
 
 Two spacious rooms are dedicated to that 
 purpose. The smaller one with a bathroom 
 faces the Brooklyn side and overlooks the 
 mess hall, the keepers' dining room and kit- 
 chen, and is usually kept apart for the con- 
 sumptives. The larger room, also with a 
 bathroom, contains a dozen beds, a closet 
 for underwear and clothes, another for the 
 crockery, two tables, two medicine closets, 
 chairs, and some small tables for patients 
 near each bed. 
 
 Six windows face towards East 55th 
 Street on the Manhattan side. Two higher 
 windows look over the roof of the prison, 
 across the Queensboro bridge. The hard- 
 wood flooring, the small hospital cots, with
 
 70 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 mattresses, white pillows and spreads, all 
 spotlessly clean, made the place look quite 
 cheerful and sunny. Every opening was 
 heavily barred. A spacious, clean and airy 
 prison, but still a prison, with a tantalizing 
 outlook towards New York, which seemed 
 so near that one could discern people on the 
 other side of the river. 
 
 There are five sick men, plus three con- 
 sumptives, in the two rooms; and our large 
 room looks deserted. 
 
 The patients wear a cheap, white shirt, 
 instead of the striped one, and slippers in- 
 stead of shoes. 
 
 A bald-headed man with small, kindly 
 gray eyes and a close-cropped mustache, 
 keeps perfect discipline without raising his 
 voice, using profane language, or bullying 
 the patients. In character, breeding, morals, 
 education, he is superior to the warden and
 
 THE HOSPITAL 71 
 
 to most of the keepers. His name is Charles 
 Noonan. 
 
 Between the hours of eight o'clock in the 
 morninff and four in the afternoon a uni- 
 formed hospital orderly attends to the distri- 
 bution of medicine, takes temperatures, and 
 reports to the doctor. At night another 
 orderly takes his place. 
 
 The cleanliness of the two hospitals, the 
 distribution of bedding, laundry and food, 
 is in the hands of a convict, usually a pa- 
 tient; all the unpleasant tasks and irksome 
 duties which the orderly is too proud or too 
 lazy to perform the trusty is obliged to do. 
 
 Sen^ant and boss, scullion and diplomat, 
 doctor's help and sick man, waiter and ma- 
 jordomo, the convict orderly is the last buf- 
 fer in tlie line of authority, the expiatory 
 goat of the penitentiary hospital, a suffering 
 soul in a modern purgatory. 
 
 When a criticism drops from the lips of 
 the supreme Prison Commissioner, the 
 Warden passes it along to the "Dep," who
 
 72 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 calls down the hospital keeper, who in his 
 turn upbraids the orderly, who in the end 
 roasts the trusty. 
 
 The present trusty is an old man suffer- 
 ing from an eczema on his fat legs. Tall, 
 bloated, gray, pale, he is despised by the con- 
 victs for his avariciousness, his gluttony, his 
 arrogant attitude. They suspect him of 
 being a stool pigeon, and they revenge them- 
 selves by making his life miserable through a 
 series of cruel persecutions. 
 
 Another trusty who sleeps in a cell down- 
 stairs, and eats in the keeper's kitchen, is a 
 famous pickpocket. 
 
 Like all or nearly all the old timers, Ed, 
 as he is called, never gossips about his pri- 
 vate affairs; he may joke and talk about 
 other prisoners, but never does he say a word 
 about his life outside. He is an old offender, 
 but obedient, useful and energetic; and he is 
 always welcomed back as a trusty or a tier 
 man. 
 
 Once inadvertently I asked him: "What
 
 THE HOSPITAL 73 
 
 do you do outside for a living, Ed?" His 
 laconic answer was, "Oh, everybody!" 
 
 But one evening several weeks later, when 
 we had become quite chunimy, at the psy- 
 chological moment when even the most silent 
 and sullen crooks will sometimes confess and 
 bare their hearts, he unfolded his life, his 
 methods, his cynicism and his mental make- 
 up. 
 
 It was an amazing story, interspersed with 
 slang, picturesque phrases, and a callous, 
 sordid philosophy. Later, the testimony of 
 other thieves proved that his story was true. 
 
 As he told his story, it seems that clever 
 thieves organize themselves into ti*usts, 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 an- 
 nounced in any part of the state — or any- 
 where in the world, for that matter — they 
 are "tipped off," or told about it by the 
 "bulls."
 
 74 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 infoiTn them of the 
 presence of pickpockets, and an official 
 jmnps on a platform or soap box, and shouts 
 a warning to the crowd a'_;ainst 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 re- 
 gion which contains their valuables. With 
 this knowledge they can work without blun- 
 dering, 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 75 
 
 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 reforma- 
 tory to the penitentiary, he has climbed all 
 the rungs of the ladder of crime. 
 
 He soon discovered that "lonesome," sin- 
 gle-handed thieves were crushed in the stiiig- 
 gle, 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, recog- 
 nized by the keepers and convicts, and know-
 
 76 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 ing 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. Sod- 
 den with all the sexual perversities acquired 
 in prison, he has finally caught the white 
 plague, is afflicted with several venereal dis- 
 eases, 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 so- 
 ciety as his natural prey, his rightful enemy, 
 and an object of his revenge. 
 
 JMorally, intellectually and physically as 
 crooked and shifty as a mountain trail, he 
 seems utterly beyond redemption, human 
 or divine.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 77 
 
 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 Ave- 
 nue, 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 be- 
 comes darker, as if cut out with monster 
 scissors; the sky appears more resplendent 
 and luminous with gorgeous tints, until the
 
 78 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 innumer- 
 able 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 79 
 
 themselves by their stronger and more ring- 
 ing whistlings ; the largest ones, on their way 
 to Portland, are heard in the distance gi-unt- 
 ing 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 54!th 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 micro- 
 cosm be seen from a distance trying to pass 
 our little boat, it would start a series of an- 
 gry, piercing toots, repeated in quick suc- 
 cession. 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 discov- 
 ered that after a large boat like the Yale 
 passed by, the waves left in its wake almost
 
 80 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 upset the little craft, and it took all the ef- 
 forts 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, re- 
 turning home with crowded decks, with all 
 the lights lit, and the band playing and the 
 passengers singing, "The Island of Black- 
 well," make us home-sick and pensive with 
 longing for life and the world we are shut 
 away from. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The trusty in charge of the hospital is get- 
 ting nervous as the day of his release ap- 
 proaches. A week before the release, no 
 matter how disciplined and peaceful the pris- 
 oner 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 HOSPITAL 81 
 
 The old trusty acted like a drunkard, talk- 
 ing 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
 
 82 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 him. The next day he reported sick, and 
 he never showed up again until he heard that 
 the patient was dead. 
 
 In the meanwliile the old trusty left and I 
 had to attend to the sick man. Every fifteen 
 minutes of twenty interaiinable 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 ex- 
 hausting 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 83 
 
 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 volun- 
 teered 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
 
 84 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 er- 
 rand 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 per- 
 sisted. I touched his cheek. It was cold 
 and hard. But I could not explain the al- 
 most miraculous change in the expression of
 
 THE HOSPITAL 85 
 
 the face. Suddenly it da\Mied 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 rel- 
 ished the post-prandial funeral. . . . Death 
 had come so suddenly and inforaially, 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
 
 86 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 authorita- 
 tive, arrogant manner towards them. 
 
 I realized that life might be made unbear- 
 able for me, and that I might be forced to go 
 downstairs to the cells before I had com- 
 pleted 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, handker- 
 chiefs, 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,
 
 THE HOSPITAL 87 
 
 as the trusty cut the portions in half in order 
 to sell the remainder to others. 
 
 I unconsciously sensed that the only suc- 
 cessful method of taming the ferocious, re- 
 vengeful 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 dis- 
 tributed among them and later were carried 
 downstairs from cell to cell, until the whole 
 prison had read them. To my intense sur- 
 prise, English, German, Italian — even 
 "high brow" magazines like the Mercure de 
 France and La Revue were eagerly de- 
 manded and read by some of these strangely 
 intellectual convicts. 
 
 The men who had considered me an aristo- 
 crat, and nicknamed me "The Count," soon 
 began to discover that my sympathy was for 
 their troubles, their unhappiness, their help-
 
 88 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 lessness, 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 un- 
 clean and revolting duty was to be per- 
 formed, 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 man- 
 ual work, such as acting as assistant to the 
 doctor. 
 
 Among the patients there was a one- 
 legged negro who was suffering from a pain- 
 ful 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 anger one day before the old tinasty 
 left he very nearly smashed the old man's 
 skull with his crutch.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 89 
 
 The fii'st 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-respect- 
 ing 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 disap- 
 peared, and then I said to him: "Now, 
 Davis, what can I do for you?" He an- 
 swered in a gentle and friendly voice : "Ex- 
 cuse me, mister. I always been treated like 
 a dog. Will you please bring me a spoon?" 
 
 From that day on he was tamed; he be- 
 came more talkative, and even polite. Dur-
 
 90 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 ing the long winter evenings he broke the 
 morose silences to tell us of his adventures, 
 and to relate the story of his tragic and ter- 
 rible life. 
 
 He had lost his leg in a railroad accident ; 
 and then he had spent several years in hos- 
 pitals and more years in legal fights to try 
 to collect a few hundred dollars which were 
 never paid. Then, jobless, hungry, desti- 
 tute, desperate, he had begun to steal. Al- 
 ways unlucky and awkward, he was invari- 
 ably 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 pun- 
 ishments 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 91 
 
 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." 
 
 The orderly asks me to attend to the 
 consiunptive, 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 after- 
 wards.
 
 92 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 finaUy slips under the bed sheets, 
 going to sleep as if the effort had completely 
 exhausted him. 
 
 It used to remind me of the snake charm- 
 ers 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 de- 
 light 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 93 
 
 consumptive patient, but the result was evi- 
 dent 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 remit- 
 ted, 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 conclu- 
 sions as a result of my observations of the 
 ways of the convicts and their attitudes to- 
 wards one another. 
 
 Life in a prison, under ignorant and often 
 vicious wardens and keepers, although seem- 
 ingly leveling the men's standard to the 
 most degrading and contemptible measure 
 allowed by law, does not eradicate the con- 
 vict's idea of class. A class, or perhaps it
 
 94 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 dur- 
 ing 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 accord- 
 ing to religious, financial, intellectual or 
 aristocratic standards, nevertheless the prin- 
 ciple is the same. In most societies the lead- 
 ers are people with "blood," money, or privi-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 95 
 
 leges of some sort. In India the high caste 
 Braliniin 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 clever- 
 est 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 vio- 
 lence, 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
 
 96 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 types of crooks, such as confidence men, 
 forgers, gamblers, dishonest bankers, em- 
 bezzlers, lawyers, politicians. They repre- 
 sent 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 pick- 
 pockets, repeaters, bums; marking the bor- 
 der 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 con- 
 victs, 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, de-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 97 
 
 spised, 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 dan- 
 gerous foes, because of the intimate knowl- 
 edge 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 
 cliandeliers hanging from the ceiling. 
 
 "That bov 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, some- 
 times weeks and months, and take infinite
 
 98 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 pains to plan a robbery, the result of which 
 he imagines is getting something for noth- 
 ing. Sometimes the prize is nothing, some- 
 times it is considerable; and then it is dis- 
 sipated in gambling, dope, and riotous liv- 
 ing. The fruit of legitimate work he con- 
 siders a meagre result of foolish painstak- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 ception they are gamblers ; they lack imag- 
 ination, 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 99 
 
 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 treat- 
 ment, the tortures, inflicted by prison au- 
 thorities. It is the helplessness of these pris- 
 oners, and the in(hfference of the public to- 
 wards them and their fate, that make prison
 
 100 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 
 
 In the beginning the reticence of the con- 
 victs puzzled me, even after I knew that they 
 regarded me as a political prisoner and not 
 as a stool pigeon. Only after a long ac- 
 quaintance, and then unwillingly, would 
 they admit shamefacedly that their living 
 was acquired by criminal methods. IMore 
 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 pro- 
 fession only a misdirected and false energy. 
 Their vainglorious, strutting behaviour is 
 really the result of the insulting, demoraliz-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 101 
 
 ing, 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 beheve 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 de- 
 fiance toward the keepers. They soon dis- 
 cover, 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 
 himian; but only vindictive, wasteful, idiotic 
 and indeed blind. And so in despair these 
 misguided men become more vicious, hard- 
 ened and corrupt than they were before 
 prison took a hand in their shaping.
 
 102 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 A prison term, which is supposed to re- 
 form them and to break their wills, is only 
 a school for criminality, a higher school or 
 university for the underworld, where confi- 
 dences are exchanged, new alliances are 
 formed, diseases and homosexual habits con- 
 tracted. The spirit is tempered for future 
 criminal records, instead of being broken, 
 and the body strengthened for coming ex- 
 cesses. 
 
 The line of convicts which upon their re- 
 lease streams out of our prisons, is like a 
 large sewer emptying its filth back into so- 
 ciety; slowly corrupting, demoralizing and 
 polluting everything it touches. 
 
 The stool pigeons are feared by the con- 
 victs as well as by the keepers. They keep 
 the warden informed of the mysterious hap- 
 penings among the prisoners, and the illicit 
 relations between the keepers and the con- 
 victs. In their turn the stool pigeons are 
 rewarded with privileges, such for instance
 
 THE HOSPITAL 103 
 
 as not being punished for infractions of the 
 rules, which woukl mean the terrible "cooler" 
 to the ordinary convict. The wardens' 
 greatest fear is that letters written by con- 
 victs relating some of the outrageous occur- 
 rences of every day in prison may reach the 
 columns of a newspaper and bring about 
 unpleasant notoriety, and even a more dis- 
 agreeable investigation. 
 
 On very rare occasions some angry con- 
 vict 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 communica- 
 tions 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 under- 
 wear, and he is then taken to a cell which 
 contains only a bucket and a wooden plank
 
 104, A MODERN PURGATORY* 
 
 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 ventila- 
 tion, just enough to keep him from suffoca- 
 tion, 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 pris- 
 oners 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 day- 
 light causes untold agonies, and very often
 
 THE HOSPITAL 105 
 
 has tragic effects upon the eyes and eyesight 
 of the prisoner; usually they have to be 
 sent to the hospital to be treated for inflam- 
 mation of the eyes or for partial blindness. 
 Men kept long in the cooler sometimes be- 
 come driveling idiots; others go violently 
 insane and have to be sent to INIatteawan 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 work- 
 shops 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 con- 
 cerned, such a law or rule is a dead letter.
 
 106 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 commis- 
 sioner, 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 unmen- 
 tionable 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 privi- 
 leges of a convict ; and he was not permitted
 
 THE HOSPITAL 107 
 
 to write home or to receive visitors for two 
 months. The electric hght 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 dis- 
 tributed 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
 
 108 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 spittoons, sweep the floor, empty the gar- 
 bage 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 imme- 
 diate 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 pres-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 109 
 
 ence of a keeper or the crisscross pattern of 
 the bars, make us feel as if we were really- 
 free men; then we march reluctantly to- 
 wards the ice house to the big chest contain- 
 ing the supi^ly of ice for the different de- 
 partments. 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 ar- 
 rivals, 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 in- 
 formation 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
 
 110 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 high caste among the prisoners, and shows 
 it by his manner toward the lesser castes. 
 
 In the beginning he answered my ques- 
 tions 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 be- 
 came 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 working- 
 man. 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 an- 
 other 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 satis- 
 factory results.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 111 
 
 One morning as a young convict was 
 walking on an errand toAvards 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 be- 
 hind, 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 mali- 
 cious 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
 
 112 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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, un- 
 stinted praise. He dropped the letter pur- 
 posely, 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 HOSPITAL 113 
 
 The tale went round the prison, and al- 
 though 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, coarse- 
 ness, 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.
 
 114 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 over- 
 coming all the difficulties in actually getting 
 to the gates of the prison, happened to ar- 
 rive 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 ig- 
 norance 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 think- 
 ing — that she could communicate to him that 
 little, distant greeting. Then a keeper came
 
 THE HOSPITAL 115 
 
 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 con- 
 tinued 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 with- 
 out my permission; he even placed another 
 detective on the line next to another visitor 
 so that he could overhear our conversation.
 
 116 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 I had written to a friend that, as it was 
 not only unwise, but impossible in my situa- 
 tion to put on paper certain matters of im- 
 portance and of grave concern to me, I 
 would wait for the day of his visit to com- 
 municate 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 be- 
 fore. 
 
 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 Commission- 
 er's office, which in its turn placed the detec- 
 tive at my visitor's side.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 117 
 
 But when two newspaper men asked per- 
 mission to see me I was informed that I 
 would not be permitted to stay in the hos- 
 pital 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 con- 
 sumptive ward, where the warden began ex- 
 tolling the quality and quantity of the fresh 
 air circulating in the room. The commis- 
 sioner turned round and snapped impa- 
 tiently: "And that's about all they ever 
 get!" But the warden never said a word. 
 This man, this mighty czar of the peniten- 
 tiary, who is so brutal and so insolent to 
 the convicts, so arrogant to the keepers, and
 
 118 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 re- 
 marked : "He has the soul of a valet, insult- 
 ing to his inferiors and fawning to his su- 
 periors." 
 
 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.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 119 
 
 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 con- 
 victs. A young convict became quite enam- 
 ored of a blonde, sporty-looking girl, and 
 they took great risks to conmiunicate 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 but- 
 ter." , . . "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 con- 
 sequence they must beg tobacco and matches 
 from the men. 
 
 All the house work, such as making beds,
 
 120 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 en- 
 couraged, 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.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 121 
 
 a woman convict startled the prison with 
 piercing cries. She was in the throes of 
 child-birth. The doctor and the warden be- 
 ing 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 medi- 
 cines and carry away our laundiy. 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 
 gi-ay, damp, greasy, massive walls, without 
 any ventilation. 
 
 As I was looking around I noticed manj^ 
 women sitting in their cells, some working
 
 122 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 outside, sewing or knitting, others sweep- 
 ing or mopping the tiers or the floor. 
 
 JNIy attention was attracted by two wo- 
 men with babies in their arms. A third, a 
 young, quite delicate, fine-looking girl con- 
 vict, 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
 
 THE HOSPITAL 123 
 
 or the sky or any flowers — only striped con- 
 victs, 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 un- 
 der observation to determine whether he is 
 insane or faking insanity. 
 
 The warden and the keepers always sus- 
 pect prisoners of faking sickness or feign- 
 ing 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
 
 124 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 di'ess 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 Wash- 
 ington! Warden of this great prison ! My 
 dear wife! My beautiful little children!"
 
 THE HOSPITAL 125 
 
 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
 
 126 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 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 will- 
 ing 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 fright- 
 ened baby in a strange place. He has the 
 body of a powerful longshoreman and the 
 mentality of a new born baby. 
 
 There is a convict here afflicted with sui-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 127 
 
 cidal mania. Those in the hospital who are 
 not insane have been told to watch him and 
 prevent him from harming himself. He is 
 the same man who tried to drown himself by- 
 jumping into the river. We have to keep 
 the medicine closet locked and the bread 
 knife hidden. 
 
 One night he waited until everybody was 
 asleep, then, sneaking into the bathroom, he 
 took a bottle of medicine which had been left 
 standing on top of the ice box, and gulped 
 a great quantity before the bottle was torn 
 from his lips. He was quite sick for two 
 days. Luckily the bottle only contained 
 "Cascara Sagrada," a powerful cathartic. 
 
 Another time he tried even to push the 
 razor into his throat while a convict barber 
 was shaving him. And yet, every time the 
 barred door is locked or unlocked, he seems 
 to be in mortal fear that somebody is com- 
 ing to shoot him. 
 
 The other evening he sat near me while I 
 was reading and suddenly he leaned over
 
 128 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 and, with quivering nostrils and in a hoarse 
 terrified whisper, asked me, in German, if 
 I was his friend. 
 
 "Certainly," I answered. "What can I 
 do for you?" 
 
 "They are going to shoot me to-night!" he 
 said. "Get me the bread knife so that I can 
 cut my throat, or some poison to kill my- 
 self." 
 
 I tried to pacify him, but he was in a state 
 of abject terror. So, thinking it best to do 
 so, I offered him what he imagined to be poi- 
 son. He drank it quickly and with great 
 relish, waiting impatiently, with gleaming 
 eyes and a sickly, malicious grin, for the 
 death that was to come. But death did not 
 come ; the medicine was only a strong dose of 
 salts. This second cathartic potion cured 
 him effecti^^ely of his suicidal mania, for 
 thus he came finally to the conclusion that 
 all the alleged poisons in the hospital were 
 only snares and delusions. 
 
 After a few months two men with papers
 
 THE HOSPITAL 129 
 
 came over from the asylum of Matteawan 
 and plied him with questions, his answers 
 to which one of the men wrote down. The 
 poor German cobbler was scared stiff, an- 
 swering the queries as if his life depended 
 on his replies. 
 
 Among other things, he was asked why he 
 had jumped into the river. 
 
 "To learn shwimming," was his quick re- 
 tort. 
 
 A^Tiile we were getting him ready to be 
 taken to the insane asylum he was blubber- 
 ing and sputtering, frightened and inarticu- 
 late ; and the tears streamed down his round, 
 fat, childish face. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The hospital has become a sort of ob- 
 servatory for the insane. But all the con- 
 victs who show signs of insanity are not 
 brought up to the hospital. 
 
 Confinement in the cells without work or
 
 130 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 exercise from Saturday afternoon to Mon- 
 day morning, and the punishment in the 
 "cooler," are responsible for most of the 
 cases of insanity. 
 
 When the supposedly insane convicts do 
 not try to commit suicide, or do not keep the 
 prison section awake at night by their yells, 
 they are usually kept in solitary confinement 
 in a cell, sometimes for weeks at a time, un- 
 til at last they are visited by doctors and 
 declared insane. 
 
 An Italian peddler who claimed to have 
 been sentenced unjustly for buying stolen 
 copper wire, was found within a few weeks 
 after his arrival at tlie island with two tin 
 cups in his cell. One cup had been left be- 
 hind by a released convict, the other be- 
 longed to him. Although he could not have 
 known of the infraction of the rules, he was 
 dragged to the wall by a keeper. When the 
 warden came to dispense "justice," he heard 
 the keeper's story and then asked the prison- 
 er to explain. The man tried to explain in
 
 THE HOSPITAL 131 
 
 his broken English that he had found the cup 
 in his cell; but the warden cut the gordian 
 knot impatiently by saying: "None of your 
 damned excuses! Two days in the cooler!" 
 
 The result can be imagined. The unfor- 
 tunate peddler, frantic already from the idea 
 of having been unjustly sentenced, and wor- 
 ried sick over the fate of his helpless wife 
 and children, could not stand this other bolt 
 from the sky ; this punishment for something 
 he did not understand, in the form of terrible 
 torture in a pitch dark cell, without food or 
 water, for an infraction of unknown rules; 
 and he broke down completely under the 
 strain. When he came out of the "cooler" 
 he was, as the keeper declared, "completely 
 bug-house." 
 
 For some time we were kept busy watch- 
 ing the peddler; even his shoes had to be 
 taken from under his bed as he tried to 
 knock the heels into his skull. 
 
 Much to my dismay, I was put to sleep 
 near his bed. Half a dozen times he tried
 
 132 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 to strangle himself, and on the morning of 
 his release, while I was asleep with my back 
 to him, he jumped on my bed like a cat, and 
 with his two powerful hands tried to choke 
 me to death. Convicts came to my rescue; 
 and when he was asked the reason for his 
 attempt on my life, he calmly declared that 
 it was because I had signed the warrant for 
 his death at nine o'clock in the morning. 
 
 When we took him downstairs later, he 
 refused to change his striped suit for his 
 street clothes, and shouted that he had made 
 up his mind to die in the "cooler" at nine 
 o'clock. His wife had to be brought over 
 from the 54th Street side, and she induced 
 him to dress and go home. 
 
 A religious maniac was put under our 
 care a week before his release. His particu- 
 lar delusion was that he was preaching in 
 the desert. When a keeper approached to 
 silence him, he hfted his right arm and, with 
 eyes popping out of their sockets and a ter- 
 rified look on his face, he shouted in a sten-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 133 
 
 torian voice : " Vade retro satanas !" ( "Get 
 thee behind me, Satan!") "I say, for it is 
 wi-itten, thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
 God, and Him only shalt thou serve!" 
 
 In his sane moments he was silent and 
 morose ; and when told about his strange be- 
 haviour, he answered that he knew by the 
 sudden rising of heat to his head when a fit 
 was coming. 
 
 His religious sermons, which kept us 
 awake several hours in the night, were in- 
 terrupted by excursions under beds and 
 tables, while he barked like a dog at any one 
 who tried to stop him. He was then imper- 
 sonating the champion bulldog, Rodney 
 Stone. 
 
 Another addition to our collection of the 
 insane was a giant negro; but fortunately 
 the expression of his derangement was only 
 before meals, when he knelt at the table, say- 
 ing grace, but refusing all food. 
 
 Even Matteawan sent us a man who was 
 supposed to be cured. He was a muscular.
 
 134 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 low-browed German sailor who spoke bad, 
 ungrammatical German and worse English. 
 An accident to his leg brought him up- 
 stairs, and when the doctor undressed him 
 we saw that his whole body was covered with 
 blue and red tattoos, primitive and childish 
 drawings of nude figures, which reminded 
 me of some of Matisse's masterpieces. 
 
 He asked us every few hours in a terrified 
 whisper if we did not see the furniture and 
 the walls rock as if in an earthquake. At 
 night he would point a long finger to the 
 ceiling, where he claimed to see a small open- 
 ing out of which a keeper thrust his head, 
 abusing him with vile names, and shouting 
 that in a short time he would be electrocuted. 
 
 Otherwise he was inoffensive; and some- 
 times he would amuse us by relating his ad- 
 ventures with the women in Matteawan. 
 
 Like most insane men, he slept very lit- 
 tle, sitting up in his bed all night, holding 
 two crutches tightly clutched, on the alert
 
 THE HOSPITAL 135 
 
 for the keeper who was going to electrocute 
 him. 
 
 But an unwise threat to brain Richard, 
 the assistant, deprived him of the necessary 
 but dangerous crutches. 
 
 XV 
 
 Another patient was sent up by the doc- 
 tor. He seemed so sick and weak it ap- 
 peared a wonder that he could still walk. 
 He was a poor Jew, suffering from stomach 
 trouble. Emaciated, yellow, with an ex- 
 pression of intense suffering on his face, 
 which was deeply furrowed by wrinkles, with 
 a beard a week old, and his long, pointed 
 nose, he looked like a sick vulture. 
 
 When he begged for special food, the 
 orderly sarcastically offered him the choice 
 between filet mignon with potatoes, or cut- 
 lets with French peas. The doctor, how- 
 ever, realized that unless he was put on a 
 special diet, the man would die on his hands.
 
 136 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 He had been sentenced to two months in 
 the penitentiary for stealing two packages 
 of cigarettes, and the judge did not realize 
 that it was his death sentence. The tenacity 
 of the man in clinging to life was amazing ; 
 it exemplified anew the remarkable vitality 
 of his race. 
 
 He was always disobeying the doctor's 
 orders. He tried to get up from his bed one 
 afternoon, but he fell, and the bed pan, with 
 all its contents, emptied over him and all 
 over the floor. I ran to assist him, but — I 
 was never well in prison — the stench was 
 so overpowering that I became sick and hesi- 
 tated for a moment, and had to turn away. 
 Two convicts who had joined me saw my 
 sickly face and smilingly said: "Never 
 mind, boss; you go to the window to get 
 some fresh air. We'll clean up the mess for 
 you." 
 
 Everybody wondered how the poor man 
 had managed to keep a flicker of life in a 
 body which was mere bone and skin.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 137 
 
 One night in my sleep I imagined that I 
 had heard him call. As I sat up in my cot I 
 heard his rattling, hoarse whisper calling the 
 
 night orderly: "Oh, Mr , please give 
 
 me some water! A glass of water! I am 
 dying!" 
 
 The orderly, who had been sleeping with 
 his feet on the desk, woke up, looked towards 
 the patient, changed the position of his feet, 
 and shouted: "Ah, shut up, you kike!" 
 
 I got up and brought him a glass of water. 
 He thanked me, and whispered: "I am 
 dying! I don't want to die in jail!" 
 
 I tried to cheer him up with the thought 
 that he would be released in two weeks ; but 
 he shook his head. Terror was written on 
 his ghastly features. "Please, I don't want 
 to die in jail," he said. 
 
 They were his last words.
 
 138 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 XTI 
 
 A boy with blond hair, blue eyes, pink and 
 white as a girl, modest as a nun, gentlemanly 
 and soft spoken as Lord Fauntleroy, came 
 upstairs to be operated on for a tumor. A 
 sentence of two and a half years had been 
 inflicted on him for selling cocaine. This 
 deadly drug was furnished to him by a 
 friend once when he was suffering from a 
 cold. He did not know what it was, but he 
 felt a wonderful exhilaration and a new 
 strength come upon him, so that his ill- 
 ness seemed to vanish. The reaction was 
 terrific, but he became addicted to the drug ; 
 and as he could not afford to buy the stuff, 
 he began selling it, both for the profit and 
 to be able to acquire it. His youth, and his 
 already weak will, made him an easy prey to 
 the evil company into which he was soon 
 thrown. His father and mother and sisters 
 were respectable and law abiding people of 
 the middle class, but they did not seem able
 
 THE HOSPITAL 139 
 
 to cope with the peculiar conditions into 
 which he had fallen. 
 
 Now that he is behind the bars he seems 
 to realize the danger of his weakness, and 
 he speaks of going back home to work 
 among his own people. 
 
 After he was well again they sent him 
 downstairs to work in the machine shop. 
 Within two months he was back again in the 
 hospital to be operated on for another tumor. 
 
 What a transformation! Instead of the 
 gentle, well-mannered, repentant young 
 sinner, we found a pale-faced young tough, 
 with a sneering grin, walking with stooped 
 shoulders, chin forward, arms curved, closed 
 fists, in imitation of "gorillas" looking for 
 trouble. 
 
 In his speech there was also a great 
 change. Where there had been little per- 
 sonality or color, there was now a pictur- 
 esque wealth of blasphemies; names and 
 adjectives and punctuation were expressed 
 by short but intensely vile words.
 
 140 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 When we remarked at the astonishing 
 change, he answered, speaking through one 
 side of his mouth: "Ah, quit your kiddin'! 
 You talk like a preacher. I ain't no sissy 
 no more. When I gets out o' here I'll pull 
 something big that'll knock you stiff. You 
 get me?" And he spat sideways on the floor 
 in supreme contempt. But when we laughed 
 at his pretence and strutting, he blushed in 
 anger and disappointment. 
 
 It seems that when he was sent down- 
 stairs after his first operation he was 
 "doubled up" with a notorious burglar, who 
 undertook to educate him and train him, 
 with a view to using the lad to assist him in 
 his work after his release. A few weeks 
 later his mentor joined him in the hospital, 
 but unlike his talkative pupil, who was 
 quickly ordered to "shut his mug," he was 
 reserved and secretive as to his life and 
 plans. 
 
 But one evening at dusk, as we were both 
 watching the New York skyline from the
 
 THE HOSPITAL 141 
 
 barred windows, the reserve gave way, and 
 the cracksman told me of liis life. 
 
 It was one of those rare moments when 
 even a strong and evil spirit will waver and 
 doubt ; when his heart will overflow with dis- 
 gust and tlie hopelessness of his earthly 
 quest. The attitude of contrition dissipated 
 like smoke when he was asked if it was not 
 possible to make a living in an honest way. 
 
 "Nothing doing," he said. "The bulls 
 won't give me a chance. They'll spot me 
 and job me if I don't put up the dough. 
 It's a fight to a finish. At the other end 
 there is either Sing Sing or the death chair. 
 There ain't no hope. I'U live and die a 
 crook." 
 
 Two years later I read that my friend 
 the cracksman and his pals had been caught 
 trying to blow up a safe in a most daring 
 and scientific manner. And the whole gang 
 was sentenced to Sing Sing for a long term.
 
 142 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 XVII 
 
 A Jewish pickpocket is one of the patients 
 who is under suspicion of faking. The 
 young doctor suggested my watching him, 
 and when I reported, he declared that he 
 was satisfied in his suspicion, but did not 
 send him to his cell at once, as he would 
 have been punished. 
 
 Meanwhile he helps and amuses us with 
 stories of his checkered career. At first I 
 could not make out what was the matter 
 with him. He couldn't walk any distance 
 without jerking his head backwards. I 
 thought he suffered from some peculiar 
 nervous trouble in the muscles of the neck. 
 When I asked him about it he confessed 
 that it was a habit formed by years of un- 
 conscious but very useful watching to see 
 if he was followed by detectives. Even in 
 the hospital, when he knew that he was not 
 followed, he would throw his head in quick 
 glances backwards.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 143 
 
 He told us that the last time he had been 
 caught by the detectives he was taken to 
 headquarters and given a taste of the third 
 degree. As he wouldn't confess, the brave 
 detectives, wearing masks, beat him until 
 he was insensible, and even broke two of 
 his front teeth. The generous head of the 
 detectives promised that if he did not make a 
 complaint to the newspapers he would see to 
 it that he would be sent for only a year to 
 the penitentiary instead of up the river for 
 several years. 
 
 We have several pickpockets in the hos- 
 pital. One of them has grown a beard; he is 
 a Jew, tall, thin but muscular, and when 
 he walks to the bathroom in his night shirt, 
 he seems like a caricature of one of the 
 prophets of his faith. 
 
 He volunteered to rub sulphur ointment 
 on my body as the doctor had ordered. The 
 strength of his muscles, and the vise-like 
 grip of his hands, was almost beyond belief. 
 When he took hold of my arm to massage it
 
 144 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 I felt that he could easily have broken it 
 with a quick blow; but he was very gentle 
 and kind withal. 
 
 A red-headed consumptive, who killed his 
 wife and child in a fit of anger and jealousy, 
 was sent over from the Tombs while waiting 
 for trial. He ordered me in a peremptory 
 manner to do something for him. I repeated 
 to him the lecture I had read to the bulldog 
 negro, but he lost his temper, and began 
 foaming at the mouth and abusing me in a 
 violent and insane fit of anger. 
 
 I did not answer, as I felt that he was 
 not responsible for his actions ; and left him 
 alone. Fifteen minutes later he came into 
 the bathroom, where I was cleaning some 
 medicine bottles. I fully expected to have 
 to defend myself against an attack. In- 
 stead of that, however, he began apologizing 
 for his unwarranted behaviour, adding that 
 when he lost his temper he did not know 
 what he was saying or doing; that anger 
 went to his head like poison and completely
 
 THE HOSPITAL 145 
 
 overcame his reason. He begged me to 
 forgive him and accept his apology. 
 
 This is the third time that a convict has 
 offered an apology for having lost his tem- 
 per and used profane language to me. 
 
 I asked one of the convicts who had apolo- 
 gized if he thought I had kept silent be- 
 cause I was afraid of him. "No," he said. 
 "The man who loses his temper is the one 
 who is afraid. The one who never becomes 
 angry is never afraid; he is the better man 
 of the two." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 I had been three months in the hospital 
 before I began to suspect that I would never 
 get over my skin disease so long as I wore 
 the tattered and patched striped trousers 
 which had been handed to me on my arrival. 
 Therefore I begged the hospital keeper for 
 permission to get a new or at least a clean 
 pair. He told me to go downstairs to the
 
 146 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 head keeper's desk. The reception I got 
 from the head keeper was not surprising, 
 but his sudden burst of anger and his intem- 
 perate language puzzled me not a little. As 
 soon as I approached him he turned around 
 
 sharply and shouted : "What the h do 
 
 you want?" 
 
 Before I had time to complete my request 
 he interrupted me, and shaking his fist at me, 
 yelled : "A pair of trousers ! What do you 
 think of that dude in the hospital wanting 
 a new pair of trousers ! Go on back to your 
 
 hospital, you dirty bum. You ! Get 
 
 out!" 
 
 I turned back slowly without answering, 
 trying meanwhile to puzzle out how I could 
 represent two such different social extremes 
 in the mind of the irate keeper — a dude and 
 a dirty bum! 
 
 When I related the incident to my hos- 
 pital keeper, he shook his head and declared 
 the head keeper an uncouth, stupid animal, 
 and promised to speak about it to the Dep-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 147 
 
 uty. Next day a runner brought me a brand 
 new pair of striped trousers, which looked 
 quite becoming and a good fit after the rags 
 I had worn for so long. 
 
 XIX 
 
 A great many doctors come to visit the 
 hospital. Sometimes the young students 
 from the city hospital, then the aristocratic 
 and famous surgeons who operate on des- 
 perate cases, specialists, all grades and 
 classes of physicians, enter accompanied by 
 the little doctor who lives upstairs on the 
 top floor. His name is B. Davidson. He 
 is so small that he seems almost a school- 
 boy; his eye-glasses are the only elderly 
 thing about him. But he is very efficient, 
 scrupulous and — a marvelous thing in 
 prison — humane in his treatment of the 
 convicts. 
 
 The warden and the keepers hamper liim 
 continually in his work, as he will not listen
 
 148 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 to their opinion about convicts who, accord- 
 ing to them, are all fakers. They have the 
 temerity to place their ignorance, and their 
 hatred of the prisoners, against the profes- 
 sional knowledge and humanity of the doe- 
 tor. 
 
 The boy who had a tumor on his back was 
 kept a week locked in a cell, and was not 
 allowed to see a doctor, because the keeper 
 claimed that he was faking. The doctor 
 laughed when he related the story. "Imag- 
 ine anybody faking a tumor the size of a 
 cocoanut!" 
 
 In the opinion of most prison keepers, 
 every man who reports on the sick list is an 
 incipient faker. The sick man has to in- 
 form his own keeper and he is then reported 
 to the head keeper. Should they diagnose 
 the case as a fake, then the prisoner is shoved 
 back gently to the line ; but should the con- 
 vict in spite of their verdict insist that he is 
 sick, he is locked up in a cell to get well
 
 ri'' 
 
 THE HOSPITAL 149 
 
 without a doctor, or to rot in it, until even 
 the doctor's help is of no avail. 
 
 JNIost cases of consumption, paralysis, in- 
 sanity, or any internal disorder, are consid- 
 ered fake cases. Only when a man hreaks 
 a limb or splits his head open, or when some 
 disease "breaks out" on him, is he believed 
 to be sincere. 
 
 The sturdy young sailor who had worked 
 at my side in the tailor shop was brought 
 to the hospital. He was so changed that I 
 liardly recognized him. I had to ask him 
 his name, and if he remembered having 
 worked in the same shop with me, before 
 I became convinced that he was the same 
 man. 
 
 They kept him locked up in a cell a whole 
 week before the doctor was permitted to 
 visit him, and then they discovered that he 
 was suffering from typhoid fever. Mean- 
 while he had been eating food from tin plates 
 which were washed in the kitchen. 
 
 A convict who was in perfect agony from
 
 150 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 neuralgia of the teeth was visited twice. As 
 no cavity could be discovered, they punished 
 him by extracting forcibly three perfectly 
 healthy teeth from his jaw. 
 
 This incident was related as a great joke 
 by a young assistant to a doctor, to two 
 companions who were preparing a patient 
 for an operation. 
 
 A pair of prison-made shoes, with a nail 
 sticking up inside the heel, was forced on a 
 new-comer by the head keeper. When he 
 protested, he was abused, insulted and 
 threatened with punishment if he did not 
 put on that particular pair of shoes. For 
 two days the unfortunate man hobbled 
 about, working in the kitchen, trying as best 
 he could to ease the intense pain on his heel 
 inflicted by a rusty nail. His foot began 
 swelling and, made desperate by the pain, 
 he finally refused to work until he had seen 
 a doctor. When the doctor examined him, 
 he discovered that he was suffering from
 
 THE HOSPITAL 151 
 
 blood poisoning of the foot, and he had to 
 be kept over two months in the hospital. 
 
 A boy was discovered, by accident, work- 
 ing in the bakery suffering from a loath- 
 some venereal disease. 
 
 The young doctor could not stand the per- 
 secution of the system, and he left in disgust. 
 
 The new doctor is a sallow-faced, green- 
 eyed individual, evidently a dope fiend. 
 He leaves morphine hypodermic syringes 
 lying all over the place; and any one who 
 wants an injection can have it for the ask- 
 ing. Luckily for us, he did not stay very 
 long. 
 
 One night we were kept awake by heart- 
 rending, piercing howls, which came from 
 the apartment occupied by the doctor on 
 the top floor. He had, as we found out 
 later, taken an overdose of morphine. 
 
 Next day he appeared in the hospital, 
 staggering sideways, breathing heavily and 
 with a hollow sound, like a damaged bel- 
 lows. His body shook as if with the palsy.
 
 152 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 his hands trembled as they groped for sup- 
 port; and all the while he was moaning, 
 whining, grunting. He fell into a sitting 
 posture on the floor, and began catching 
 imaginary flies on his sleeves. 
 
 We had to carry him upstairs and put him 
 to bed. He went away the next day. 
 
 The doctor who succeeded him is a young 
 man who seems sympathetic and efficient, 
 but he has to keep his job, and so he takes 
 orders from the consulting keepers, who 
 diagnose cases before he is allowed to see 
 them or to send them to the hospital. 
 
 XX 
 
 The conversation at our meals in the hos- 
 pital table d'hote, although carried on in an 
 undertone, is very often amusing and enliv- 
 ened by quite witty repartee. The table 
 manners of the men are not as bad as might 
 be expected from the motley crowd which 
 adorns our board. All the nationalities and
 
 THE HOSPITAL 153 
 
 races and classes of this wide world liave 
 been waited upon by us : negroes, Chinamen, 
 Mexicans, Slavs, Italians, Jews, Hunga- 
 rians, Arabs, Syrians, Hindus; members of 
 all the different professions, such as waiters, 
 lawyers, hold-up men, capitalists, fortune 
 tellers, doctors, sneak tliieves, bankers, 
 bums, dentists, burglars, "sky pilots," 
 grafters, butchers, gamblers, street car con- 
 ductors, confidence men, tailors, insane men, 
 tramps, crooks, horse poisoners, saloon keep- 
 ers^ — everybody and everything! 
 
 In a restaurant, in a public cafe, in a bar- 
 room, one meets or sees many people whose 
 profession or real status is a mystery, and 
 often a secret; but here everybody's pro- 
 fession, character, antecedents, sentence, 
 criminal record, are kno\Mi, judged and 
 commented upon. Here nobody can put on 
 airs because he has a fat bank account, finer 
 clothes, more expensive jewelry, better fam- 
 ily connections, or greater political influ- 
 ence. A man is judged by his character,
 
 154 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 his personality, his attitude toward the pris- 
 oners and the keepers. This is one place 
 where fine feathers do not make fine birds. 
 
 The appetite of the men, with the excep- 
 tion of the sick, is always of the best. They 
 are very particular about the quantity as 
 well as the quality of the food. There is no 
 reason to complain about it, except the 
 coffee, which is served downstairs, and which 
 is no coffee at all, but roasted bread crust 
 which spoils the water in which it is soaked. 
 Many a man would prefer pure water to the 
 unsweetened, light-brown mixture, called 
 "bootleg." It isn't even near coffee, but it 
 is insidiously named "coffee," so as to prove 
 to the public that the convicts are pampered 
 and spoiled. 
 
 One day a member of the Prison Com- 
 mission who was visiting the penitentiary 
 picked up a tin cup of "coffee" which was 
 standing in the mess hall, where the convicts 
 were watching the visitors testing the food 
 which had been picked out for that purpose.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 155 
 
 The Commissioner drank half a mouthful of 
 the "bootleg," and then, with a wry face, 
 swiftly spat it on the floor. The convicts 
 did not laugh ; they were too well disciplined 
 for that ; but an almost imperceptible whis- 
 pering titter swept all over the mess hall 
 like a June breeze wafting over a wheat 
 field. 
 
 XXI 
 
 The other day a, man was brought up to 
 the hospital to have his broken arm band- 
 aged. He had got up in the mess hall and 
 started to voice a protest against the rotten 
 meat. Two keepers jumped on him with 
 their sticks and beat him until he was in- 
 sensible. Later the "Dep" came upstairs to 
 look him over, and said: "So you think you 
 are a tough guy!" The man kept silent; 
 but later he was sent to the "cooler." 
 
 There is an old Italian tailor in the hos- 
 pital who has become popular because he
 
 156 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 mends our socks and makes pockets in our 
 trousers. He eats enormous quantities of 
 food, and after he is throug'h he wipes his 
 mouth with the crust of bread which does 
 service for him as a napkin ! 
 
 A dope fiend, who had kept us awake five 
 nights in succession, was allowed to sit at 
 the table after he had broken his fast with 
 milk. He was warned to eat sparingly. 
 One Friday, as fish was served and I knew 
 only two pieces had been eaten, I was won- 
 dering where it all had gone when I emptied 
 the dishes in the garbage can. Out of six- 
 teen pieces of fish that had been served, 
 only two could be accounted for. I turned 
 to look over the room, and I noticed our 
 dope fiend still chewing away at something. 
 Then I noticed the shirt round his belt bulg- 
 ing in an unusual fashion across his very 
 lean body; and I was surprised to discover 
 what had happened to the missing portions 
 of fish. 
 
 Not satisfied with having eaten two pieces
 
 THE HOSPITAL 157 
 
 of fish, our dope fiend had stuffed the 
 other fourteen pieces inside his shirt, so as 
 to make sure that he would have enough 
 food to last him through the night. 
 
 For five consecutive nights he had kept us 
 awake with his moaning and raving, sitting 
 upright in his bed, swinging his body back 
 and forth pendulum fashion. He could not 
 keep anything in his stomach, either food 
 or water. He begged piteously for an in- 
 jection of morphine, but the new doctor was 
 obdiu'ate; he said that it was either cure or 
 kill. When the morphine was eliminated he 
 became liimself again, and he was cured of 
 his habit. Some morphine fiends die from 
 the stoppage of the supply, but many of 
 them are effectively cured. 
 
 A bald-headed, consumptive negro keeps 
 us in constant laughter — when prison lets 
 us laugh — ^with wonderful and never ending 
 stories of his adventurous life. Even the 
 d(x?tor will stand by the hour listening to 
 his quaint speech and stories. Although he
 
 158 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 is an old rascal and an old offender, one 
 cannot help liking him for his cheerful, gay 
 attitude towards life. 
 
 He related how one time, after serving a 
 term in the reformatory, he went back to 
 his wife in New York. She lived in an 
 apartment on the ground floor, and she 
 seemed to be happy to see him again. She 
 inquired about his health and asked about 
 his future prospects. While they were talk- 
 ing he heard somebody opening the front 
 door with a latch key. He became quite 
 nervous, and asked his wife who it was that 
 dared to come in without ringing the bell. 
 "Dat's de husband I'se married while you 
 was in jail; and he's a big black coon," she 
 said. 
 
 He jumped hastily through the window, 
 he confessed to us, so as not to embarrass 
 husband number two, and leaving behind a 
 grip with his clothes. He came back next 
 night to get his belongings, and he used the 
 window this time as a means of entrance.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 159 
 
 But fate was against him. As he emerged 
 from the window again he fell into the arms 
 of a watchful policeman, who promptly ar- 
 rested him. Being an ex-convict, he was 
 sentenced to a year in the penitentiary, as 
 he said, for stealing his own pants! 
 
 A tall, hlond Pole behaved in such a dis- 
 gusting manner at the table that the keeper 
 ordered him back to his bed. 
 
 The first two weeks that he was in bed we 
 could not induce him to get up to perform 
 the most normal animal functions. But, as 
 there did not seem to be anything the mat- 
 ter with him, he was finally forced to get up 
 and go to the bathroom. 
 
 For more than two weeks we had plied 
 him with questions — myself, the doctors, and 
 all the convicts who knew different lan- 
 guages. He looked at us with his big, blue 
 eyes, shaking his head as if he did not under- 
 stand what we were talking about. We 
 finally came to the conclusion that he either
 
 160 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 spoke some unknown language, or that 
 maybe he was deaf and mute. 
 
 One day Richard, the young assistant, 
 made him get up, but instead of walking, 
 he crept on all fours to the bathroom. Then 
 he got up like a human being and started 
 drinking water from the faucet. Richard 
 took him to task for his uncleanliness. He 
 said to him: "Wash your face, you dirty 
 pig!" And to the utter amazement of 
 Richard, the supposed deaf mute turned 
 roimd angrily and said, in perfect English: 
 "You go to hell, will you!" A few weeks 
 later he was taken to Matteawan. 
 
 Later I gathered from another Pole who 
 had talked to him and succeeded in making 
 him answer, that he had been a petty officer 
 in the Russian navy, and that he had muti- 
 nied, and later had succeeded in escaping to 
 America. 
 
 He had hit upon the idea of feigning in- 
 sanity in order to foil the vigilant Russian 
 secret service agents, who would be on the
 
 THE HOSPITAL 161 
 
 lookout for him upon his release from the 
 Island ; he feared that thev would create an 
 opportunity to "shanghai" him on board a 
 Russian ship, and he knew that they would 
 hang him if he ever was returned to the 
 fatherland. He had been sentenced to sixty 
 days on the Island for vagrancy. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Protestant clergj'^men, Catholic priests, 
 Rabbis, Sisters of Mercy, missionaries and 
 even a Theosophist preacher, visit the prison 
 and the hospital regularly. Saturday after- 
 noon is a very busy time for the "sky 
 pilots." 
 
 One "sky pilot" comes only during the 
 lunch hour and, walking to the busy table, 
 invariablj^ asks: "Well, boys, how goes it?'* 
 He has never been knf)wn to change his 
 queiy in years — and that is the only service 
 he has ever done for the souls of the con- 
 victs.
 
 162 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 A tall, thin, spectacled, Protestant mis- 
 sionary devotes a great deal of his time to 
 what he calls "saving souls from eternal 
 damnation"; his way of doing this myste- 
 rious thing is by leaving tracts on our beds. 
 They contain startling headlines, such, for 
 instance, as this: "Be with Jesus. He is 
 your only pal!" 
 
 When I laughed at one of his quotations 
 from the Bible, which I claimed was incor- 
 rect, he retorted by saying that my spirit 
 was full of unclean devils. I answered by 
 saying that I would rather be a real devU 
 than a false saint of his type, and he at 
 once proved the truth of my assertion by 
 calling me unseemly and unchristian epi- 
 thets, greatly to the merriment of the listen- 
 ing convicts and the keeper. I told him to 
 go away from me and let me alone, but fif- 
 teen minutes later he came back and apolo- 
 gized for his offensive and undignified be- 
 haviour, adding that he had looked up the 
 quotation in a Bible at the keeper's desk and
 
 THE HOSPITAL 163 
 
 to his great astonishment found that he 
 had been mistaken. 
 
 Although I am not of his faith, the Rabbi 
 comes to speak to me every week. He has 
 taken a great interest in my case, and he 
 offers his services to get me a pardon, de- 
 ploring my attitude in wasting time behind 
 the bars and in the vain hope that my appeal 
 will be successful. 
 
 But he is surprised when I inform him 
 that I do not expect to succeed in my appeal, 
 and that I have made up my mind not to 
 accept any favors from the parties who were 
 responsible for my prosecution and impris- 
 onment, so that I can keep my hands free 
 to act in case there are further revelations. 
 
 A few weeks later another Rabbi takes 
 his place. A kinder and gentler soul it 
 would be difficult to meet. 
 
 The Sisters of Mercy appear every month 
 or so; they are loved and venerated by the 
 convicts. I have noticed that, unlike the 
 other missionaries who take care of our
 
 164 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 spiritual welfare, the Sisters never ask a con- 
 vict: "What crime did you commit?" but 
 always: "How long must you serve?" 
 "Have you mother, sister, wife, or chil- 
 dren?" "What can we do to help them?" 
 
 The Sisters never argue, discuss or theo- 
 rize about religion, but they help the con- 
 victs in the only practical, useful and effi- 
 cient ways; they visit and appeal to judges 
 and District Attorneys; they call on the 
 families of the convicts and their friends; 
 they furnish money to needy relatives and 
 to the men themselves when they come pen- 
 niless out of prison. 
 
 The Protestant clergymen, the Catholic 
 priests, the Rabbis, the missionaries, as a 
 rule talk only to the men of their own faith. 
 But the Sisters of Mercy speak to every- 
 body, no matter to what race or faith they 
 may belong. They never inquire into a 
 man's crimes; all they ask is to be told of 
 his troubles and worries and to be allowed to 
 do what they can to relieve them.
 
 THE HOSPITAL 165 
 
 One of the Sisters is said to be responsible 
 for the elimination of stripes in Sing Sing. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Convicts have a cunning and peculiar way 
 of revenging themselves on bad and cruel 
 keepers. When one of that type is put on 
 night duty, following a prearranged sign 
 the whole section suddenly starts a tremen- 
 dous hullabaloo. Several hundred convicts, 
 acting in unison, begin yelling, cat-calling, 
 grunting, roaring, whistling, stamping their 
 feet, beating the bars of their cages with tin 
 cups and pail covers. The enraged keeper 
 jumps up and down the tiers in a vain ef- 
 fort to catch the arch offenders, but on his 
 coming a signal is passed to the whole tier, 
 which suddenly becomes silent, the other sec- 
 tions in the meanwhile increasing the noise 
 and disturbance until the warden appears. 
 His presence seems only to put more zest, 
 energy and lung power into the demonstra-
 
 16G A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 tion. Revolvers are fired to intimidate the 
 men and they are threatened with dire pun- 
 ishment, but nothing seems to be able to 
 quell the rebellion, and it is continued every 
 night until the offending keeper is shifted. 
 
 These prearranged, noisy riots are rare 
 and as a rule they occur only in cases when 
 bad food or a series of persecutions have 
 goaded the prisoners to the only real ex- 
 pression of protest which can be effective. 
 
 One night during the Hudson-Fulton 
 celebration in New York, when all the city 
 was gaily illuminated, and all the bridges 
 were picked out in electric lights, and music 
 and shouts could be heard in the distance, a 
 rumpus started on a magnificent scale after 
 the convicts had been locked up in their 
 cells. 
 
 The whole prison seemed literally to have 
 gone insane. The pandemonium let loose 
 was so terrific that it could be heard both 
 from the New York and the Brooklyn sides 
 of the river. The warden and the keepers
 
 THE HOSPITAL 167 
 
 were perfect!}' helpless; they could not sub- 
 due the prisoners, who kept up their infernal 
 racket for hour after hour, and stopped 
 only from exhaustion, when there was no 
 more lung power to draw on. This noisy 
 and turbulent protest of a whole prison de- 
 fying one of the strictest rules of jail law 
 was a strange psychological curiosity; a 
 mad, reckless, stentorian rebellion against 
 the rules of silence when the great metropolis 
 was heard noisily rejoicing across the river. 
 
 Prisoners are very quick to find out a bad 
 or a good keeper, an honest or a grafting 
 keeper. 
 
 Humane keepers always and invariably 
 get the best results. They maintain disci- 
 pline with very little effort, and the pris- 
 oners themselves see to it that the attitude 
 of such keepers is not changed or embittered 
 by malicious and silly conduct on their part 
 or that of their companions. The foul- 
 mouthed, brutal keeper never seems to be
 
 168 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 able to maintain discipline, and when he re- 
 venges himself by inflicting unjust punish- 
 ments the men retaliate by all kinds of per- 
 secutions. 
 
 An unjust and exceedingly brutal keeper 
 was waylaid one night on his way home by 
 some released convicts, who "beat him up" 
 in such a manner that he was sent to a hos- 
 pital for almost a month. 
 
 The Jewish and Italian convicts are often 
 victims of the persecutions of some keepers, 
 who heap ridicule and injustice and punish- 
 ment upon them. The "guineas," the 
 "wops," the "sheenies" and "kikes," find no 
 mercy at the hands of these keepers, who 
 consider men of these races as inferior, fit 
 only to be brutalized, slowly but surely, into 
 superior races. 
 
 An Irish keeper said jokingly to an Ital- 
 ian convict who could not understand some- 
 thing in connection with his work: 
 
 "Let an Irishman show you. You dagoes 
 don't know nothing. How does it come that
 
 THE HOSPITAL 169 
 
 they pick Popes from among the wops, I 
 wonder?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered the Italian, "and 
 never in two thousand years did they pick 
 out an Irish Pope." 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The outlook from the windows of our hos- 
 pital is a source of never ending interest. 
 
 We can watch the grass grow and the 
 trees, the birds hunting for food, the hospi- 
 tal cat waiting patiently under a bush for 
 a stray sparrow, the orderly of the warden, 
 haughty and always in a hurry, followed by 
 a yellow dog. Another orderly is a red- 
 headed young man who is called a "sugar 
 man." He and two other men are the 
 "goats" for the higher officials of the Sugar 
 Trust. 
 
 We watch the visitors come in from the 
 boats ; the doctors, the officials, the prisoners 
 arriving escorted by the sheriffs. The aver-
 
 170 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 age prisoner is well dressed; some of them 
 are quite dandified in their appearance, while 
 others are poorly dressed, some of them even 
 without an overcoat in winter time. One 
 day a bum came, escorted by a sheriff, all 
 alone, with a straw hat, at the height of the 
 winter season. 
 
 The other morning a big, square-shoul- 
 dered tramp was following the sheriff in a 
 lazy, shuffling manner. There was no hat on 
 his long, dishevelled mop of reddish hair; 
 his beard was of enormous proportions; his 
 face was brick red, as well as the hands, 
 from dirt and exposure to the air. A coat 
 and trousers which almost dropped from his 
 body, so ragged were they ; no shirt, no un- 
 derwear, and a pair of shoes through which 
 his toes peeped smilingly, completed his 
 wardrobe. A sudden gust of wind would 
 have divested him of all covering. 
 
 Half an hour later I happened to pass 
 near the head keeper's desk, and I could 
 hardly believe my eyes when I beheld that
 
 THE HOSPITAL 171 
 
 tramp. In his case the transformation was 
 highly creditable to prison methods. They 
 had clipped his hair, cut his beard, given 
 him a bath, covered him with a striped shirt 
 and a striped suit, and he was standing in 
 brand-new, prison-made shoes. He looked 
 indeed like a gentleman as compared with 
 his former wild, dirty, disreputable and piti- 
 ful appearance. 
 
 On Sunday droves of visitors come to the 
 island on the 23rd Street boat. The women 
 are more numerous than the men; poorly 
 dressed women are in the majority; often 
 flashily dressed women with expensive fur 
 coats and stylish hats are seen elbowing old 
 and homely women wearing shawls and with 
 babies on their arms. Almost everybody 
 carries packages of fruit to the inmates. 
 Little boys and girls often accompany the 
 women, and handkerchiefs are often raised 
 to wipe away tears. It is a tragic, fateful, 
 unhappy procession.
 
 172 'M MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 XXV 
 
 The first and the last week seem longest 
 in the term of imprisonment. During the 
 rest of the time the hours pass in swift suc- 
 cession, as the work and the regidar hours 
 help to shorten the time ; there is a spirit of 
 patience, and the mind becomes more and 
 more introspective and philosophical. 
 
 But in the last week all the thoughts, the 
 plans, the ambitions, the discoveries of a new 
 future, seem to be concentrated. The min- 
 utes drag by with a laborious and torpid 
 slowness, and there is an intensity of time 
 which seems to crowd sixty hours into one 
 single hour by the clock. The ordinary pa- 
 tient, often of a cheerful habit of mind, is 
 of a sudden transformed into a cranky, im- 
 patient, unruly, violent attitude. 
 
 During that last week I very nearly got 
 into trouble, for the first time in my ten 
 months of imprisonment "with good be- 
 haviour;" and this when an impertinent an-
 
 THE HOSPITAL 173 
 
 swer might have kept me two months longer 
 within this barred prison. 
 
 A keeper known and hated for his brutal 
 and insulting attitude towards the prisoners 
 was relieving our own hospital keeper dur- 
 ing the lunch hour. He was watching the 
 prisoners file into the room at the opposite 
 end of the hospital to wait for the arrival 
 of the dentist. A belated man came in hold- 
 ing a handkerchief close to his mouth as if 
 he were suffering from an agonizing tooth- 
 ache. 
 
 The keeper spoke: "Who is that dirty 
 bum?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" I said. 
 "I mean who is that dirty bum who just 
 came in?" he repeated. 
 
 "I don't understand you," I rejoined, 
 angry at his remark. 
 
 "I see you're rather particular about ex- 
 pressions," he said in a surprised tone. 
 
 "Yes," I retorted, "and I don't see what 
 right you have to call an inoffensive convict
 
 174 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 a dirty bum, when if it wasn't for us dirty 
 bums you wouldn't be sitting here now." 
 
 The situation was saved by an old Irish 
 keeper who added laughingly, "That's right, 
 you wouldn't be getting twenty-five per a 
 week to keep a chair from flying out of a 
 window, if it wasn't for those dirty bums." 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Only after a long while did the influence, 
 the pernicious influx of the thought waves 
 emanating from hundreds of convict minds, 
 begin to play on my mind. I never im- 
 agined that convict habits and thoughts 
 could touch me or have any effect on my in- 
 most thoughts, my better self. During the 
 day, in fact, when the conscious mind was 
 active, nothing seemed to effect my habitual, 
 set and crystallized character, my old trend 
 of mental, moral and intellectual associa- 
 tions. 
 
 Only in the last month, during my sleep
 
 THE HOSPITAL 175 
 
 or half-sleep, did I recognize the ascendency 
 of the magnetic, unhealthy, collective 
 thoughts of the prison. They arose slowly, 
 like poisonous miasmas, insidious and per- 
 meating, with a persistency that amazed my 
 startled and thoroughly alarmed conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Thoughts, images, desires, which I had 
 been used from my youth and all through 
 my life to consider unhealthy, degenerate or 
 simply unworthy of my attention, came 
 sneaking into my subconscious mind, in the 
 form of disgusting, appalling, terrifying 
 dreams. The back yard of my mind 
 had begun to register and absorb all the 
 wretched, unclean, monstrous, unmention- 
 able yearnings, desires and actions of the 
 collective prison dreams ; it was inlialing the 
 moral stench which arose as from a "cloaca 
 maxima." 
 
 I thought of all the weak, unbalanced, 
 receptive young minds which must have 
 been corrupted by this intangible, powerful
 
 176 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 magnetism; and of how this unnatural, ab- 
 normal, degrading prison life began in any- 
 absorbent or indifferent temperament a 
 slow corrosion and led to a complete and ef- 
 fective disruption and destruction of all 
 moral and intellectual integrity. 
 
 I felt as if hundreds of unspeakable and 
 undreamed of sins, taking shape of gliding 
 snakes, noiseless and black, with glittering 
 eyes and fiery tongues, were descending 
 upon me, winding round my body and my 
 legs and arms, fastening their pin-like fangs 
 in my flesh to poison my brain and body. 
 
 And I thanked my stars and my fate 
 and my power of will when the last night of 
 my sentence arrived to relieve me of an op- 
 pressive, suffocating succession of night- 
 mares. 
 
 I did not sleep one solitary wink, but how 
 rosy, exquisite, exhilarating, radiant, were 
 the thoughts that filled me on that prison 
 cot, how transparent those bars seemed on 
 that last night, never to be forgotten, like
 
 THE HOSPITAL 177 
 
 the first night I spent in that horrible dun- 
 geon. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 I am finally called downstairs. The sun 
 streaming tln-ough the narrow bars gives the 
 gloomy prison almost a bright appearance. 
 Hastily I put on my street clothes. I feel 
 like a man putting on a strange, exotic cos- 
 tume for a fancy dress ball; the collar and 
 necktie seem to choke me with a kind of 
 joy and affection. Accompanied by my law- 
 yer, I walk out of the fateful gates, and then 
 I turn to look back, and to glance upwards 
 to the hospital windows where the patients 
 and the old keeper wave a friendly salute 
 and farewell. 
 
 Friends are waiting to greet me at the 
 other side of the river. I look in wonder 
 and amaze at the people in the streets. 
 Everything is so interesting; the most com- 
 monplace and sordid sights are delightful 
 and picturesque. The men; the women,
 
 178 A MODERN PURGATORY 
 
 with their wonderful clothes; the sky, the 
 houses, the cars, the signs, everything, seem 
 so novel, so friendly; every minute so 
 precious, so full of surprises and possibili- 
 ties. 
 
 I have grown fat and pale, in prison, but 
 my spirit is as light and quick as the spirit 
 of a humming bird. Everybody greets me 
 as a traveller returned from a strange, un- 
 known, and very distant land — and yet all 
 the while I have been living in the very heart 
 of the metropolis. Everybody seems to real- 
 ize and to reassure me that the acceptance 
 of a pardon would have been a grievous mis- 
 take. To refuse it meant a great sacrifice, 
 but making that sacrifice has confirmed a 
 general suspicion that unfair methods, dan- 
 gerous to American traditions, have been 
 used against me. 
 
 The day of reckoning will come in time. 
 Meanwhile, how beautiful, perfect, intoxi- 
 cating is the sense of untrammelled liberty! 
 It repays me for many a dark, tragic hour.
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 
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 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 425 852 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
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