The Chief smiled at Tom's sentiment—that was always his weak point—poor Tom!—and said: "Well, you are a clever thief, and I'm glad I was wise enough to catch you." Whereupon Tom sneered and remarked: "I could die of old age in this city for all of you and your detectives. I was tipped off to you by a Dicky Bird (stool pigeon) damn him!" I have known few grafters who had as much feeling as Tom.
More than five years passed, and the time for my release from Auburn drew near. The last weeks dragged terribly; they seemed almost as long as the years that had gone before. Sometimes I thought the time would never come. The day before I was discharged I bade good-bye to my friends, who said to me, smiling: "She has come at last," or "It's near at hand," or "It was a long time a-coming." That night I built many castles in theair, with the help of a large piece of opium: and continued to make the good resolutions I had begun some time before. I had permission from the night guard to keep my light burning after the usual hour, and the last book I read on my first term in stir wasTristram Shandy. Just before I went to bed I sang for the last time a popular prison song which had been running in my head for months:
"Roll round, '89, '90, '91, sweet '92 roll around.How happy I shall be the morning I go free, sweet '92 roll around."
"Roll round, '89, '90, '91, sweet '92 roll around.How happy I shall be the morning I go free, sweet '92 roll around."
"Roll round, '89, '90, '91, sweet '92 roll around.How happy I shall be the morning I go free, sweet '92 roll around."
"Roll round, '89, '90, '91, sweet '92 roll around.
How happy I shall be the morning I go free, sweet '92 roll around."
Before I fell asleep I resolved to be good, to quit opium and not to graft any more. The resolution was easily made and I went to bed happy. I was up at day-break and penned a few last words to my friends and acquaintances remaining in stir. I promised some of them that I would see their friends on the outside and send them delicacies and a little money. They knew that I would keep my promise, for I have always been a man of my word; as many of the most successful grafters are. It is only the vogel-grafter, the petty larceny thief or the "sure-thing" article, who habitually breaks his word. Many peoplethink that a thief can not be trusted; and it certainly is true that the profession does not help to make a man virtuous in his personal relations. But it is also true that a man may be, and sometimes is, honorable in his dealings with his own world, and at the same time a desperate criminal in the other. It is not of course common, to find a thief who is an honest man; but is there very often an honest man anywhere, in the world of graft or out of it? If it is often, so much the better, but that has not been my experience. Does not everyone know that the men who do society the greatest injury have never done time; in fact, may never have broken any laws? I am not trying to excuse myself or my companions in crime, but I think the world is a little twisted in its ideas as to right and wrong, and who are the greatest sinners.
When six o'clock on the final day came round it was a great relief. I went through the regular routine, and at eight o'clock was called to the front office, received a new suit of clothes, as well as my fare home and ten dollars with which to begin life afresh.
"Hold on," I said, to the Warden. "I worked eighteen months. Under the newpiece-price plan I ought to be allowed a certain percentage of my earnings."
The Warden, who was a good fellow and permitted almost anything to come in by the Underground Tunnel, asked the clerk if there was any more money for me. The clerk consulted with the keepers and then reported to the Warden that I was the most tired man that ever entered the prison; adding that it was very nervy of me to want more money, after they had treated me far better than the parent of the Prodigal treated his son. The Warden, thereupon, remarked to me that if I went pilfering again and were not more energetic than I had been in prison, I would never eat. "Goodbye," he concluded.
"Well," I said, "I hope we'll never meet again."
With my discharge papers in my hand, and in my mind a resolution never to go back to the stir where so many of my friends, strong fellows, too, had lost their lives or had become physical or mental wrecks, I left Auburn penitentiary and went forth into the free world. I had gone to stir a boy of twenty-one, and left it a man of twenty-six. I entered healthy, and left broken down in health, with the marks of thejail-bird upon me; marks, mental and physical, that would never leave me, and habits that I knew would stick closer than a brother. I knew that there was nothing in a life of crime. I had tested that well enough. But there were times during the last months I spent in my cell, when, in spite of my good resolutions, I hated the outside world which had forced me into a place that took away from my manhood and strength. I knew I had sinned against my fellow men, but I knew, too, that there had been something good in me. I was half Irish, and about that race there is naturally something roguish; and that was part of my wickedness. When I left stir I knew I was not capable, after five years and some months of unnatural routine, of what I should have been by nature.
A man is like an electric plant. Use poor fuel and you will have poor electricity. The food is bad in prison. The cells at Sing Sing are a crime against the criminal; and in these damp and narrow cells he spends, on the average, eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. In the name of humanity and science what can society expect from a man who has spent a number of years in such surroundings? Hewill come out of stir, as a rule, a burden on the tax-payers, unable to work, and confirmed in a life of crime; desperate, and willing to take any chance. The low-down, petty, canting thief, who works all the charitable societies and will rob only those who are his benefactors, or a door-mat, is utterly useless in prison or out. The healthy, intelligent, ambitious grafter is capable of reform and usefulness, if shown the error of his ways or taken hold of before his physical and mental health is ruined by prison life. You can appeal to his manhood at that early time. After he has spent a certain number of years in stir his teeth become decayed; he can not chew his food, which is coarse and ill-cooked; his stomach gets bad: and once his stomach becomes deranged it is only a short time before his head is in a like condition. Eventually, he may be transferred to the mad-house. I left Auburn stir a happy man, for the time, for I thought everything would be smooth sailing. As a matter of fact I could not know the actual realities I had to face, inside and outside of me, and so all my good resolutions were nothing but a dream.
It was a fine May morning that I left Auburnand I was greatly excited and bewildered by the brightness and joy of everything about me. I took my hat off, gazed up at the clear sky, looked up and down the street and at the passers-by, with a feeling of pleasure and confusion. I turned to the man who had been released with me, and said, "Let's go and get something to eat." On the way to the restaurant, however, the jangling of the trolleys upset my nerves. I could not eat, and drank a couple of whiskies. They did not taste right. Everything seemed tame, compared with the air, which I breathed like a drunken man.
I bought a few pounds of tea, canned goods, cheese and fruit, which I sent by a keeper to my friends in stir. I also bought for my friends a few dollars' worth of morphine and some pulverized gum opium. How could I send it to them, for the keeper was not "next" to the Underground? Suddenly I had an idea. I bought ten cents worth of walnuts, split them, took the meat out, put the morphine and opium in, closed them with mucilage, put them in a bag and sent them to the convicts with the basket of other things I had left with the innocent keeper.
I got aboard my train, and as I pulled outof the town of Auburn gave a great sigh of relief. I longed to go directly to New York, for I always did like big cities, particularly Manhattan, and I was dying to see some of my old girls. But I stopped off at Syracuse, according to promises, to deliver some messages to the relatives of convicts, and so reached New York a few hours later than my family and friends had expected. They had gone to meet an earlier train, and had not waited, so that when I reached my native city after this long absence I found nobody at the station to welcome me back. It made me sad for a moment, but when I passed out into the streets of the big town I felt excited and joyous, and so confused that I thought I knew almost everybody on the street. I nearly spoke to a stranger, a woman, thinking she was Blonde Mamie.
I soon reached the Bowery and there met some of my old pals; but was much surprised to find them changed and older. For years and years a convict lives in a dream. He is isolated from the realities of the outside world. In stir he is a machine, and his mind is continually dwelling on the last time he was at liberty; he thinks of his family and friends asthey were then. They may have become old, sickly and wrinkled, but he does not realize this. When, set free, he tries to find them, he expects that they will be unchanged, but if he finds them at all, what a shock! An old-timer I knew, a man named Packey, who had served fifteen years out of a life sentence, and had been twice declared insane, told me that he had reached a state of mind in which he imagined himself to be still a young fellow, of the age he was when he first went to stir.
I spent my first day in New York looking up my old pals and girls, especially the latter. How I longed to exchange friendly words with a woman! But the girls I knew were all gone, and I was forced to make new acquaintances on the spot. I spent all the afternoon and most of the evening with a girl I picked up on the Bowery; I thought she was the most beautiful creature in the world; but when I saw her again weeks afterwards, when women were not so novel to me, I found her almost hideous. I must have longed for a young woman's society, for I did not go to see my poor old mother until I had left my Bowery acquaintance. And yet my mother had often proved herself my only friend! But I had a long talk with her before I slept, and when I left her for a stroll in the wonderful city before going to bed my resolution to be good was keener than ever.
As I sauntered along the Bowery that night the desire to talk to an old pal was strong. But where was I to find a friend? Only in places where thieves hung out. "Well," I said to myself, "there is no harm in talking to my old pals. I will tell them there is nothing in the graft, and that I have squared it." I dropped into a music hall, a resort for pickpockets, kept by an old gun, and there I met Teddy, whom I had not seen for years.
"Hello, Jim," he said, giving me the glad hand, "I thought you were dead."
"Not quite so bad as that, Teddy," I replied, "I am still in evidence."
We had a couple of beers. I could not quite make up my mind to tell him I had squared it; and he put me next to things in town.
"Take my advice," he said, "and keep away from —— —— (naming certain clubs and saloons where thieves congregated). The proprietors of these places and the guns that hang out there, many of them anyway, are not on the level. Some of the grafters who go there have the reputation of being clever dips, but they have protection from the Front Office men because they are rats and so cantear things open without danger. By giving up a certain amount of stuff and dropping a stall or two occasionally to keep up the flyman's reputation, they are able to have a bank account and never go to stir. The flymen hang out in these joints, waiting for a tip, and they are bad places for a grafter who is on the level."
I listened with attention, and said, by force of habit:
"Put me next to the stool-pigeons, Teddy. You know I am just back from stir."
"Well," he answered, "outside of so and so (and he mentioned half-a-dozen men by name) none of them who hang out in those joints can be trusted. Come to my house, Jim, and we'll have a long talk about old times, and I will introduce you to some good people (meaning thieves)."
I went with him to his home, which was in a tenement house in the lower part of the first ward. He introduced me to his wife and children and a number of dips, burglars and strong-armed men who made his place a kind of rendezvous. We talked old times and graft, and the wife and little boy of eight years old listened attentively. The boy hada much better chance to learn the graft than I had when a kid, for my father was an honest man.
The three strong-arm men (highwaymen) were a study to me, for they were Westerners, with any amount of nerve. One of them, Denver Red, a big powerful fellow, mentioned a few bits he had done in Western prisons, explained a few of his grafts and seemed to despise New York guns, whom he considered cowardly. He said the Easterners feared the police too much, and always wanted to fix things before they dared to graft.
I told them a little about New York State penitentiaries, and then Ted said to Denver Red: "What do you think of the big fellow?" Denver grinned, and the others followed suit, and I heard the latest story. A well-known politician, leader of his district, a cousin of Senator Wet Coin; a man of gigantic stature, with the pleasing name, I will say, of Flower, had had an adventure. He is even better developed physically than mentally, and virtually king of his district, and whenever he passes by, the girls bow to him, the petty thief calls him "Mister" and men and women alike call him "Big Flower." Well, one night notlong before the gathering took place in Teddy's house, Big Flower was passing through the toughest portion of his bailiwick, humming ragtime, when my new acquaintances, the three strong-arm workers from the West, stuck him up with cannisters, and relieved him of a five carat diamond stud, a gold watch and chain and a considerable amount of cash. The next day there was consternation among the clan of the Wet Coins, for Big Flower, who had been thus nipped, was their idol. We all laughed heartily at the story, and I went home and to sleep.
The next day I found it a very easy thing to drift back to my old haunts. In the evening I went to a sporting house on Twenty-seventh Street, where a number of guns hung out. I got the glad hand and an invitation to join in some good graft. I said I was done with the Rocky Path. They smiled and gently said: "We have been there, too, Jim."
One of them added: "By the way, I hear you are up against the hop, Jim." It was Billy, and he invited me home with him. There I met Ida, as pretty a little shop girl as one wants to see. Billy said there was alwaysan opening for me, that times were pretty good. He and Ida had an opium layout, and they asked me to take a smoke. I told them my nerves were not right, and that I had quit. "Poor fellow," said Billy.
Perhaps it was the sight or smell of the hop, but anyway I got the yen-yen and shook as in an ague. My eyes watered and I grew as pale as a sheet. I thought my bones were unjointing and took a pint of whiskey; it had no effect. Then Billy acted as my physician and prepared a pill for me. So vanished one good resolution. My only excuse to myself was: Human nature is weak, ain't it? No sooner had I taken the first pill than a feeling of ecstasy came over me. I became talkative, and Billy, noticing the effect, said: "Jim, before you try to knock off the hop, you had better wait till you reach the next world." The opium brought peace to my nerves and dulled my conscience and I had a long talk with Billy and Ida about old pals. They told me who was dead, who were in stir and who were good (prosperous).
Not many days after my opium fall I got a note from Ethel, who had heard that I had come home. In the letter she said that shewas not happy with her husband, that she had married to please her father and to get a comfortable home. She wanted to make an appointment to meet me, whom, she said, she had always loved. I knew what her letter meant, and I did not answer it, and did not keep the appointment. My relation to her was the only decent thing in my life, and I thought I might as well keep it right. I have never seen her since the last time she visited me at Auburn.
For some time after getting back from stir I tried for a job, but the effort was only half-hearted on my part, and people did not fall over themselves in their eagerness to find something for the ex-convict to do. Even if I had had the best intentions in the world, the path of the ex-convict is a difficult one, as I have since found. I was run down physically, and could not carry a hod or do any heavy labor, even if I had desired to. I knew no trade and should have been forever distrusted by the upper world. The only thing I could do well was to graft; and the only society that would welcome me was that of the under world. My old pals knew I had the requisite nerve and was capable of takingmy place in any good mob. My resolutions began to ooze away, especially as at that time my father was alive and making enough money to support the rest of the family. So I had only myself to look out for—and that was a lot; for I had my old habits, and new ones I had formed in prison, to satisfy. When I stayed quietly at home I grew intensely nervous; and soon I felt that I was bound to slip back to the world of graft. I am convinced that I would never have returned to stir or to my old trade, however, if my environment had been different, on my release, from what it had been formerly; and if I could have found a job. I don't say this in the way of complaint. I now know that a man can reform even among his old associates. It is impossible, as the reader will see, I believe, before he finishes this book, for me ever to fall back again. Some men acquire wisdom at twenty-one, some not till they are thirty-five, and some never. Wisdom came to me when I was thirty-five. If I had had my present experience, I should not have fallen after my first bit; but I might not have fallen anyway, if I had been placed in a better environment after my first term in prison. A man can stand alone, if he is strong enough,and has sufficient reasons; but if he is tottering, he needs outside help.
I was tottering, and did not get the help, and so I speedily began to graft again. I started in on easy game, on picking pockets and simple swindling. I made my first touch, after my return, on Broadway. One day I met the Kid there, looking for a dollar as hard as a financier. He asked me if I was not about ready to begin again, and pointed out a swell Moll, big, breezy and blonde, coming down the street, with a large wallet sticking out of her pocket. It seemed easy, with no come-back in sight, and I agreed to stall for the Kid. Just as she went into Denning's which is now Wanamaker's, I went in ahead of her, turned and met her. She stopped; and at that moment the Kid nicked her. We got away all right and found in the wallet over one hundred dollars and a small knife. In the knife were three rivets, which we discovered on inspection to be magnifying glasses. We applied our eyes to the same and saw some pictures which would have made Mr. Anthony Comstock howl; if he had found this knife on this aristocratic lady he would surely have sent her to the penitentiary. It was abeautiful pearl knife, gold tipped, and must have been a loss; and yet I felt I was justified in taking that wallet. I thought I had done the lady a good turn. She might have been fined, and why shouldn't I have the money, rather than the magistrate?
The Kid was one of the cleverest dips I ever knew; he was delicate and cunning, and the best stone-getter in the city. But he had one weakness that made him almost a devil. He fell in love with every pretty face he saw, and cared no more for leading a girl astray than I minded kicking a cat. I felt sorry for many a little working girl he had shaken after a couple of weeks; and I used to jolly them to cheer them up.
I once met Kate, one of them, and said, with a smile: "Did you hear about the Kid's latest? Why don't you have him arrested for bigamy?"
She did not smile at first, but said: "He'll never have any luck. My mother is a widow, and she prays to God to afflict him with a widow's curse."
"One of the Ten Commandments," I replied, "says, 'thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,' and between youand me, Kate, the commandment does not say that widows have the monopoly on cursing. It is a sin, anyway, whether it is a man, a girl or a widow."
This was too deep for Kate.
"Stop preaching, Jim," she said, "and give me a drink," and I did. After she had drunk half-a-dozen glasses of beer she felt better.
Women are queer, anyway. No matter how bad they are, they are always good. All women are thieves, or rather petty pilferers, bless them! When I was just beginning to graft again, and was going it easy, I used to work a game which well showed the natural grafting propensities of women. I would buy a lot of Confederate bills for a few cents, and put them in a good leather. When I saw a swell-looking Moll, evidently out shopping, walking along the street, I would drop the purse in her path; and just as she saw it I would pick it up, as if I had just found it. Nine women out of ten would say, "It's mine, I dropped it." I would open the leather and let her get a peep of the bills, and that would set her pilfering propensities going. "It's mine," she would repeat. "What's in it?" I would hold the leather carefully away fromher, look into it cautiously and say: "I can see a twenty dollar bill, a thirty dollar bill, and a one hundred dollar bill, but how do I know you dropped it?" Then she'd get excited and exclaim, "If you don't give it to me quick I'll call a policeman." "Madam," I would reply, "I am an honest workingman, and if you will give me ten dollars for a reward, I will give you this valuable purse." Perhaps she would then say: "Give me the pocket-book and I'll give you the money out of it." To that I would reply: "No, Madam, I wish you to receive the pocket-book just as it was." I would then hand her the book and she would give me a good ten dollar bill. "There is a woman down the street," I would continue, "looking for something." That would alarm her and away she would go without even opening the leather to see if her money was all right. She wouldn't shop any more that day, but would hasten home to examine her treasure—worth, as she would discover to her sorrow, about thirty cents. Then, no doubt, her conscience would trouble her. At least, she would weep; I am sure of that.
When I got my hand in again, I began to go for stone-getting, which was a fat graft inthose days, when the Lexow committee was beginning their reform. Everybody wore a diamond. Even mechanics and farmers were not satisfied unless they had pins to stick in their ties. They bought them on the installment plan, and I suppose they do yet. I could always find a laborer or a hod-carrier that had a stone. They usually called attention to it by keeping their hands carefully on it; and very often it found its way into my pocket, for carelessness is bound to come as soon as a man thinks he is safe. They probably thought of their treasure for months afterwards; at least, whenever the collector came around for the weekly installments of pay for stones they no longer possessed.
It was about this time that I met General Brace and the Professor. One was a Harvard graduate, and the other came from good old Yale; and both were grafters. When I knew them they used to hang out in a joint on Seventh Street, waiting to be treated. They had been good grafters, but through hop and booze had come down from forging and queer-shoving to common shop-lifting and petty larceny business. General Brace was very reticent in regard to his family and his ownpast, but as I often invited him to smoke opium with me, he sometimes gave me little confidences. I learned that he came from a well-known Southern family, and had held a good position in his native city; but he was a blood, and to satisfy his habits he began to forge checks. His relatives saved him from prison, but he left home and started on the downward career of graftdom. We called him General Brace because he looked like a soldier and was continually on the borrow; but a good story always accompanied his asking for a loan and he was seldom refused. I have often listened to this man after he had smoked a quantity of opium, and his conversational powers were something remarkable. Many a gun and politician would listen to him with wonder. I used to call him General Brace Coleridge.
The Professor was almost as good a talker. We used to treat them both, in order to get them to converse together. It was a liberal education to hear them hold forth in that low-down saloon, where some of the finest talks on literature and politics were listened to with interest by men born and bred on the East Side, with no more education than a turnip, but with keen wits. The graduates had goodmanners, and we liked them and staked them regularly. They used to write letters for politicians and guns who could not read or write. They stuck together like brothers. If one of them had five cents, he would go into a morgue (gin-mill where rot-gut whiskey could be obtained for that sum) and pour out almost a full tumbler of booze. Just as he sipped a little of the rot-gut, his pal would come in, as though by accident. If it was the General who had made the purchase, he would say: "Hello, old pal, just taste this fine whiskey. It tastes like ten-cent stuff." The Professor would take a sip and become enthusiastic. They would sip and exclaim in turn, until the booze was all gone, and no further expense incurred. This little trick grew into a habit, and the bar-tender got on to it, but he liked Colonel Brace and the Professor so much that he used to wink at it.
I was in this rot-gut saloon one day when I met Jesse R——, with whom I had spent several years in prison. I have often wondered how this man happened to join the under world; for he not only came of a good family and was well educated, but was also of a good, quiet disposition, a prime favorite in stir and out.He was tactful enough never to roast convicts, who are very sensitive, and was so sympathetic that many a heartache was poured into his ear. He never betrayed a friend's confidence.
I was glad to meet Jesse again, and we exchanged greetings in the little saloon. When he asked me what I was doing, I replied that I had a mortgage on the world and that I was trying to draw my interest from the same. I still had that old dream, that the world owed me a living. I confided in him that I regarded the world as my oyster more decidedly than I had done before I met him in stir. I found that Jesse, however, had squared it for good and was absolutely on the level. He had a good job as shipping clerk in a large mercantile house; when I asked him if he was not afraid of being tipped off by some Central Office man or by some stool-pigeon, he admitted that that was the terror of his life; but that he had been at work for eighteen months, and hoped that none of his enemies would turn up. I asked him who had recommended him for the job, and I smiled when he answered: "General Brace". That clever Harvard graduate often wrote letters which were of assistance to guns who hadsquared it; though the poor fellow could not take care of himself.
Jesse had a story to tell which seemed to me one of the saddest I have heard: and as I grew older I found that most all stories about people in the under world, no matter how cheerfully they began, ended sadly. It was about his brother, Harry, the story that Jesse told. Harry was married, and there is where the trouble often begins. When Jesse was in prison Harry, who was on the level and occupied a good position as a book-keeper, used to send him money, always against his wife's wishes. She also complained because Harry supported his old father. Harry toiled like a slave for this woman who scolded him and who spent his money recklessly. He made a good salary, but he could not keep up with her extravagance. One time, while in the country, she met a sporting man, Mr. O. B. In a few weeks it was the old, old story of a foolish woman and a pretty good fellow. While she was in the country, her young son was drowned, and she sent Harry a telegram announcing it. But she kept on living high and her name and that of O. B. were often coupled. Harry tried to stifle his sorrow and kept on sending moneyto the bladder he called wife, who appeared in a fresh new dress whenever she went out with Mr. O. B. One day Harry received a letter, calling him to the office to explain his accounts. He replied that he had been sick, but would straighten everything out the next day. When his father went to awaken him in the morning, Harry was dead. A phial of morphine on the floor told the story. Jesse reached his brother's room in time to hear his old father's cry of anguish and to read a letter from Harry, explaining that he had robbed the firm of thousands, and asking his brother to be kind to Helene, his wife.
Then Jesse went to see the woman, to tell her about her husband's death. He found her at a summer hotel with Mr. O. B., and heard the servants talk about them.
"Jim," said Jesse to me, at this point in the story, "here is wise council. Wherever thou goest, keep the portals of thy lugs open; as you wander on through life you are apt to hear slander about your women folks. What is more entertaining than a little scandal, especially when it doesn't hit home? But don't look into it too deep, for it generally turns out true, or worse. I laid a trap for mypoor brothers wife, and one of her letters, making clear her guilt, fell into my hands. A telegram in reply from Mr. O. B., likewise came to me, and in a murderous frame of mind, I read its contents, and then laughed like a hyena: 'I am sorry I cannot meet you, but I was married this morning, and am going on my wedding tour.Au Revoir.' You ask me what became of my sister-in-law? Jim, she is young and pretty, and will get along in this world. But, truly, the wages of sin is to her Living Ashes."
It was not very long after my return home that I was at work again, not only at safe dipping and swindling, but gradually at all my old grafts, including more or less house work. There was a difference, however. I grew far more reckless than I had been before I went to prison. I now smoked opium regularly, and had a lay-out in my furnished room and a girl to run it. The drug made me take chances I never used to take; and I became dead to almost everything that was good. I went home very seldom. I liked my family in a curious way, but I did not have enough vitality or much feeling about anything. I began to go out to graft always in a dazedcondition, so much so that on one occasion a pal tried to take advantage of my state of mind. It was while I was doing a bit of house-work with Sandy and Hacks, two clever grafters. We inserted into the lock the front door key which we had made, threw off the tumblers, and opened the door. Hacks and I stalled while Sandy went in and got six hundred dollars and many valuable jewels. He did not show us much of the money, however. The next day the newspapers described the "touch," and told the amount of money which had been stolen. Then I knew I had been "done" by Sandy and Hacks, who stood in with him, but Sandy said the papers were wrong. The mean thief, however, could not keep his mouth shut, and I got him. I am glad I was not arrested for murder. It was a close shave, for I cut him unmercifully with a knife. In this I had the approval of my friends, for they all believed the worst thing a grafter could do was to sink a pal. Sandy did not squeal, but he swore he would get even with me. Even if I had not been so reckless as I was then, I would not have feared him, for I knew there was no come-back in him.
Another thing the dope did was to makeme laugh at everything. It was fun for me to graft, and I saw the humor of life. I remember I used to say that this world is the best possible; that the fine line of cranks and fools in it gives it variety. One day I had a good laugh in a Brooklyn car. Tim, George and I got next to a Dutchman who had a large prop in his tie. He stood for a newspaper under his chin, and his stone came as slick as grease. A minute afterwards he missed his property, and we did not dare to move. He told his wife, who was with him, that his stone was gone. She called him a fool, and said that he had left it at home, in the bureau drawer, that she remembered it well. Then he looked down and saw that his front was gone, too. He said to his wife: "I am sure I had my watch and chain with me," but his wife was so superior that she easily convinced him he had left it at home. The wisdom of women is beyond finding out. But I enjoyed that incident. I shall never forget the look that came over the Dutchman's face when he missed his front.
I was too sleepy those days to go out of town much on the graft; and was losing my ambition generally. I even cared very littlefor the girls, and gave up many of my amusements. I used to stay most of the time in my furnished room, smoking hop. When I went out it was to get some dough quick, and to that end I embraced almost any means. At night I often drifted into some concert hall, but it was not like the old days when I was a kid. The Bowery is far more respectable now than it ever was before. Twenty years ago there was no worse place possible for ruining girls and making thieves than Billy McGlory's joint on Hester Street. About ten o'clock in the morning slumming parties would chuckle with glee when the doors at McGlory's would be closed and young girls in scanty clothing, would dance the can-can. These girls would often fight together, and frequently were beaten unmercifully by the men who lived on them and their trade. Often men were forcibly robbed in these joints. There was little danger of an arrest; for if the sucker squealed, the policeman on the beat would club him off to the beat of another copper, who would either continue the process, or arrest him for disorderly conduct.
At this time, which was just before the Lexow Committee began its work, there wereat least a few honest coppers. I knew one, however, that did not remain honest. It happened this way. The guns had been tearing open the cars so hard that the street car companies, as they had once before, got after the officials, who stirred up Headquarters. The riot act was read to the dips. This meant that, on the second offense, every thief would be settled for his full time and that there would be no squaring it. The guns lay low for a while, but two very venturesome grafters, Mack and Jerry, put their heads together and reasoned thus: "Now that the other guns are alarmed it is a good chance for us to get in our fine work."
Complaints continued to come in. The police grew hot and sent Mr. F——, a flyman, to get the rascals. Mr. F—— had the reputation of being the most honest detective on the force. He often declared that he wanted promotion only on his merits. Whenever he was overheard in making this remark there was a quiet smile on the faces of the other coppers. F—— caught Mack dead to rights, and, not being a diplomat, did not understand when the gun tried to talk reason to him. Even a large piece of dough did not help his intellect,and Mack was taken to the station-house. When a high official heard about it he swore by all the gods that he would make an example of that notorious pickpocket, Mack; but human nature is weak, especially if it wears buttons. Mack sent for F——'s superior, the captain, and the following dialogue took place:
Captain: What do you want?
Mack: I'm copped.
Captain: Yes, and you're dead to rights.
Mack: I tried to do business with F——. What is the matter with him?
Captain: He is a policeman. He wants his promotion by merit. (Even the Captain smiled.)
Mack: I'd give five centuries (five hundred dollars) if I could get to my summer residence in Asbury Park.
Captain: How long would it take you to get it?
Mack: (He, too, was laconic.) I got it on me.
Captain: Give it here.
Mack: It's a sure turn-out?
Captain: Was I ever known to go back on my word?
Mack handed the money over, and wentover to court in the afternoon with F——. The Captain was there, and whispered to F——: "Throw him out." That nearly knocked F—— down, but he and Mack took a car, and he said to the latter: "In the name of everything how did you hypnotize the old man?" Mack replied, with a laugh: "I tried to mesmerize you in the same way; but you are working on your merits."
Mack was discharged, and F—— decided to be a diplomat henceforth. From an honest copper he became as clever a panther as ever shook coin from a gun. Isn't it likely that if a man had a large income he would never go to prison? Indeed, do you think that well-known guns could graft with impunity unless they had some one right? Nay! Nay! Hannah. They often hear the song of split half or no graft.
But at that time I was so careless that I did not even have enough sense to save fall-money, and after about nine months of freedom I fell again. One day three of us boarded a car in Brooklyn and I saw a mark whom I immediately nicked for his red super, which I passed quickly to one of my stalls, Eddy. We got off the car and walked about threeblocks, when Eddy flashed the super, to look at it. The sucker, who had been tailing, blew, and Eddy threw the watch to the ground, fearing that he would be nailed. A crowd gathered around the super, I among them, the other stall, Eddy having vamoosed, and the sucker. No man in his senses would have picked up that gold watch. But I did it and was nailed dead to rights. I felt that super belonged to me. I had nicked it cleverly, and I thought I had earned it! I was sentenced to four years in Sing Sing, but I did not hang my head with shame, this time, as I was taken to the station. It was the way of life and of those I associated with, and I was more a fatalist than ever. I hated all mankind and cared nothing for the consequences of my acts.
I was not recognized by the authorities at Sing Sing as having been there before. I gave a different name and pedigree, of course, but the reason I was not known as a second-timer was that I had spent only nine months at Sing Sing on my first term, the remainder having been passed at Auburn. There was a new warden at Sing Sing, too, and some of the other officials had changed; and, besides, I must have been lucky. Anyway, none of the keepers knew me, and this meant a great deal to me; for if I had been recognized as a second-timer I should have had a great deal of extra time to serve. On my first term I had received commutation time for good behavior amounting to over a year, and there is a rule that if a released convict is sent back to prison, he must serve, not only the time given him on his second sentence, but the commutation time on his first bit. Somebody musthave been very careless, for I beat the State out of more than a year.
Some of the convicts, indeed, knew that I had served before; but they did not squeal. Even some of those who did not know me had an inkling of it, but would not tell. It was still another instance of honor among thieves. If they had reported me to the authorities, they might have had an easier time in stir and had many privileges, such as better jobs and better things to eat. There were many stool-pigeons there, of course, but somehow these rats did not get wind of me.
It did not take me long to get the Underground Tunnel in working order again, and I received contraband letters, booze, opium and morphine as regularly as on my first bit. One of the screws running the Tunnel at the time, Jack R——, was a little heavier in his demands than I thought fair. He wanted a third instead of a fifth of the money sent the convicts from home. But he was a good fellow, and always brought in the hop as soon as it arrived. Like the New York police he was hot after the stuff, but who can blame him? He wanted to rise in the world, and was more ambitious than the other screws. I continued my pipedreams, and my reading; indeed, they were often connected. I frequently used to imagine that I was a character in one of the books; and often choked the detestable Tarquin into insensibility.
On one occasion I dreamed that I was arraigned before my Maker and charged with murder. I cried with fear and sorrow, for I felt that even before the just God there was no justice; but a voice silenced me and said that to be guilty of the crime of murder, it was not necessary to use weapons or poison. Suddenly I seemed to see the sad faces of my father and mother, and then I knew what the voice meant. Indeed, I was guilty. I heard the word, "Begone," and sank into the abyss. After many thousand years of misery I was led into the Chamber of Contentment where I saw some of the great men whose books I had read. Voltaire, Tom Paine and Galileo sat on a throne, but when I approached them with awe, the angel, who had the face of a keeper, told me to leave. I appealed to Voltaire, and begged him not to permit them to send me among the hymn-singers. He said he pitied me, but that I was not fit to be with the great elect. I asked him where Dr.Parkhurst was, and he answered that the doctor was hot stuff and had evaporated long ago. I was led away sorrowing, and awoke in misery and tears, in my dark and damp cell.
On this bit I was assigned to the clothing department, where I stayed six months, but did very little work. Warden Sage replaced Warden Darson and organized the system of stool-pigeons in stir more carefully than ever before; so it was more difficult than it was before to neglect our work. I said to Sage one day: "You're a cheap guy. You ought to be President of a Woman's Sewing Society. You can do nothing but make an aristocracy of stool-pigeons." I gave up work after six months because of my health, which had been bad for a long time, but now grew worse. My rapid life on the outside, my bad habits, and my experience in prison were beginning to tell on me badly. There was a general breaking-down of my system. I was so weak and coughed so badly that they thought I was dying. The doctors said I had consumption and transferred me to the prison hospital, where I had better air and food and was far more comfortable in body but terribly low inmy mind. I was so despondent that I did not even "fan my face" (turn my head away to avoid having the outside world become familiar with my features) when visitors went through the hospital. This was an unusual degree of carelessness for a professional gun. One reason I was so gloomy was that I was now unable to get hold of my darling hop.
I was so despondent in the hospital that I really thought I should soon become an angel; and my environment was not very cheerful, for several convicts died on beds near me. Whenever anybody was going to die, every convict in the prison knew about it, for the attendants would put three screens around the dying man's bed. There were about twenty beds in the long room, and near me was an old boyhood pal, Tommy Ward, in the last stages of consumption. Tommy and I often talked together about death, and neither of us was afraid of it. I saw a dozen men die during my experience in state prisons and I never heard one of them clamor for a clergyman. Tommy was doing life for murder, and ought to have been afraid of death, if anyone was. But when he was about to die, he sent word to me to come to his bedside, and after a word or twoof good-bye he went into his agony. The last words he ever said were: "Ah, give me a big Peter (narcotic)." He did not receive the last rites of the Catholic Church, and his ignorant family refused to bury him. So Tommy's cell number was put on the tombstone, if it could be called such, which marked his grave in the little burying ground outside the prison walls.
Indeed, it is not easy to throw the religious con (confidence game) into a convict. Often, while we were in chapel, the dominie would tell us that life was short; but hardly one of the six or seven hundred criminals who were listening believed the assertion. They felt that the few years they were doing for the good of their country were as long as centuries. If there were a few "cons" who tried the cheerful dodge, they did not deceive anybody, for their brother guns knew that they were sore in their hearts because they had been caught without fall-money, and so had to serve a few million years in stir.
After I got temporarily better in health and had left the hospital, I began to read Lavater on physiognomy more industriously than ever. With his help I became a close studentof faces, and I learned to tell the thoughts and emotions of my fellow convicts. I watched them at work and when their faces flushed I knew they were thinking of Her. Sometimes I would ask a man how She was, and he would look confused, and perhaps angry because his day dream was disturbed. And how the men used to look at women visitors who went through the shops! It was against the rules to look at the inhabitants of the Upper World who visited stir, but I noticed that after women visitors had been there the convicts were generally more cheerful. Even a momentary glimpse of those who lived within the pale of civilization warmed their hearts. After the ladies had gone the convicts would talk about them for hours. Many of their remarks were vulgar and licentious, but some of the men were broken down with feeling and would say soft things. They would talk about their mothers and sweethearts and eventually drift back on their ill-spent lives. How often I thought of the life behind me! Then I would look at the men about me, some of whom had stolen millions and had international reputations—but all discouraged now, broken down in health, penniless and friendless.If a man died in stir he was just a cadaver for the dissecting table, nothing more. The end fitted in well with his misspent life. These reflections would bring us around again to good resolutions.
People who have never broken the law—I beg pardon, who were never caught—can not understand how a man who has once served in stir will take another chance and go back and suffer the same tortures. A society lady I once met said she thought criminals who go on grafting, when they know what the result will be, must be lacking in imagination. I replied to her: "Madam, why do you lace tight and indulge in social dissipation even after you know it is bad for the health? You know it is a strain on your nerves, but you do it. Is it because you have no imagination? That which we all dread most—death—we all defy."
The good book says that all men shall earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, but we grafters make of ourselves an exception, with that overweening egotism and brash desire to do others with no return, which is natural to everybody. Only when the round-up comes, either in the sick bed or in the toils, we oftencan not bear our burdens and look around to put the blame on someone else. If a man is religious, why should he not drop it on Jesus? Man! How despicable at times! How ungallant to his ancestor of the softer sex! From time immemorial he has exclaimed: "Only for her, the deceiving one, my better half, I should be perfect."
Convicts, particularly if they are broken in health, often become like little children. It is not unusual for them to grow dependent on dumb pets, which they smuggle into prison by means of the Underground Tunnel. The man in stir who has a white mouse or robin is envied by the other convicts, for he has something to love. If an artist could only witness the affection that is centered on a mouse or dog, if he could only depict the emotions in the hard face of the criminal, what a story! I had a white rat, which I had obtained with difficulty through the Underground. I used to put him up my sleeve, and he would run all over my body, he was so tame. He would stand on his hind legs or lie down at my command. Sometimes, when I was lonely and melancholy, I loved this rat like a human being.
In May, 1896, when I still had about a year to serve on my second term, a rumor circulated through the prison that some of the Salvation Army were going to visit the stir. The men were greatly excited at the prospect of a break in the dreary routine. I imagined that a big burly Salvationist, beating a drum, with a few very thin Salvation lasses, would march through the prison yard. I was dumbfounded by the reality, for I saw enter the Protestant chapel, which was crowded with eager convicts, two delicate, pretty women. No actor or actress ever got a warmer welcome than that given to Mrs. Booth and her secretary, Captain Jennie Hughes. After the clapping of hands and cheering had ceased, Mrs. Booth arose and made a speech, which was listened to in deep silence. Certainly she was eloquent, and what she said impressed many an old gun. She was the first visitor who ever promised practical Christianity and eventually carried out the promise. She promised to build homes for us after our release; and in many cases, she did, and we respect her. She spoke for an hour, and afterwards granted private interviews, and many of the convicts told her all their troubles, and she promised to takecare of their old mothers, daughters and wives.
Before leaving the chapel, she sang: "O Lord, let the waves of thy crimson sea roll over me." I did not see how such a pretty, intelligent, refined and educated woman could say such a bloody thing, but she probably had forgotten what the words really meant. At any rate, she is a good woman, for she tried hard to have the Parole Bill passed. That bill has recently become a law, and it is a good one, in my opinion; but it has one fault. It only effects first-timers. The second and third timers, who went to Sing Sing years ago when there was contract labor and who worked harder than any laborer in New York City, ought to have a chance, too. Show a little confidence in any man, even though he be a third-timer, as I have been, and he will be a better man for it.
After the singing, on that first morning of Mrs. Booth's visit, she asked those convicts who wanted to lead a better life to stand up. About seventy men out of the five or six hundred arose, and the others remained seated. I was not among those who stood up. I never met anybody who could touch me inthat way. I don't believe in instantaneous Christianity. I knew half a dozen of the men who stood up, and they were not very strong mentally. I often wondered what the motives were that moved the men in that manner. Man is a social animal, and Mrs. Booth was a magnetic woman. After I had heard her speak once, I knew that. She had a good personal appearance and one other requisite that appealed strongly to those who were in our predicament—her sex. Who could entirely resist the pleadings of a pretty woman with large black eyes?
Certainly I was moved by this sincere and attractive woman, but my own early religious training had made me suspicious of the whole business. Whenever anybody tried to reform me through Christianity I always thought of that powerful Celt who used to rush at me in Sunday school with a hickory stick and shout "Who made you?" And I don't think that most of the men who profess religion in prison are sincere. They usually want to curry favor with the authorities, or get "staked" after they leave stir. One convict, whom I used to call "The Great American Identifier," because he used to graft by claiming to be a relativeof everybody that died, from California to Maine and weeping over the dead body, was the worst hypocrite I ever saw—a regular Uriah Heep. He was one of Mrs. Booth's converts and stood up in chapel. After she went away he said to me: "What a blessing has been poured into my soul since I heard Mrs. Booth." Another hypocrite said to me on the same occasion: "I don't know what I would do only for Mrs. Booth. She has lightened my weary burdens." Now, I would not trust either of those men with a box of matches; and so I said to the Great American Identifier: "You are the meanest, most despicable thief in the whole stir. I'd respect you if you had the nerve to rob a live man, but you always stole from a cadaver." He was horrified at my language and began to talk of a favorite subject with him—his wealthy relatives.
Some of these converts were not hypocrites, but I don't think even they received any good from their conversion. Some people go to religion because they have nothing else to distract their thoughts, and the subject sometimes is a mania with them. The doctors say that there is only one incurable mentaldisease—religious insanity. In the eyes of the reformers Mrs. Booth does a great thing by making some of us converts, but experts in mental diseases declare that it is very bad to excite convicts to such a pitch. Many of the weak-minded among them lose their balance and become insane through these violent religious emotions.
I did not meet so many of the big guns on my second term as on my first; but, of course, I came across many of my old pals and formed some new acquaintances. It was on this term that four of us used to have what I called a tenement house oratory talk whenever we worked together in the halls. Some of us were lucky enough at times to serve as barbers, hall-men and runners to and from the shops, and we used to gather together in the halls and amuse ourselves with conversation. Dickey, Mull, Mickey and I became great pals in this way. Dickey was a desperate river pirate who would not stand a roast from anybody, but was well liked. Mull was one of the best principled convicts I ever knew in my life. He was quiet, delicate and manly, and opposed to abusing young boys, yet if you did him an injury he would cut the liver out of you. Hewas a good fellow. Mickey was what I called a tenement house philosopher. He'd stick his oar into every bit of talk that was started. One day the talk began on Tammany Hall and went something like this:
"All crooked officials," said Mull, "including all of them, ought to be railroaded to Sing Sing."
Dickey: "Through their methods the county offices are rotten from the judge to the policeman."
Mull: "I agree with you."
Mickey: "Ah, wat's the matter wid Tammany? My old man never voted any other ticket. Neither did yours. When you get into stir you act like college professors. Why don't you practice what you spout? I always voted the Tammany ticket—five or six times every election day. How is it I never got a long bit?"
Mull: "How many times, Mickey, have you been in stir?"
Mickey: "This is the fourth, but the highest I got was four years."
Dickey: "You never done anything big enough to get four."
Mickey: "I didn't, eh? You have beenhollering that you are innocent, and get twenty years for piracy. I only get four, but I am guilty every time. There is a big difference between that and twenty, aint it?"
Mull slapped Mickey on the back and said: "Never mind. You will get yours yet on the installment plan." Then, turning to me, Mull asked: "Jim, don't you think that if everything was square and on the level we'd stand a better chance?"
"No," I replied. "In the first place we have not reached the millennium. In the second place they would devise some legal scheme to keep a third timer the rest of his natural days. I know a moccasin who would move heaven and earth to have such a bill passed, and he is one of the crookedest philanthropists in America to-day. I am a grafter, and I believe that the present administration is all right. I know that I can stay out of prison as long as I save my fall-money. When I blow that in I ought to go to prison. Every gun who is capable of stealing, knows that if he puts by enough money he can not only keep out of stir but can beat his way into heaven. I'm arguing as a professional thief."
This was too much for Mickey, who said:"Why don't you talk United States and not be springing whole leaves out of a dictionary?"
Just then Big Jim came up. He had heard what I said and he joined in: "You know why I got the tenth of a century? I had thousands in my pocket and went to buy some silk underwear at a haberdasher's in New York. But it seemed to me a waste of good coin to buy them, so I stole a dozen pair of silk stockings. They tried to arrest me, I shot, and got ten years. I always did despise a petty thief, but I never felt like kicking him till then. Ten years for a few stockings! Can you blame the judge? I didn't. Even a judge admires a good thief. If I had robbed a bank I'd never have got such a long bit. The old saying is true: Kill one man and you will be hanged. Kill sixteen, and the United States Government is likely to pension you."
The tenement-house philosopher began to object again, when the guard, as usual, came along to stop our pleasant conversation. He thought we were abusing our privileges.
It was during this bit that I met the man with the white teeth, as he is now known among his friends. I will call him Patsy, and tell his story, for it is an unusual one. Hewas a good deal older man than I and was one of the old-school burglars, and a good one. They were a systematic lot, and would shoot before they stood the collar; but they were gentlemanly grafters and never abused anybody. The first thing Patsy's mob did after entering a house was to round up all the inmates and put them into one room. There one burglar would stick them up with a revolver, while the others went through the house. On a fatal occasion Patsy took the daughter of the house, a young girl of eighteen or nineteen, in his arms and carried her down stairs into the room where the rest of the family had been put by the other grafters. As he carried the girl down stairs, she said: "Mr. Burglar, don't harm me." Patsy was masked, all but his mouth, and when he said: "You are as safe as if you were in your father's arms," she saw his teeth, which were remarkably fine and white. Patsy afterwards said that the girl was not a bit alarmed, and was such a perfect coquette that she noticed his good points. The next morning she told the police that one of the bad men had a beautiful set of teeth. The flymen rounded up half a dozen grafters on suspicion, among themPatsy; and no sooner did he open his mouth, than he was recognized, and settled for a long bit. Poor Patsy has served altogether about nineteen years, but now he has squared it, and is a waiter in a Bowery saloon, more content with his twelve dollars a week than he used to be with his thousands. I often go around and have a glass with him. He is now a quiet, sober fellow, and his teeth are as fine as ever.
One day a man named "Muir," a mean, sure-thing grafter, came to the stir on a visit to some of his acquaintances. He had never done a bit himself, although he was a notorious thief. But he liked to look at the misfortunes of others, occasionally. On this visit he got more than he bargained for. He came to the clothing department where Mike, who had grafted with Muir in New York, and I, were at work. Muir went up to Mike and offered him a bill. Mike threw it in Muir's face and called him—well, the worst thing known in Graftdom. "If it wasn't for you," he said, "I wouldn't be doing this bit."
There are several kinds of sure-thing grafters. Some are crooked gamblers, some are plain stool-pigeons, some are discouraged thieveswho continue to graft but take no risks. Muir was one of the meanest of the rats that I have known, yet in a way, he was handy to the professional gun. He had somebody "right" at headquarters and could generally get protection for his mob; but he would always throw the mob over if it was to his advantage. He and two other house-work men robbed a senator's home, and such a howl went up that the police offered all manner of protection to the grafter who would tip them off to who got the stuff. Grafters who work with the coppers don't want it known among those of their own kind, for they would be ostracized. If they do a dirty trick they try to throw it on someone else who would not stoop to such a thing. Muir was a diplomat, and tipped off the Central Office, and those who did the trick, all except Tom and Muir, were nailed. A few nights after that the whisper was passed among guns of both sexes, who had gathered at a resort up-town, that somebody had squealed. The muttered curses meant that some Central Office man had by wireless telegraphy put the under world next that somebody had tipped off the police. But it was not Muir that the hard names weresaid against: the Central Office man took care of that. With low cunning Muir had had the rumor circulated that it was Tom who had thrown them down, and Tommy was ostracized.
I knew Muir and I knew Tommy, and I was sure that the latter was innocent. Some time after Tom had been cut by the rest of the gang I saw Muir drinking with two Central Office detectives, in a well-known resort, and I was convinced that he was the rat. His personal appearance bore out my suspicion. He had a weak face, with no fight in it. He was quiet of speech, always smiling, and as soft and noiseless as the animal called the snake. He had a narrow, hanging lip, small nose, large ears, and characterless, protruding eyes. The squint look from under the eye-brows, and the quick jerk of the hand to the chin, showed without doubt that he possessed the low cunning too of that animal called the rat. Partly through my influence, Muir gradually got the reputation of being a sure-thing grafter, but he was so sleek that he could always find some grafter to work with him. Pals with whom he fell out, always shortly afterwards came to harm. That was the casewith Big Mike, who spat in Muir's face, when the latter visited him in Sing Sing. When Muir did pickpocket work, he never dipped himself, but acted as a stall. This was another sure-thing dodge. Muir never did a bit in stir because he was of more value to headquarters than a dozen detectives. The fact that he never did time was another thing that gradually made the gang suspicious of him. Therefore, at the present time he is of comparatively little value to the police force, and may be settled before long. I hope so.
One of the meanest things Muir ever did was to a poor old "dago" grafter, a queer-maker (counterfeiter). The Italian was putting out unusually good stuff, both paper and metal, and the avaricious Muir thought he saw a good chance to get a big bit of money from the dago. He put up a plan with two Central Office men to bleed the counterfeiter. Then he went to the dago and said he had got hold of some big buyers from the West who would buy five thousand dollars worth of the "queer." They met the supposed buyers, who were in reality the two Central Office men, at a little saloon. After a talk the detectives came out in their true colors, showed theirshields, and demanded one thousand dollars. The dago looked at Muir, who gave him the tip to pay the one thousand dollars. The Italian, however, thinking Muir was on the level, misunderstood the sign, and did not pay. The outraged detectives took the Italian to police headquarters, but did not show up the queer at first; they still wanted their one thousand dollars. So the dago was remanded and remanded, getting a hearing every twenty-four hours, but there was never enough evidence. Finally the poor fellow got a lawyer, and then the Central Office men gave up the game, and produced the queer as evidence. The United States authorities prosecuted the case, and the Italian was given three years and a half. After he was released he met Muir on the East Side, and tried to kill him with a knife. That is the only way Muir will ever get his deserts. A man like him very seldom dies in state's prison, or is buried in potter's field. He often becomes a gin-mill keeper and captain of his election district, for he understands how to control the repeaters who give Tammany Hall such large majorities on election day in Manhattan.
It was on this second bit in prison, as Ihave said in another place, that the famous "fence" operated in stir. I knew him well. He was a clever fellow, and I often congratulated him on his success with the keepers; for he was no stool-pigeon and got his pull legitimately. He was an older grafter than I and remembered well Madame Mandelbaum, the Jewess, one of the best fences, before my time, in New York City. At the corner of Clinton and Rivington Streets there stood until a few years ago a small dry goods and notions store, which was the scene of transactions which many an old gun likes to talk about. What plannings of great robberies took place there, in Madame Mandelbaum's store! She would buy any kind of stolen property, from an ostrich feather to hundreds and thousands of dollars' worth of gems. The common shop-lifter and the great cracksman alike did business at this famous place. Some of the noted grafters who patronized her store were Jimmy Hope, Shang Draper, Billy Porter, Sheenie Mike, Red Leary, Johnnie Irving, Jack Walsh, alias John the Mick, and a brainy planner of big jobs, English George.
Madame Mandelbaum had two country residences in Brooklyn where she invited herfriends, the most famous thieves in two continents. English George, who used to send money to his son, who was being educated in England, was a frequent visitor, and used to deposit with her all his valuables. She had two beautiful daughters, one of whom became infatuated with George, who did not return her love. Later, she and her daughters, after they became wealthy, tried to rise in the world and shake their old companions. The daughters were finely dressed and well-educated, and the Madame hunted around for respectable husbands for them. Once a bright reporter wrote a play, in which the central character was Madame Mandelbaum. She read about it in the newspapers and went, with her two daughters, to see it. They occupied a private box, and were gorgeously dressed. The old lady was very indignant when she saw the woman who was supposed to be herself appear on the stage. The actress, badly dressed, and made up with a hooked nose, was jeered by the audience. After the play, Madame Mandelbaum insisted on seeing the manager of the theatre. She showed him her silks and her costly diamonds and then said: "Look at me. I am Madame Mandelbaum.Does that huzzy look anything like me?" Pointing to her daughters she continued: "What must my children think of such an impersonation? Both of them are better dressed and have more money and education than that strut, who is only a moment's plaything for bankers and brokers!"
In most ways, of course, my life in prison during the second term was similar to what it was on my first term. Books and opium were my main pleasures. If it had not been for them and for the thoughts about life and about my fellow convicts which they led me to form, the monotony of the prison routine would have driven me mad. My health was by that time badly shattered. I was very nervous and could seldom sleep without a drug.
My moral health was far worse, too, than it had been on my first term. Then I had made strong efforts to overcome the opium habit, and laid plans to give up grafting. Then I had some decent ambitions, and did not look upon myself as a confirmed criminal; whereas on the second term, I had grown to take a hopeless view of my case. I began to feel that I could not reform, no matter how hard Itried. It seemed to me, too, that it was hardly worth while now to make an effort, for I thought my health was worse than it really was and that I should die soon, with no opportunity to live the intelligent life I had learned to admire through my books. I still made good resolutions, and some effort to quit the hop, but they were weak in comparison with the efforts I had made during my first term. More and more it seemed to me that I belonged in the under world for good, and that I might as well go through it to the end. Stealing was my profession. It was all I knew how to do, and I didn't believe that anybody was interested enough in me to teach me anything else. On the other hand, what I had learned on the Rocky Path would never leave me. I was sure of my knowledge of the technique of graft, and I knew that a sucker was born every minute.