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Autobiography of a Thief

<h2> CHAPTER VIII. In Stir (continued). </h2> Sing Sing was overflowing with convicts, and after I had been there nine months, I and a number of others were transferred to Auburn penitentiary. There I found the cells drier, and better than at Sing Sing, but the food not so good. The warden was not liked by the majority of the men, but I admired him for two things. He believed in giving us good bread; and he did not give a continental what came into the prison, whether it was a needle or a cannister, as long as it was kept in the cell and not used. It was in Auburn stir that opium grew to be a habit with me. I used to give the keepers who were running the Underground one dollar of every five that were sent me, and they appreciated my kindness and kept me supplied with the drug. What part the hop began to play in my life may be seen from the routine of my days at Auburn; particularly at those periods when there was no work to be done. [155] After rising in the morning I would clean out my cell, and turn up my bed and blankets; then I went to breakfast, then if there was no work to do, back to my cell, where I ate a small portion of opium, and sometimes read the daily paper, which was also contraband. It is only the stool-pigeons, those convicts who have money, or the cleverest among the rascals, who get many of these privileges. After I had had my opium and the newspaper I would exercise with dumb-bells and think or read in my cell. Then I would have a plunge bath and a nap, which would take me up to dinner time. After dinner I would read in my cell again until three o'clock, when I would go to the bucket-shop or exercise for half an hour in the yard, in lock step, with the others; then back to the cell, taking with me bread and a cup of coffee made out of burnt bread crust, for my supper. In the evening I would read and smoke until my light went out, and would wind up the day with a large piece of opium, which grew larger, as time passed. For a long time I was fairly content with what was practically solitary confinement. I had my books, my pipe, cigarettes and my regular supply of hop. Whether I worked in [156] the daytime or not I would usually spend my evenings in the same way. I would lie on my cot and sometimes a thought like the following would come to me: "Yes, I have stripes on. When I am released perhaps some one will pity me, particularly the women. They may despise and avoid me, most likely they will. But I don't care. All I want is to get their wad of money. In the meantime I have my opium and my thoughts and am just as happy as the millionaire, unless he has a narcotic." After the drug had begun to work I would frequently fall into a deep sleep and not wake until one or two o'clock the following morning; then I would turn on my light, peer through my cell door, and try to see through the little window out in the corridor. A peculiar nervousness often came over me at this hour, particularly if the weather had been rainy, and my imagination would run on a ship-wreck very often, or on some other painful subject; and I might tell the story to myself in jingles, or jot it down on a piece of paper. Then my whole being would be quiet. A gentle, soothing melancholy would steal upon me. Often my imagination was so powerfully [157] affected that I could really see the events of my dream. I could see the ship tossing about on waves mountain high. Then and only then I was positive I had a soul. I was in such a state of peace that I could not bear that any human being should suffer. At first the scenes before my imagination would be most harrowing, with great loss of life, but when one of the gentle sex appeared vividly before me a shudder passed over me, and I would seek consolation in jingles such as the following: <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> A gallant bark set sail one day For a port beyond the sea, The Captain had taken his fair young bride To bear him company. This little brown lass Was of Puritan stock. Her eyes were the brightest e'er seen. They never came back; The ship it was wrecked In a storm in the old Gulf Stream. </div> <div class="stanza"> Two years had passed, then a letter came To a maid in a New England town. It began Darling Kate, it ended Your Jack, I am alive in a foreign land. The Captain, his gentle young wife and your own Were saved by that hand unseen, [158] But the rest——they went down In that terrible storm That night in the old Gulf Stream. </div> </div></div> But these pleasures would soon leave me, and I would grow very restless. My only resource was another piece of opium. Sometimes I awoke much excited, paced my cell rapidly and felt like tearing down the door. Sometimes a book would quiet me. The best soother I had was the most beautiful poem in the English language—Walt Whitman's Ode To Death. When I read this poem, I often imagined I was at the North Pole, and that strange shapes in the clouds beckoned me to come to them. I used to forget myself, and read aloud and was entirely oblivious to my surroundings, until I was brought to myself by the night guard shouting, "What in —— is the matter with you?" After getting excited in this way I usually needed another dose of hop. I have noticed that the difference between opium and alcohol is that the latter is a disintegrator and tears apart, while the opium is a subtle underminer. Opium, for a long time anyway, stimulates the intelligence; while the reverse is true of alcohol. It was under the influence of opium [159] that I began to read philosophy. I read Hume and Locke, and partly understood them, I think, though I did not know that Locke is pronounced in only one syllable till many years after I had read and re-read parts of The Human Understanding. It was not only the opium, but my experience on the outside, that made me eager for philosophy and the deeper poetry; for a grafters wits, if they don't get away from him altogether, become keen through his business, since he lives by them. It was philosophy, and the spectacle of men going suddenly and violently insane all about me, that led me first to think of self-control, though I did not muster enough to throw off the opium habit till many years afterwards. I began to think of will-power about this time, and I knew it was an acquired virtue, like truth and honesty. I think, from a moral standpoint, that I lived as good a life in prison as anybody on the outside, for at least I tried to overcome myself. It was life or death, or, a thousand times worse, an insane asylum. Opium led me to books besides those on philosophy, which eventually helped to cure me. At this time I was reading Balzac, Shakespeare, Huxley, Tyndall and Lavater. [160] One poem of Shakespeare's touched me more than any other poem I ever read—The Rape of Lucrece. It was reading such as this that gave me a broader view, and I began to think that this was a terrible life I was leading. But, as the reader will see, I did not know what hell was until several years later. I had been in stir about four years on my first bit when I began to appreciate how terrible a master I had come under. Of course, to a certain extent, the habit had been forced upon me. After a man has had for several years bad food, little air and exercise, no natural companionship, particularly with the other sex, from whom he is entirely cut off, he really needs a stimulant. Many men fall into the vilest of habits. I found, for my part, that only opium would calm me. It takes only a certain length of time for almost all convicts to become broken in health, addicted to one form or another of stimulant which in the long run pulls them down completely. Diseases of various kinds, insanity and death, are the result. But before the criminal is thus released, he grows desperate in the extreme; particularly if he resorts to opium, for that drug makes one reckless. The hop fiend never [161] takes consequences into consideration. Under its influence I became very irritable and unruly, and would take no back talk from the keepers. They and the stool-pigeons began to be afraid of me. I would not let them pound me in any way, and I often got into a violent fight. As long as I had my regular allowance of opium, which in the fourth year of my term was about twenty grains a day, I was peaceable enough. It was when I began to lessen the amount, with the desire to give it up, that I became so irritable and violent. The strain of reform, even in this early and unsuccessful attempt, was terrible. At times I used to go without the full amount for several days; but then I would relapse and go on a debauch until I was almost unconscious. After recovery, I would make another resolution, only to fall again. But my life in stir was not all that of the solitary; there were means, even when I was in the shop, of communicating with my fellow convicts; generally by notes, as talking was forbidden. Notes, too, were contraband, but we found means of sending them through cons working in the hall. Sometimes good-natured [162] or avaricious keepers would carry them; but as a rule a convict did not like to trust a note to a keeper. He was afraid that the screw would read it, whereas it was a point of honor with a convict to deliver the note unread. The contents of these notes were usually news about our girls or pals, which we had received through visitors—rare, indeed!—or letters. By the same means there was much betting done on the races, baseball games and prize fights. We could send money, too, or opium, in the same way, to a friend in need; and we never required an I. O. U. We were allowed to receive visitors from the outside once every two months; also a box could be delivered to us at the same intervals of time. My friends, especially my mother and Ethel, sent me things regularly, and came to see me. They used to send me soap, tooth brushes and many other delicacies, for even a tooth brush is a delicacy in prison. Ethel stuck to me for three years and visited me regularly during that period. Then her visits ceased, and I heard that she had married. I couldn't blame her, but I felt bad about it all the same. But my mother came as often as the two [163] months rolled by; not only during this first term, but during all my bits in stir. Certainly she has stuck to me through thick and thin. She has been my only true friend. If she had fallen away from me, I couldn't have blamed her; she would only have gone with the rest of the world; but she didn't. She was good not only to me, but to my friends, and she had pity for everybody in stir. I remember how she used to talk about the rut worn in the stone pavement at Sing Sing, where the men paced up and down. "Talk about the Bridge of Sighs!" she used to say. When a man is in stir he begins to see what an ungrateful brute he has been; and he begins to separate true friends from false ones. He thinks of the mother he neglected for supposed friends of both sexes, who are perhaps friendly at the beginning of his sentence, but soon desert him if he have a number of years to serve. Long after all others have ceased coming to see him, his old mother, bowed and sad, will trudge up the walk from the station to visit her thoughtless and erring son! She carries on her arm a heavy basket of delicacies for the son who is detested by all good citizens, and in her heart there is still [164] hope for her boy. She has waited many years and she will continue to wait. What memories come to the mother as she sees the mansion of woes on the Hudson looming up before her! Her son is again a baby in her imagination; or a young fellow, before he began to tread the rocky path!—They soon part, for half an hour is all that is given, but they will remember forever the mothers kiss, the son's good-bye, the last choking words of love and familiar advice, as she says: "Trust in God, my lad." After one of my mothers visits I used to have more sympathy for my fellow convicts. I was always a keen observer, and in the shops or at mess time, and when we were exercising together in lock step, or working about the yard or in the halls, I used to "feel out" my brother "cons," often with a kindly motive. I grew very expert in telling when a friend was becoming insane; for imprisonment leads to insanity, as everybody knows. Many a time a man I knew in stir would grow nervous or absent-minded, then suspicious, and finally would be sent to the madhouse at Dannemora or Matteawan. For instance, take a friend of mine named [165] Billy. He was doing a bit of ten years. In the fifth year of his sentence I noticed that he was brooding, and I asked him what was the matter. "I am afraid," he said, "that my wife is going outside of me." "You are not positive, are you?" I asked. "Well," he answered, "she visited me the other day, and she was looking good (prosperous). My son was with her, and he looked good, too. She gave me five dollars and some delicacies. But she never had five dollars when I was on the outside." "She's working," said I, trying to calm him. "No; she has got a father and mother," he replied, "and she is living with them." "Billy," I continued, "how long have you been in stir?" "Growing on six years," he said. "Billy," I proceeded, "what would you do if you were on the outside and she was in prison for six years?" "Well," he replied, "I'd have to give myself some rope." "Philosophers claim that it is just as hard for a woman to live alone as for a man," I [166] said. "You're unreasonable, Billy. Surely you can't blame her." Billy's case is an instance of how, when a convict has had bad food, bad air and an unnatural routine for some time, he begins to borrow trouble. He grows anæmic and then is on the road to insanity. If he has a wife he almost always grows suspicious of her, though he does not speak about it until he has been a certain number of years in prison. It was not long after the above conversation took place that Billy was sent to the insane asylum at Matteawan. Sometimes, after a man has begun to grow insane, he will show it by reticence, rather than by talkativeness, according to his disposition. One of my intimate friends, in stir much longer than I, was like a ray of sunshine, witty and a good story teller. His laugh was contagious and we all liked to see him. He was one of the best night prowlers (burglars) in the profession, and had many other gifts. After he had been in stir, however, for a few years, he grew reticent and suspicious, thought that everybody was a stool-pigeon, and died a raving maniac a few years later at Matteawan. [167] Sometimes a convict will grow so nervous that he will attempt to escape, even when there is no chance, or will sham insanity. An acquaintance of mine, Louis, who had often grafted with me when we were on the outside, told me one day he did not expect to live his bit out. When confined a man generally thinks a lot about his condition, reads a book on medicine and imagines he has every disease the book describes. Louis was in this state, and he consulted me and two others as to whether he ought not to "shoot a bug" (sham insanity); and so get transferred to the hospital. One advised him to attack a keeper and demand his baby back. But as Billy had big, black eyes and a cadaverous face, I told him he'd better shoot the melancholy bug; for he could do that better. Accordingly in the morning when the men were to go to work in the stone yard, Billy appeared in the natural (naked). He had been stalled off by two friends until he had reached the yard. There the keepers saw him, and as they liked him, they gently took him to the hospital. He was pronounced incurably insane by two experts, and transferred to the madhouse. The change of air was so beneficial that Louis speedily recovered [168] his senses. At least, the doctors thought so when he was discovered trying to make his elegant (escape); and he was sent back to stir. As a rule, however, those who attempted to sham insanity failed. They were usually lacking in originality. At any hour of the day or night the whole prison might be aroused by some convict breaking up house, as it was called when a man tried to shoot the bug. He might break everything in his cell, and yell so loud that the other convicts in the cells near by would join in and make a horrible din. Some would curse, and some laugh or howl. If it was at night and they had been awakened out of an opium sleep, they would damn him a thousand miles deep. His friends, however, who knew that he was acting, would plug his game along by talking about his insanity in the presence of stool-pigeons. These latter would tell the keepers that he was buggy (insane), and, if there was not a blow, he might be sent to the hospital. Before that happened, however, he had generally demolished all his furniture. The guards would go to his cell, and chain him up in the Catholic chapel until he could be examined by the doctor. Warden [169] Sage was a humane man, and used to go to the chapel himself and try to quiet the fake lunatic, and give him dainties from his own table. During the night the fake had historic company, for painted on the walls were, on one side of him, Jesus, and on the other, Judas and Mary Magdalene. A favorite method of shooting the bug, and a rather difficult one for the doctors to detect, was that of hearing voices in one's cell. This is more dangerous for the convict than for anybody else, for when a fake tries to imagine he hears voices, he usually begins to really believe he does, and then from a fake he becomes a genuine freak. Another common fake is to tell the keeper that you have a snake in your arm, and then take a knife and try to cut it out; but it requires nerve to carry this fake through. Sometimes the man who wants to make the prison hospital merely fakes ordinary illness. If he has a screw or a doctor "right" he may stay for months in the comparatively healthy hospital at Sing Sing, where he can loaf all day, and get better food than at the public mess. It is as a rule only the experienced guns who are clever enough to work these little games. [170] For faking, conversing, loafing in the shop, and for many other forbidden things, we were often punished, though the screws as often winked at small misdemeanors. At Sing Sing they used to hang us up by the wrists sometimes until we fainted. Auburn had a jail, now used as the condemned cells, where there was no bed and no light. In this place the man to be punished would remain from four to ten days and live on ten ounces of bread and half a jug of water a day. In addition, the jail was very damp, worse even than the cells at Sing Sing, where I knew many convicts who contracted consumption of the lungs and various kidney complaints. Indeed, a great deal of dying goes on in State's prison. During my first term it seemed as if three niggers died to every white man. A dozen of us working around the front would comment on the "stiffs" when they were carried out. One would ask, "Who's dead?" The reply might be, "Only a nigger." One day I was talking in the front with a hall-room man when a stiff was put in the wagon. "Who's dead?" I asked. The hall-man wanted to bet it was a nigger. I bet him a dollar it was a white man, and then asked the hospital [171] nurse, who said it was not a nigger, but an old pal of mine, named Jerry Donovan. I felt sore and would not accept the money I had won. Poor Jerry and I did house-work together for three months, some of which I have told of, and he was a good fellow, and a sure and reliable grafter. And now he had "gone up the escape," and was being carried to the little graveyard on the side of the hill where only an iron tag would mark his place of repose. My intelligence was naturally good, and when I began to get some education I felt myself superior to many of my companions in stir. I was not alone in this feeling, for in prison there are many social cliques; though fewer than on the outside. Men who have been high up and have held responsible positions when at liberty make friends in stir with men they formerly would not have trusted as their boot-blacks. The professional thieves usually keep together as much as possible in prison, or communicate together by means of notes; though sometimes they associate with men who, not professional grafters, have been sent up for committing some big forgery, or other big swindle. The reason for this is [172] business; for the gun generally has friends among the politicians, and he wants to associate while in stir only with others who have influence. It is the guns who are usually trusted by the screws in charge of the Underground Tunnel, for the professional thief is less likely to squeal than the novice. Therefore, the big forger who has stolen thousands, and may be a man of ability and education appreciates the friendship of the professional pickpocket who can do him little favors, such as railroading his mail through the Underground, and providing him with newspapers, or a bottle of booze. The pull of the professional thief with outside politicians often procures him the respect and consideration of the keepers. One day a convict, named Ed White, was chinning with an Irish screw, an old man who had a family to support. Jokes in stir lead to friendship, and when the keeper told Ed that he was looking for a job for his daughter, who was a stenographer, Ed said he thought he could place her in a good position. The old screw laughed and said; "You loafer, if you were made to carry a hod you wouldn't be a splitting matches in stir." But Ed meant what he [173] had said, and wrote to the famous Tammany politician, Mr. Wet Coin, who gave the girl a position as stenographer at a salary of fourteen dollars a week. The old screw took his daughter to New York, and when he returned to Auburn he began to "Mister" Ed. "I 'clare to God," he said, "I don't know what to make out of you. Here you are eating rotten hash, cooped up like a wild animal, with stripes, when you might be making twelve to fifteen dollars a week." Ed replied, sarcastically, "That would about keep me in cigar money." One of the biggest men I knew in stir was Jim A. McBlank, at one time chief of police and Mayor of Coney Island. He was sent to Sing Sing for his repeating methods at election, at which game he was A No. 1. He got so many repeaters down to the island that they were compelled to register as living under fences, in dog kennels, tents, or any old place. There was much excitement in the prison when the Lord of Coney Island was shown around the stir by Principal Keeper Connoughton. He was a good mechanic, and soon had a gang of men working under him; though he was the hardest worker of them all. [174] After he had been there awhile the riff-raff of of the prison, though they had never heard the saying that familiarity breeds contempt, dropped calling him Mr. McBlank, and saluted him as plain Jimmy. He was never in touch, however, with the majority of the convicts, for he was too close to the authorities; and the men believe that convicts can not be on friendly terms with the powers that be unless they are stool-pigeons. Another thing that made the "cons" dislike the Mayor was the fact, that, when he was chief of police, he had settled a popular dip named Feeley for ten years and a half. The very worst thing against him, however, was his private refrigerator in which he kept butter, condensed milk and other luxuries, which he did not share with the other convicts. One day a young convict named Sammy, tried to beat Sing Sing. He bricked himself up in the wall, leaving a movable opening at the bottom. While waiting a chance to escape Sammy used to sally forth from his hiding-place and steal something good from McBlank's box. One night, while helping himself to the Mayor's delicacies, he thought he heard a keeper, and hastily plunging his arm into the refrigerator [175] he made away with a large piece of butter. What did the ex-Chief of police do but report the loss of his butter to the screws which put them next to the fact that the convict they had been looking for for nine nights was still in the stir. The next night they would have rung the "all-right" bell, and given up the search, and indeed, they rang the bell, but watched; and when Sammy, thinking he could now go to New York, came out of his hiding place, he was caught. When the story circulated in the prison all kinds of vengeance were vowed against McBlank, who was much frightened. I heard him say that he would rather have lost his right arm than see the boy caught. What a come-down for a man who could throw his whole city for any state or national candidate at election time, to be compelled to apologize as McBlank was, to the lowest element in prison. Here indeed was the truth of that old saying: pride goeth before a fall. One of the best liked of the convicts I met during my first bit was Ferdinand Ward, who got two years for wrecking the firm in which General Grant and his son were partners. He did many a kindness in stir to those who [176] were tough and had few friends. Another great favorite was Johnny Hope, son of Jimmy Hope, who stole three millions from the Manhattan Bank. The father got away, and Johnny, who was innocent, was nailed by a copper looking for a reputation, and settled for twenty years in Sing Sing, because he was his father's son and had the misfortune to meet an ambitious copper. When Johnny had been in prison about ten years, the inspector, who was the former copper, went to the Governor, and said he was convinced that the boy was innocent. But how about young Hope's wrecked life? Johnny's father, indeed, was a well-known grafter whom I met in Auburn, where we worked together for a while in the broom-shop. He was much older than I, and used to give me advice. "Don't ever do a day's work in your life, my boy," he would say, "unless you can't help it. You are too intelligent to be a drudge." Another common remark of his was: "Trust no convict," and a third was: "It is as easy to steal five thousand dollars as it is to steal five dollars." Old man Hope had stolen millions and [177] ought to know what he was talking about. In personal appearance he was below the medium height, had light gray hair and as mild a pair of eyes as I ever saw in man or woman. I ranked him as a manly old fellow, and he was an idol among the small crooks, though he did not have much to do with them. He seemed to like to talk to me, partly because I never talked graft, and he detested such talk particularly among prison acquaintances. He referred one day to a pick pocket in stir who was always airing what he knew about the graft. "He's tiresome," said old Hope. "He is always talking shop." One of the worst hated men at Auburn was Weeks, a well-known club man and banker, who once stole over a million dollars. He was despised by the other convicts, for he was a "squealer." One of the screws in charge of the Underground Tunnel was doing things for Weeks, who had a snap,—the position of book-keeper, in the clothing department. In his desk he kept whiskey, beer and cigars, and lived well. One day a big bug paid him a visit, and Weeks belched how he had to give up his watch and chain in order to secure luxuries. His friend, the big bug, reported to [178] the prison authorities, and the principal keeper went to Weeks and made the coward squeal on the keeper who had his "front." The screw lost his job, and when the convicts heard of it, they made Weeks' life miserable for years. But the man who was hated worst of all those in prison was Biff Ellerson. I never understood why the other cons hated him, unless it was that he always wore a necktie; this is not etiquette in stir, which in the convicts' opinion ought to be a place of mourning. He had been a broker and a clubman, and was high up in the world. Ellerson was a conscientious man, and once, when a mere boy, who had stolen a ten dollar watch, was given fifteen years, had publicly criticized the judge and raised a storm in the newspapers. Ellerson compared this lad's punishment with that of a man like Weeks, who had robbed orphans out of their all and only received ten years for it. Many is the time that this man, Biff Ellerson, has been kind to men in stir who hated him. He had charge of the dungeon at Auburn where convicts who had broken the rules were confined. I have known him to open my door and give me water on the quiet, many a time, [179] and he did it for others who were ungrateful, and at the risk, too, of never being trusted again by the screws and of getting a dose of the cuddy-hole himself. By far the greater number of these swell grafters who steal millions die poor, for it is not what a man steals, but what he saves, that counts. I have often noticed that the bank burglar who is high up in his profession is not the one who has the most money when he gets to be forty-five or fifty years of age. The second or third class gun is more likely to lay by something. His general expenses are not so large and he does not need so much fall-money; and in a few years he can usually show more money than the big gun who has a dozen living on him. I knew a Big One who told me that every time he met a certain police official, his watch, a piece of jewelry, a diamond stud or even his cuff buttons were much admired. The policeman always had some relative or friend who desired just the kind of ornament the Big One happened to be wearing at the time. I cannot help comparing those swell guys whom I knew at Sing Sing with a third class pickpocket I met on the same bit. The big ones [180] are dead or worse, but the other day I met, in New York, my old pickpocket friend in stir, Mr. Aut. I am positive that the hand-shake he gave me was only a muscular action, for Mr. Aut has "squared it", and the gun who has reformed and has become prosperous does not like to meet an old acquaintance, who knows too much about his past life. When I ran across him in the city I started in to talk about old times in stir and of pals we knew in the long ago, but he answered me by saying, "Nix", which meant "Drop It". To get him to talk I was forced to throw a few "Larrys" into him, such as: "Well, old man, only for your few mistakes of the past, you might be leader of Tammany Hall." Gradually he expanded and told me how much he had gained in weight since he left stir and what he had done for certain ungrateful grafters. He boasted that he could get bail for anyone to the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and he told the truth, for this man, who had been a third class dip, owns at the present time, three gin-mills and is something of a politician. He has three beautiful children and is well up in the world. His daughter was educated at a convent, and his son is at a well-known college. Yet I remember the time when this ex gun, [181] Mr. Aut, and I, locked near one another in Sing Sing and consoled one another with what little luxuries we could get together. Our letters, booze and troubles were shared between us, and many is the time I have felt for him; for he had married a little shop girl and had two children at that time. When he got out of stir he started in to square it, that is, not to go to prison any more. He was wise and no one can blame him. He is a good father and a successful man. If he had been a better grafter it would not have been so easy for him to reform. I wish him all kinds of prosperity, but I don't like him as well as I did when we wore the striped garb and whispered good luck to one another in that mansion of woes on the Hudson. One of Mr. Aut's possessions makes me smile whenever I think of it. In his swell parlor, over a brand new piano, hangs an oil painting of himself, in which he takes great pride. I could not help thinking that that picture showed a far more prosperous man and one in better surroundings than a certain photograph of his which is quite as highly treasured as the more costly painting; although it is only a tintype, numbered two thousand and odd, in the Rogues' Gallery. [182] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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