At 6 A. M. a quick, metallic carol announces a new day--and a Sunday.
With a clanking noise and in swift succession the cell doors are
unlocked and on every tier the whole line of convicts walks along the
galleries and down to the ground floor, to a long iron sink, divided
into small dirty tubs that are filled with murky water.
Our ablutions are performed in rapid military style; those not strong or
nimble enough to get near the crowded trough, before the command, "Back
out," is shouted, have to return to their cells half-washed or dirty.
Sometimes a laggard insists on finishing his washing; and then an angry
voice assails him rudely: "Come on, you God damn bum, didn't yeh hear
me? Back out!" And a guard "fans" him over the back with a club, pushing
and shoving him all the way to the galleries, as a reminder to quicker
obedience.
Back at the cells, every man stands at attention behind the door with
hands on the bars, waiting for the keeper to count the men until he
orders, "Close," and with a deafening noise every iron door bangs in
unison. Then after a short rest the bell rings for breakfast, and we
march into the mess hall.
What a depressing, fantastic assemblage there unfolded itself before my
eyes! Row after row of cropped gray heads, the black and gray stripes,
moving unceasingly in a rippling pattern, giving the semblance of an
enormous, ghostly, shivering tiger skin. The faint light from the barred
windows forces the tonality to a low pitch and adds to the vagueness,
uneasiness and consternation of my mind.
The benches and narrow tables seat fifteen to twenty in a row; and the
two mess halls over a thousand convicts.
Breakfast is served in dented low pans, filled with potato and corn beef
hash, alternating every other day with oatmeal and syrup. The rusty tin
cups are half filled with an unsweetened, brownish, transparent
concoction called coffee, which the convicts long ago nicknamed
"bootleg."
But the bread, made of wheat and cornmeal, is very good. The raising of
the hand is the signal for an additional slice of bread, which is
distributed by a convict, and when it reaches you it has usually been
handled by ten or fifteen different, not to say unclean, hands.
The men eat voraciously and in great haste, coughing, chewing, smacking
their lips; grunting and snorting like pigs with their snouts in the
trough. My poor appetite is not improved by their disconcerting
exhibition, and my portion is quickly swallowed by my neighbours.
On both sides of the hall we are watched by keepers standing against the
wall, or perched on high stools, swinging their sticks.
On my right there is a goodnatured-looking keeper with a bullet head and
sleepy eyes; on the other hand a small, wiry, thin-faced, long-nosed,
white-mustached keeper, with wicked eagle eyes, who uses not only the
foulest of language, but also his stick, on the slightest provocation.
After the "feed" comes the bucket parade. Each man carries his own
bucket into the yard behind the prison building, facing the Brooklyn
side. The Queensboro bridge on the north, with two feet on the island
uniting Brooklyn and New York, appears gigantic on the horizon.
The air is cold, crisp, exhilarating, after the oppressive night. The
whole prison is marching line after line to a well-shaped opening,
wherein the dirty water and excreta are dumped in succession by the men,
while an old convict belabors its interior with a long pole to prevent
the opening being clogged. The clear morning air cannot blow away the
overpowering stench of a thousand dirty buckets, intensified by the
acrid smell of chloride of lime which is thrown into the hastily washed
pails.