The hospital is situated on top of the chapel, over the main entrance
and hall of the prison.
Two spacious rooms are dedicated to that purpose. The smaller one with a
bathroom faces the Brooklyn side and overlooks the mess hall, the
keepers' dining room and kitchen, and is usually kept apart for the
consumptives. The larger room, also with a bathroom, contains a dozen
beds, a closet for underwear and clothes, another for the crockery, two
tables, two medicine closets, chairs, and some small tables for patients
near each bed.
Six windows face towards East 55th Street on the Manhattan side. Two
higher windows look over the roof of the prison, across the Queensboro
bridge. The hardwood flooring, the small hospital cots, with
mattresses, white pillows and spreads, all spotlessly clean, made the
place look quite cheerful and sunny. Every opening was heavily barred. A
spacious, clean and airy prison, but still a prison, with a tantalizing
outlook towards New York, which seemed so near that one could discern
people on the other side of the river.
I
There are five sick men, plus three consumptives, in the two rooms; and
our large room looks deserted.
The patients wear a cheap, white shirt, instead of the striped one, and
slippers instead of shoes.
A bald-headed man with small, kindly gray eyes and a close-cropped
mustache, keeps perfect discipline without raising his voice, using
profane language, or bullying the patients. In character, breeding,
morals, education, he is superior to the warden and to most of the
keepers. His name is Charles Noonan.
Between the hours of eight o'clock in the morning and four in the
afternoon a uniformed hospital orderly attends to the distribution of
medicine, takes temperatures, and reports to the doctor. At night
another orderly takes his place.
The cleanliness of the two hospitals, the distribution of bedding,
laundry and food, is in the hands of a convict, usually a patient; all
the unpleasant tasks and irksome duties which the orderly is too proud
or too lazy to perform the trusty is obliged to do.
Servant and boss, scullion and diplomat, doctor's help and sick man,
waiter and majordomo, the convict orderly is the last buffer in the line
of authority, the expiatory goat of the penitentiary hospital, a
suffering soul in a modern purgatory.
When a criticism drops from the lips of the supreme Prison Commissioner,
the Warden passes it along to the "Dep," who calls down the hospital
keeper, who in his turn upbraids the orderly, who in the end roasts the
trusty.
The present trusty is an old man suffering from an eczema on his fat
legs. Tall, bloated, gray, pale, he is despised by the convicts for his
avariciousness, his gluttony, his arrogant attitude. They suspect him of
being a stool pigeon, and they revenge themselves by making his life
miserable through a series of cruel persecutions.
Another trusty who sleeps in a cell downstairs, and eats in the keeper's
kitchen, is a famous pickpocket.
Like all or nearly all the old timers, Ed, as he is called, never
gossips about his private affairs; he may joke and talk about other
prisoners, but never does he say a word about his life outside. He is an
old offender, but obedient, useful and energetic; and he is always
welcomed back as a trusty or a tier man.
Once inadvertently I asked him: "What do you do outside for a living,
Ed?" His laconic answer was, "Oh, everybody!"
But one evening several weeks later, when we had become quite chummy, at
the psychological moment when even the most silent and sullen crooks
will sometimes confess and bare their hearts, he unfolded his life, his
methods, his cynicism and his mental make-up.
It was an amazing story, interspersed with slang, picturesque phrases,
and a callous, sordid philosophy. Later, the testimony of other thieves
proved that his story was true.
As he told his story, it seems that clever thieves organize themselves
into trusts, or what they call "mobs," frequent the same "joints" and
"hang-outs," and work in co-operation with detectives. When a fair, a
holiday, or any extraordinary event is announced in any part of the
state--or anywhere in the world, for that matter--they are "tipped off,"
or told about it by the "bulls."
Then when the event "comes off," and a great crowd is gathered, a whole
gang of pickpockets, two or three score of them, arrive on the spot.
To save time one after another is sent to the fair authorities to inform
them of the presence of pickpockets, and an official jumps on a platform
or soap box, and shouts a warning to the crowd against thieves; and
while this is going on the keen-eyed "dips" watch the astonished and
frightened people place their hands on the pocket or the region which
contains their valuables. With this knowledge they can work without
blundering, and in teams of three or four, by rubbing or jostling
against their victims, they soon relieve them of their money or jewelry.
Watches are seldom stolen, as they are too easy of identification. Often
a prominent "sucker" discovers his loss before he leaves the fair, and
starts kicking up a row. At once a detective offers to find and return
the stolen goods for a reward.
Then, after it is over, the result of the day's work is divided between
the "bulls" and the "dips."
Ed became a pickpocket right after he left school. From the reform
school to the house of refuge, from the house of refuge to the state
reformatory, from the reformatory to the penitentiary, he has climbed
all the rungs of the ladder of crime.
He soon discovered that "lonesome," single-handed thieves were crushed
in the struggle, so he joined the Benevolent Association for Mutual
Protection of "dips" and "guns," paid his dues, and then when he was
caught, he got off with a light sentence. His return to prison was part
of the game; he came back philosophically, as a travelling salesman
returns to his favorite hostelry, as an intermittent but familiar
visitor, recognized by the keepers and convicts, and knowing all the
ropes along the prison line of least resistance.
Ed barely looks his age, although his face bears the stamp of his
dissipated life and the mannerisms peculiar to his breed. He is a
perfect fruit of the criminal system. Sodden with all the sexual
perversities acquired in prison, he has finally caught the white plague,
is afflicted with several venereal diseases, and has become an
inveterate dope fiend. Although keen of intelligence, he seems to be
without moral prop or ideal of any kind; coldly and cynically he surveys
society as his natural prey, his rightful enemy, and an object of his
revenge.
Morally, intellectually and physically as crooked and shifty as a
mountain trail, he seems utterly beyond redemption, human or divine.