A Jewish pickpocket is one of the patients who is under suspicion of
faking. The young doctor suggested my watching him, and when I reported,
he declared that he was satisfied in his suspicion, but did not send him
to his cell at once, as he would have been punished.
Meanwhile he helps and amuses us with stories of his checkered career.
At first I could not make out what was the matter with him. He couldn't
walk any distance without jerking his head backwards. I thought he
suffered from some peculiar nervous trouble in the muscles of the neck.
When I asked him about it he confessed that it was a habit formed by
years of unconscious but very useful watching to see if he was followed
by detectives. Even in the hospital, when he knew that he was not
followed, he would throw his head in quick glances backwards.
He told us that the last time he had been caught by the detectives he
was taken to headquarters and given a taste of the third degree. As he
wouldn't confess, the brave detectives, wearing masks, beat him until he
was insensible, and even broke two of his front teeth. The generous head
of the detectives promised that if he did not make a complaint to the
newspapers he would see to it that he would be sent for only a year to
the penitentiary instead of up the river for several years.
We have several pickpockets in the hospital. One of them has grown a
beard; he is a Jew, tall, thin but muscular, and when he walks to the
bathroom in his night shirt, he seems like a caricature of one of the
prophets of his faith.
He volunteered to rub sulphur ointment on my body as the doctor had
ordered. The strength of his muscles, and the vise-like grip of his
hands, was almost beyond belief. When he took hold of my arm to massage
it I felt that he could easily have broken it with a quick blow; but he
was very gentle and kind withal.
A red-headed consumptive, who killed his wife and child in a fit of
anger and jealousy, was sent over from the Tombs while waiting for
trial. He ordered me in a peremptory manner to do something for him. I
repeated to him the lecture I had read to the bulldog negro, but he lost
his temper, and began foaming at the mouth and abusing me in a violent
and insane fit of anger.
I did not answer, as I felt that he was not responsible for his actions;
and left him alone. Fifteen minutes later he came into the bathroom,
where I was cleaning some medicine bottles. I fully expected to have to
defend myself against an attack. Instead of that, however, he began
apologizing for his unwarranted behaviour, adding that when he lost his
temper he did not know what he was saying or doing; that anger went to
his head like poison and completely overcame his reason. He begged me
to forgive him and accept his apology.
This is the third time that a convict has offered an apology for having
lost his temper and used profane language to me.
I asked one of the convicts who had apologized if he thought I had kept
silent because I was afraid of him. "No," he said. "The man who loses
his temper is the one who is afraid. The one who never becomes angry is
never afraid; he is the better man of the two."