THE JAIL.
The jail is a place towards which the night-hawk gravitates as naturally
and as irresistibly as Newton’s apple to the ground. They disappear for a
season, and when they resume their operations in the haunts of men they
will tell you that they have “just put in a month,” or more, as the case
may be. The corrective influences of jails is a much debated point, but
there can be no doubt that men are admitted to the jails or other penal
institutions who learn such a lesson thereby that they determine that
their first taste of such a thing shall also be their last.
The writer remembers getting a very graphic account of his experiences
from a gentleman who is still living in the city, and who dates his
reformation from habits of insobriety from a police magistrate’s
commitment to prison. The gentleman will of course recognise whose pen
traced these lines, but as his name will not appear in the course of the
story, and as his fate may serve to “point a moral and adorn a tale,” the
liberty is taken of reproducing his confidences as nearly as possible in
his own words.
“From my eighteenth to my twenty-third year I had been gradually piling
up for myself a taste for “bumming.” After business was done in the store
I could not rest in the house at night, although I had as pleasant a
home as ever a young man had. My sisters devised all sorts of schemes to
interest me and keep me at home. At tea-table, without seeming to wish to
inform me of the matter, they would be discussing among themselves
THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND BEAUTY
of some young lady friend of theirs whom they expected there that night.
But it was all to no purpose. I had made the acquaintance of a gang of
fellows and I can only describe myself as being infatuated with their
society. If I had been compelled to stay away from them for one night I
think I would have burst. I have often thought the matter over since and
I have come to the conclusion that my liking for the society of these
fellows lay in vanity. The most of our evenings were spent in saloons,
where we drank and talked, and sometimes sang. I always did my best
to amuse and please, and it was very flattering to my vanity to find
that I was apparently successful in doing so. My companions laughed and
applauded whenever I spoke. I will not say how much their smiles were
inspired by the round of drinks which was sure to follow an unusual burst
of laughter.
This way of spending my evenings soon began to tell its tale. I became
a source of sorrow and anxiety to all my friends, and as I became
more addicted to liquor I decidedly descended in the estimation of my
employers. Formerly all my drinking was done at nights; now it became
necessary for me to take an “eye-opener” in the mornings, and finally I
drank all day long, taking all sorts of excuses to slip out and have a
nip. I tell you honestly, Jack, there is no sort of liquor sold over a
bar whose taste I like. I know of no drug that is more distasteful to
my sense of taste and smell than the strong liquors, whisky, brandy,
gin, rum, and I can’t say much better of beer. Yet I used to pour all
these down my throat, concealing as much as possible the wry face I was
inclined to make at them. I found myself at length out of a situation. I
now
DRANK HARDER THAN EVER
to drown my chagrin. Even at this day, when I look back to that time, I
experience a sense of humiliation and shame that makes me fear to look
my fellow-man in the face. I never yet preached a temperance sermon to
any man; perhaps because I feel I have no right to, but I say to you
that I am firmly convinced that drink deadens everything that is best
in man. Let a young man be distinguished for his domestic affections,
for gratitude, for chivalry to woman, or any other noble quality, and
then let him take to drink, and as sure as night succeeds day piece by
piece these virtues will vanish from his character, and be succeeded
by brutal indifference, selfishness, and weak wilfulness. During these
years my family viewed my decadence with almost silent grief. My mother
would sometimes gently remonstrate with me after I got very bad, but it
appeared as if I could not stay myself. I frequently woke in the morning
and found the clothing and boots, which I knew had been mud-bespattered
almost beyond redemption in the debauch of the night before, brushed and
tidied into respectability once more by my sisters’ loving hands. This
touched me so that I determined to do better, but the resolutions were
mighty sickly ones, and seldom outlived the day. I was six months out
of employment, and during that time did nothing but waste my days in
taverns, sulking about like a criminal until I got enough liquor in me to
make me feel bold. Oh, when I think of that six months my blood boils.
Sometimes I was away from home for two or three days at a time.
ONE NIGHT I GOT “PULLED IN”
by a policeman, and woke up next morning a prisoner in the cells. But
I did not know that fact when I woke up. I was lying on a hard floor,
but that did not surprise me, as I had frequently had that as a waking
experience. I looked about me for a few minutes, and found that I was not
alone in the room. Several other men were lying on the floor. The stench
in the place was sickening. “Where can I be?” I said, and I tried to
recall the events of the night before. Just as I was trying to do so the
chimes of St. James’ cathedral rang out, and like the thrust of a cruel
sword the thought darted through my head, “My God, I’m in the police
cells.”
I must have been still full of liquor, but that thought brought
consciousness and soberness at once. I sat up against the wall, and oh,
what bitter thoughts thronged through my brain! In spite of me, the
great hot tears welled from my eyes. The hero in the Silver King, which
I saw at the Grand, says, “O God, roll back Thy universe, and give me
yesterday!” These were not the words I used, but that was the thought.
Oh, if I could only have avoided this last dreadful crowning shame of
all! But, sir, I thought things in that cell that have saved my life.
It was a bitter experience, but it has proved salutary. I could tell
you every thought I had from the time I woke in the morning until I was
put in the prisoners’ dock a few minutes before ten. One prayer was
predominant in my mind, and that was that my people would never hear
of my disgrace. I was assured by my fellow-prisoners that, it being my
first offence, I would be discharged. Well, I was brought into the court
and placed in the prisoner’s dock. I had an idea that I presented an
appearance of respectability in contradistinction to
THE FROUSY BESOTTED WRETCHES
who were my companions in misery. But nobody with whom I came into
contact gave forth any sign that my appearance was not in consonance
with my position. The policemen pulled me here and there with as great
disrespect as if I were the veriest bummer. I at length recognized
that I was not only a bummer but that I looked like one. When I was
asked to stand up I did so, and while I was engaged in wondering what
the great gaping crowd of loafers in the court thought about me, a man
had testified that I had broken a window, and the magistrate imposed a
fine of $1 and costs or twenty days’ imprisonment. I could not quite
understand this sentence. I knew I hadn’t a cent in my pockets, but I
could not believe that for lack of $4 I would suffer the indignity of
imprisonment. Oh, it could not be. It was a wild, improbable dream.
But the drama moved on with relentless step, and presently I and a lot
of other miserable creatures were driven into the jail van like a lot
of dumb brutes. There is no use in dwelling on my feelings. One hopeful
feature of my case was that I did not blame anybody but myself. As
I thought what and where I might be and what and where I was I kept
repeating to myself, “Yes, I am insane.” I said that a score of times,
and thought I could offer good evidence in support of the assertion.
The van swept in at the jail gate and landed her vagrant load on the
stone steps of the imposing institution. Our names, occupations,
religious belief, etc., were entered in a book. Dinner was over before
we got there and the new arrivals had to wait till supper-time for food.
This was no deprivation to me, as I could not have eaten a Delmonico
dinner, let alone the bill of fare prepared by a prison cook. We were
searched and sent to our corridors. In the one to which I was assigned
there were about a dozen fellows, mostly young, who treated me with more
CORDIALITY AND FAMILIARITY
than was agreeable to me. A turnkey came in, however, soon after and took
them all out with the exception of myself and three or four others. I
was then left to commune with my thoughts. I had not been in the prison
half an hour before I was not only willing but anxious that my friends
should know of my whereabouts. I shall go mad if I am left here over
night, I thought. Then I reflected that someone who knew me would see
my name in the papers and that I would soon be rescued from my horrible
position. I felt that if I stayed there twenty-four hours I would lose my
self-respect beyond recovery.
One by one the hours of the afternoon wore away. The suspense in which I
was held during that time was unbearable. Every step on the stair made
me hold my breath and almost stilled the beating of my heart. If any one
looked in at the grated corridor door their features assumed the shape
of some one of my friends. At length those who had been working outside
came in and soon after we were marshalled out and proceeded in Indian
file to supper. I fairly loathed the thought of food, and the chunk of
bread and pannikin of pasty porridge which were the only articles of the
menu, unless you include water and salt, were not calculated to tickle
one’s fancy. There were no tables, the benches on which we sat having to
be utilized for both table and chair. Interpreting my look of disgust, my
right and left hand companions shared between them my supper, much to
the disgust of the fellow behind me, who said he had asked me first.
Immediately after supper we were locked up in our cells for the night.
That was my night of nights. Up till midnight I did nothing but
LISTEN WITH STRAINING EAR
to every sound of the great building. Through the high dome, off which
the corridors run, even a foot-fall echoes with funereal hollowness.
In the early part of the night the door-bell rang very frequently, and
at every peal my heart rose in my throat. “That must be them,” I kept
repeating, but as each time I was doomed to disappointment I began to
give way to despair. About midnight I lapsed into a peculiar condition
of mind. I was quite awake, but half of the time I thought there was
someone in the cell who, although he said no word, yet I knew to be
sneering at my mental promises of reform. I had not expressed to him any
promise of reform, but I thought he could read what was in my mind, and
he thought me a coward. My anger at this would occasionally rouse me out
of this hallucination, but again and again I lapsed into it. How I hated
this accusing, sneering being whom my distempered fancy had conjured up.
Murder was in my heart towards him. I have thought over my experiences
of that night until I can go through the whole series of my thoughts as
readily as I could through the scenes of some familiar drama.
About an hour after daybreak a bell was rung, which was a signal for
us to get up and dress and tidy up our cells. A procession of male
chambermaids carrying slop-buckets was then started for the yard. This
duty being done, we were marched in to breakfast. I was not hungry, but I
was weak and trembling in every limb. I knew that this was the effect of
want of food, and I determined to eat something whether I felt like it or
not. When I found, however, that
A POUND OF DRY BREAD
and unlimited water and considerable salt was the bill of fare, my
revolted appetite refused to be led into such pastures. As before, my
rations were eagerly seized by my fellow-prisoners.
When Turnkey Allan came in for the working squad after breakfast, he
chose me as a member of it. This frightened me almost to death. I had
visions of men working on the roads in chains, and I said tremulously
that I wasn’t able to work. “Oh, you’ll feel better outside. You won’t
have to work very hard.” So out I went wheeling a barrow with a pick and
shovel in it. The squad were engaged in taking clay out of a bank on the
hill beside the jail, and were wheeling it down to the road. No one who
has not undergone captivity, can understand the feelings of a prisoner.
It was a lovely summer day this, and as I looked from the brow of the
hill up and down the wide-reaching valley of the Don, I could not believe
that I could not obey my own inclinations, but was bound to submit my
goings and comings to the will of the two turnkeys who were in charge of
the squad. I was very weak, and I thought my heart must break.
“Here, B⸺,” said one of the turnkeys named Norris, “take hold of this
wheelbarrow.”
They were very considerate to me, giving me very small loads of clay, but
nevertheless in half an hour my hands were so blistered that the handles
of the infernal vehicle seemed as if they were red-hot. At length I fell
on my knees from pure exhaustion—prostrated in mind and body.
“He’s not able to work,” said one of the other prisoners.
“Let him lie on the bank,” said one of the turnkeys to the other. “He’ll
be better out here than inside.”
And he was right. I lay in the warm sun, and presently began to
experience a feeling of hunger. Just as I was experiencing this hopeful
sensation I heard some one say on the bank below, “Where is that man B⸺?”
MY HEART GAVE A GREAT THROB,
the blood rushed into my head, and everything swam before me. I did not
swoon, however. I was taken back to the jail by the turnkey, who had been
sent for me. There I found my sister talking with the deputy-governor. I
could not speak; I shook her hand. I was taken upstairs and had my own
clothes restored to me, and in ten minutes was walking down the hill. The
evulsion of feeling was so great that I had no sense of shame. I simply
felt like a new man—and I was. That jail experience of mine was the
turning point of my life. I determined to stay right in the city here and
live down my disgrace. For six weeks I went out every morning and looked
for work, but without success. I returned to my home every evening and
stayed there. It was very discouraging, and required all the resolution
I was capable of to keep myself from slipping back. One day I went to my
present employer. I had heard that he wanted a junior bookkeeper. I told
him my whole story. He engaged me. That was over five years ago, and I
am there yet.”