MONDAY MORNING
Cell 15, second tier, north, north wing, Auburn Prison. September 29.
It is noon hour; somewhere about 12:45 I should think.
I am a prisoner, locked, double locked. By no human possibility, by
no act of my own, can I throw open the iron grating which shuts me
from the world into this small stone vault. I am a voluntary
prisoner, it is true; nevertheless even a voluntary prisoner can't
unlock the door of his cell--that must be done by someone from
outside. I am perfectly conscious of a horrible feeling of
constraint--of confinement. It recalls an agonized moment of my
childhood when I accidentally locked myself into a closet.
My cell is exactly four feet wide by seven and a half feet long,
measuring by my own feet, and about seven and a half feet high.[2]
The iron bed is hooked to the wall and folds up against it; the
mattress and blankets hang over it. The entire furniture consists of
one stool, a shelf or table which drops down against the wall when
not held up by hooks, an iron basin filled with water for washing
purposes, a covered iron bucket for other purposes, a tin cup for
drinking water which was filled shortly before noon by the convict
orderly, and an old broom which stands in the corner. A small wooden
locker with three shelves is fastened up in the farther left-hand
corner. The pillow hangs in the opposite right-hand corner over the
edge of the bed.
This is a cell in one of the oldest parts of the prison. It has a
concrete floor and plastered walls and ceiling, and looks clean. From
my grated door, being on the second tier, I can see diagonally out of
four heavily barred windows in the outer wall, looking across about
ten feet, over the open space which drops to the stone corridor
below, and rises to the highest galleries. Through the two lower
windows I catch glimpses of the ground, through the two upper, of
leaves and branches and the sky. The daylight in the cell is enough
at the present moment to read and write by, but none too good.
Outside it is a very bright, sunny day. If it were a dark day I could
not see much without a light. The electric bulb hangs from a hook in
the center of the rounded ceiling and my head nearly touches it.
So much for my present surroundings; now let me begin the story of
the day.
Upon arising this morning at home, the toothache, although I could still
feel it grumbling, had so modified that I became convinced that it was
largely imagination. As it has since disappeared it must have been
entirely imagination. There seems to be no excuse whatever for not going
ahead.
Having noticed yesterday that, although the prisoners are allowed to wear
their hair as they please, their faces are all smooth shaven, I begin the
day by the sacrifice of my mustache. I shave, dress, and eat as much
breakfast as I can--which is not very much.
At nine o'clock I am at the railway station to say good-bye to the Warden,
who has been called to Albany on business. After the train leaves at 9:30
I go to my office, where there are some last matters to attend to, bid
farewell to the few friends who are about, and at ten o'clock present
myself at the prison entrance.
The polite guard at the gate unlocks it, I enter, and the first barrier
between me and the world shuts behind me. I mount the steps to the main
building, and turn into the Warden's office. I am dressed in old clothes,
appropriate for the occasion, and have no valuables or money about my
person.
In the Warden's office a few last details are arranged with Grant, the
Prison Superintendent of Industries, who is acting for the Warden; and my
name and certain details of my family history and career of crime are
taken down by the Warden's clerk on a slip of paper, which is handed over
to a good-looking, well-groomed young officer, to whom I am given in
charge.
On Saturday, when writing out yesterday's address, it occurred to me that
it might be useful to take an alias. Such a notion doubtless seems a
trifle foolish at first thought; considering that there is no secret of my
identity, but I reasoned that if officers and prisoners always had my own
name in mind or on tongue every time they looked at or addressed me, it
would really make it more difficult to be accepted on the basis of an
ordinary inmate. I decided, therefore, to take a name which would have no
association whatever with the chairman of the Prison Reform Commission,
yet would be somewhat in character. So on the records I am entered as
Thomas Brown, No. 33,333x.
The young officer in his neat blue uniform, carrying his loaded stick,
says briefly, "Step this way, Brown." I am hazily aware of being a
momentary object of interest to the men in the back office; a heavy iron
door is unlocked at the head of a flight of iron stairs; and as the door
clangs behind me and I hear the key turn in the lock, I begin to realize
that I am a prisoner. I have made a bargain with myself to stay here a
week, and I cannot leave sooner without serious loss of self-respect.
The taciturn young officer takes me downstairs and across the yard. I am
conscious of many pairs of eyes looking out from windows and doors, and
the few prisoners scattered about the yard singly or in groups stare with
interest. My guide accompanies me to one of the buildings about halfway
down on the left, which proves to be the tailor shop. Here in a corner of
the shop, without any screens and in full view of all passers in and out,
are three porcelain-lined iron bathtubs side by side, looking very white
and clean. I am directed to take off my clothes, which I do, and then
ordered to get into one of the tubs, in which a negro prisoner has drawn a
warm bath. I obey and make use of the soap, and later of the towel which
the attendant hands me. After I am dry I am given my prison clothes--a
suit of underwear, a pair of socks, a cotton shirt with narrow blue and
white stripes, and a suit of rough gray cloth. There is also a pair of
very thick and heavy shoes. All the clothes are new. My coat fastens down
the front with five light metal buttons, on which are the words State
Prison in raised letters. The seven smaller buttons of the waistcoat are
similar. My uniform is not exactly a first-class fit, but good enough for
the purpose. A cap, rough gray to match the suit, together with a stiff
new gray towel and a cake of white soap, completes my outfit. I am ordered
to remove my wedding ring, but the officer explains that I am to be
allowed to retain it. This is the first exception made in my case.
The rest of my belongings are bundled up and disappear from sight. All
that is left of my former self is what can't very well be eradicated. So
far as is humanly possible, I am precisely like the other 1,329 gray
figures which to-day inhabit this abnormal world within the walls.
We return to the administration building and I am taken to the office of
the Principal Keeper, where are propounded to me a series of questions,
the answers to which are duly entered on the records: name, age,
occupation, married or single, Protestant or Catholic, parents living or
dead, any children, character of my crime, is this my first term, have I
ever gone under any other name, temperate or intemperate, and so forth and
so on. Some of these questions have already been answered at the front
office, and the officer holds the paper in his hand; but I answer them
again, suppressing such facts as I do not wish to have a matter of
record.[3]
After my history has been duly taken, I am handed a copy of the rules of
the prison; and the Principal Keeper facing me across a small desk makes a
neat little speech, giving friendly advice as to my conduct while in the
institution. It is excellent advice, as far as it goes, and for it I
thank him respectfully.
Then clearing his throat he says slowly and ponderously, "Brown, after you
have had your medical examination, you will be put to work in the
basket-shop, under Captain Lamb. He will give you full instructions
concerning your place in his company and your work."
It is on the tip of my tongue to say, "But it was all arranged with the
Warden that I should be put first with the Idle Company." Fortunately,
however, I catch myself just in time. It is not for a convict to offer
objections or to argue with the P. K. So I utter another brief but
respectful, "Thank you, sir," and feel a certain relief at the
postponement of my acquaintance with the "toughest bunch of fellows in the
Prison." The Warden returns to-morrow, and an exchange can then be made if
it is thought advisable; in the meantime it is my business to do exactly
what I am told.
From the Principal Keeper's office I am taken next door to the Chaplain.
Here my reception is in marked contrast to the previous official
frigidities. I fear that this is partially due to the Chaplain's failure
quite to realize that it is only Thomas Brown, a stranger and a new
arrival, whom he takes so warmly by the hand. My evident embarrassment
evidently embarrasses him, for I am beginning to enter so much into the
spirit of the place that I almost feel as if I had been detected in an
attempt to conceal my identity. The Chaplain turns me over to a convict
stenographer who plies me with another series of questions, and I give my
statistics for a third time. I can only hope that my answers to these
various sets of questions are fairly uniform, or else that they will not
be compared too closely.
The Chaplain and his assistant (a very nice-looking prisoner named
Dickinson, whose acquaintance I made yesterday) inquire as to what books I
should like to read, and I am shown a typewritten list from which to
choose. I am hardly in a mental state to do so, but manage to make a
selection. Unfortunately nothing I want seems available; but Dickinson
promises to get one of the books later, and in the meantime I am presented
with a Bible. Then I am taken upstairs and left with the Doctor.
The Doctor puts me through another series of questions, the fourth; many
of them duplicates of the others. Then he starts on a careful physical
examination which he does not finish as it is getting too near dinner
time. The officer returns for me, and laden with my complete prison
baggage--one towel, a cake of soap and a Bible--I am conducted to the
north wing, up a short flight of iron stairs and along a narrow wooden
gallery with an iron bar for a rail, to my cell on the second tier, Number
15. It has already been described. I remain here while the officer goes
to get the small handbag left at the Warden's office, containing a few
things which I am to be allowed to have in my cell--writing paper,
toothbrush, towels, sponges, toilet paper, and a razor. Most of the men
are shaved twice a week by convict barbers in the different shops, and not
even the barbers are allowed razors in their cells. As a new man I ought
not to be allowed any of these luxuries, but this is exception number two.
The officer first returns with the wrong bag, but soon after with the
right one, and I am then locked in until dinner time. Soon my keeper turns
up, Captain Lamb, the head of the basket-shop. He introduces himself and
then gives me instructions as to my immediate conduct; explains the
marching signals, the seating at meals, _et cetera_. In obedience to his
instructions, I take off my cap and coat to leave them in the cell; and
when he soon passes along the gallery outside, unlocking the cells by
pressing down the levers, I push open the grated door and follow close
behind him. At the foot of the iron stairs he allots me a place toward the
end of the line; and at the word of command we first shuffle and then
march in double file along the stone corridors, and in single file into
the mess-hall. As we enter, the Principal Keeper stands at the door. I had
been warned to place my right hand on my left breast, by way of salute;
but the prisoner behind me, fearing I have forgotten, gives me a friendly
poke, and I assume the proper attitude of respect. Our line swings around
to the right and marches past row after row of men in gray, all facing in
the same direction and bending silently over their food.
Well beyond the center of the room I have a place at the end of a long
wooden shelf which forms the table. At a sharp rap of the Keeper's
iron-shod stick on the floor, we pull out our stools, and stand again
erect; a second rap, we seat ourselves and immediately fall to, as our
dinner has been waiting for us. I am pleased and rather surprised to find
it, if not hot, at least sufficiently warm. Our bill of fare includes a
cup of something presumably meant for coffee; a bowl of a thick liquid (I
could not decide whether it was soup or gravy, so I waited to see what the
others did with it; some used it for one, some for the other; but it
turned out to be very palatable bean soup); a slice or two of very good
ham; excellent boiled potatoes; two or three pickles I did not try; and
two large thick slices of bread. It was not a bad meal, and had I been
hungry I should have done more justice to it.
One of the rules the Captain mentioned is that no bread must be left on
the table; so, noticing what the other men do, I watch for the passing of
the waiter with a large pail of bread, from which he gives an extra slice
to those who want it, and shy my second slice into his pail as he goes
by. Of course no conversation is allowed at meals; and anything less
appetizing than the rows of gray shoulders and backs of heads in front of
one I cannot imagine. The watching keepers, standing sternly and silently
by, certainly do not add to the hilarity of the occasion. I am reminded of
what my convict friend once said to me, "You know we don't really eat
here; we just stoke up."
During the beginning of our meal other companies are continually arriving
and taking their places in front of us; and during the latter part others
are departing from behind us, accompanied by a curious noise which sounds
like the rattling of castanets. I soon make out that it is the disposal of
the spoons, forks, and knives. I have been cautioned by the Captain that
upon leaving the table the three implements must be held in full view; in
my left hand if I march on that side, otherwise in my right. These
implements are jealously watched so that a prisoner shall not carry them
to his cell and turn them into means of attack, escape, or
self-destruction.
At the end of the meal the officer's stick again strikes the stone
pavement sharply; we rise, shove our stools back under the table shelf,
then fall in line behind another departing company, each man holding aloft
his knife, fork, and spoon which he drops into the proper receptacles near
the door where a watchful officer keeps careful tally. We march back
along the stone corridors, break ranks at the foot of the iron stairs,
traverse the narrow gallery, and are soon in our cells where we are locked
in; and I begin to write this journal.
It is curious what a resentful feeling overtakes one as that iron grated
door swings to and is double locked. I can perfectly imagine a high-strung
man battering himself against it from sheer nervousness.
Captain Lamb has just been to the door of my cell again. He begins with a
reprimand. "Brown, I noticed you turning around at dinner; that is not
allowed. I will let it pass this time, but don't let it happen again. The
rule is always, 'Eyes front.'"
"Thank you, sir."
The Captain then gives instructions regarding my next moves. It seems that
I am soon to put on coat and cap and march to the shop, taking my bucket
if I desire to empty it. The Captain explains that he will first pass
along the gallery, unlocking the levers; then almost immediately return,
pushing them down, and that when he pushes down my lever I must be ready
to press heavily against the door so as to get it open quickly; then
follow after the others, and take my place in line. He also gives
instructions as to my conduct in the shop. "I call all my men by their
first names, so I shall call you Thomas. I allow my company to have some
talk in the shop. It is not strictly according to rule; but my men have
the reputation of being a little hard to manage, and I find they get along
better if I give them some leeway. So you may converse about your work;
but you must be careful not to talk loud or create any disorder, and you
must shut up at once in case another officer or a visitor comes into the
shop. Also you must not leave your place of work without permission."
I again thank the Captain, and say that I will try to mind my own business
and not make any more trouble than I can help. He smiles rather a grim
smile, and replies dryly that he doesn't think there will be any trouble,
and goes away. My time for writing must be nearly up for the present.
Yes! I hear a clicking, beginning at the far-distant end of the gallery
around the corner to my left. It draws rapidly nearer and I can hear the
key turning in the locks. I have put on my coat and cap. The Captain
unlocks my lever and passes along the gallery to the right. He will soon
be back, so this writing must be put away in the locker; then I can stand
ready and waiting at the door. It would be as well not to expose myself to
another reprimand.
* * * * *
There is of course another side to the foregoing story, and that is the
advent of Thomas Brown as viewed, not by himself, but by his new
companions--the regular inmates of the prison. What did the convicts think
of it all?
As it happens, two of them were moved to record their impressions, and
their accounts have come to my hands in a roundabout way. I can not do
better than supplement my own story by extracts from these papers. I do
not know the writers, I do not even know their names, and the stories were
written entirely without hint or solicitation from me. It is natural that
I should think them interesting; I hope that others may find them so.
Here is A's account:
On Monday, a little after 10 A. M., a man passed through the front gate,
and without any ceremony was registered on the book of entries as Tom
Brown and recorded as No. 33,333x. After a brief examination he was
conducted to the tailor-shop where the cutaway was changed for a suit of
prison gray.
The funds of Mr. Brown being at low ebb, the state graciously presented
him with a towel, a pair of working shoes, and a red bandanna
handkerchief.[4]
With these meager possessions Tom again emerged into the large yard; and
the old adage, "What a difference just a few clothes make," became very
evident, for in every appearance he looked just like the brotherhood he
was about to join.
When a new man enters, a general whisper is always heard throughout the
various shops. "Well, here's a new boarder!" This was applied to him as he
passed through the yard accompanied by Captain D.
We all knew who Tom was, but on the Sunday previous when he outlined his
intentions a silent compact had been made--to consider him as an ordinary
inmate; and the promise was fulfilled to the letter. What our thoughts
were--is an entirely different story.
B's account is somewhat more racy and intimate, and contains some very
characteristic touches:
A few comments in the cell house on the day of Tom Brown's arrival at
Auburn Prison to start his self-imposed bit.
"Hello, Bill! There he goes. And say, he just walks with the confidence of
an old timer! Well, old pals, you will have to take your hats off to him
as a game one, all right!"
By this time all the keepers in the cell house looking through the
windows. But not with that same old smile they usually carry. Someone sung
in a low tone that old time melody,
"O what has changed them?"
and the gang had to take to cover; a look from some of the sore keepers
made it plain we better move.
While he was down getting dolled up in his new suit of gray, someone asked
where the P. K. was; and Jack replied, "Why, he just passed me over in the
alley; and say, fellows, he has got so thin I didn't know him; I guess
you'll find him over in the jail office hiding behind a broom."
Someone gave us the wire that Tom was coming up the yard again, and we
made a bee line for a rubber. Sure enough there is Tom, coming up the line
in his new college makeup and a prison towel in his hand. All the boys
stood quiet and watched. In fact nine out of ten had a lump in his throat
too big to swallow. I must confess I got a cold chill that ran down my
back, and it jumped from limb to limb like a cobblestone. Well, after we
all came to, "our brave Tom" was locked in his cell, 15-2-N.N.W.; and then
the stoolpigeons was put to work to watch who went to speak with him.
These extracts, which are given verbatim, throw interesting sidelights
upon the attitude and state of mind of the prisoners--their extreme
sensitiveness, their instant response to kindness, real or fancied, their
relations to their keepers, their ready cheerfulness and sense of humor.
As one can see, there was arising among them at the very outset something
quite unexpected--a deep sense of gratitude for what they persisted in
thinking a great sacrifice on my part; an eager answer to the sympathy
from the outer world which my coming among them typified. The lump in the
throat at the first sight of Tom Brown clad as a convict is significant of
many things. The fact that they all greatly exaggerated my personal
discomfort and in so many ways gave me credit where none was due, is only
an evidence of their hunger for the human relationship, for that sympathy
from our fellowmen which we all crave so intensely, and from which
convicts are very far from exempt. There is no need to comment further
upon these interesting extracts.
It is a real pity that we can not have as well the views of the third
party in the affair--the keepers. Frank comment from them would be also
most valuable. I only hope that the one who, on a certain occasion,
invited and came very near receiving, personal violence by ejaculating,
"Damn fool!" behind my back, represented an exception. Unquestionably,
however, he did voice a considerable amount of official sentiment within
the prison, as well as much unofficial sentiment outside. That was so
natural as to be inevitable. There are always those who will misunderstand
one's motives and actions, no matter how plain the explanation may be.