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SEVENTEEN YEARS IN
THE UNDERWORLD
BY
WELLINGTON SCOTT
INTRODUCTION BY
LYNN HAROLD HOUGH
[Illustration]
THE ABINGDON PRESS
NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1916, by
WELLINGTON SCOTT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I EARLY LIFE 11
II BEGINNING A CAREER 16
III PERSISTING IN MISDEEDS 21
IV EFFECTS OF GAMBLING 27
V THE REFORM SCHOOL 30
VI ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE 36
VII DISCIPLINE 41
VIII LIFE IN PRISON 47
IX PRISON EXPERIENCES 49
X CRIMINAL CLASSES 57
XI SOME TYPES OF CROOKS 61
XII MORALS IN THE UNDERWORLD 66
XIII SYSTEMATIC LAWLESSNESS 69
XIV BETRAYAL AND ARREST 74
XV PECULIARITIES OF “YEGGS” 79
XVI CONCERNING PRISON MANAGEMENT 83
XVII MISTAKES OF A CHAPLAIN 86
XVIII CONTRACT LABOR 89
XIX PARDONED 99
XX DIFFICULTIES OF THE EX-PRISONER 104
XXI REFORMATION 109
XXII COMPARISONS 112
XXIII A PLEA FOR DISCHARGED PRISONERS 117
INTRODUCTION
The two of us were sitting in a large park in an Eastern city, one
beautiful summer evening. As the rich afterglow of the sunset turned
to twilight and then to dark, my friend began to talk about the old
furtive days in the underworld. He told me how in many an American city
he had stood before some house of an evening when the shades were not
drawn. Within he would see the father and the mother, and the happy
little children, and all the bright light of home. He would turn away
abruptly and walk into the dark, trying to forget it. He could never
have a home like that.
Somehow there flashed upon me that night such an intimate sense of the
tragic loneliness which a man can know in the underworld as I had never
felt before.
Two years later I stood in the home of this same friend who for so many
years had been a social outlaw. He had fought his battle and won. He
was happily married, and his wife and he together were meeting life
with quiet strength and courage. A little girl had come to them. I
held this tiny baby in my arms as I pronounced the great old words, “I
baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.” A great light was in the eyes of the father, and the mother’s
eyes shone with the same gladness. The furtive man who had walked away
in the dark trying to forget the sight of a happy home was replaced by
a strong, capable citizen, a proud father, in a happy home.
I first met this friend of mine--Wellington Scott he calls himself in
this narrative--in a certain State penitentiary. It was in the old
days when stripes were still in evidence, and with the prison pallor
on his face, and clad in the uniform of the institution, there was no
mistaking the fact that he was under sentence. But even then there
was something incongruous about it all. The powerfully built frame
did suggest deeds which required strength and daring, but the face,
ready to light up with friendliness and kindly humor, the eyes ready
to brighten with hearty good comradeship, the whole bearing, despite
a certain embarrassment at meeting a stranger at that place and under
those conditions, suggested a man who might make a great deal of life,
and who might mean much to his friends. As an old pal of his in the
underworld said to me at a later time, “It never seemed that Wellington
Scott belonged there.”
It did not take us long to become friends. We looked each other in the
eye. There were a few words of straight, honest talk, and we had found
each other. After that day I kept in close touch with him.
I watched his fight for a straight life when he came from the
institution where he was confined. I came to know him with an
increasing understanding. He had hard things to meet. He felt the tug
of the undertow of the old life. But he held to his new purpose.
His unusual powers of observation, his capacity for thought, and his
gift of expression made the following narrative of absorbing interest.
The reader will come to have a new understanding of the forces which
drag boys down, and of the underworld which waits for them with
wide-open doors. He will understand better how to deal with the boys
in his own home, his own Sunday school, and his own community, when he
has read this revealing document. The whole problem of the prison and
prison reform will appear in a new light. And the reader will come to
think of the prisoner, not as a wastrel, but as a man who has lost his
way.
The iron entered into the soul of the man who wrote this little book,
and sometimes the intensity of his feeling is felt in his writing. Do
some of his terrible memories make him “see red,” and ought some of his
vigorous statements to be taken with a grain of salt? I do not think
that those familiar with prison conditions under the old regime will
be inclined to that opinion. Donald Lowrie’s My Life in Prison may
well be read by the man who thinks that this is an overdrawn picture.
That striking volume Within Prison Walls, by Thomas Mott Osborne,
blazes with an ethical indignation much stronger than any which finds
expression in this book. That Wellington Scott is entirely sincere,
that he is level-headed and not inclined to extreme views, and that
he believes he has given a fair account of conditions, I know. I am
ready to vouch for this narrative, not as the report of a judicial
commission, but as a sincere and revealing document, in which, with
the endeavor to be both candid and fair, the author gives us many
significant chapters from his life. When the judicial appraisal of the
old regime in prisons comes in, it will be a more terrible arraignment
than this book by Wellington Scott.
The crook is waiting for a friend. He has amazing capacity for loyalty.
No man in the world is more appreciative of genuine friendship. The
ways to prevent men from returning to prison are many. One of the most
important is by providing every man who comes out of prison with a
friend--human, red-blooded, hearty in all his relations, ready to enter
into the life and see out of the eyes of the man who has come forth to
try his fortune in a none too friendly world.
At this point the doubter and the cynic may lift their voices. How do
I know that the men will respond to friendship? The answer is ready. I
know because I have seen the response. That, however, is another story.
Some day I may try to tell it. Now it is time for Wellington Scott to
speak for himself.
LYNN HAROLD HOUGH.
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
I was born thirty-three years ago in one of the small cities of an
Eastern State. The family from which I came was well thought of, and
what it lacked in the possession of money it made up in respectability.
My life up to the fifteenth year was that of the usual boy. I believe
I was a little more studious than the average youngster, spending much
time and finding not a little pleasure in fitting myself for a future
career. I stood well in school, being at that time one year from high
school.
My mother died when I was about six years of age, leaving the care of
nine children to my eldest sister. My father, a wage-earner, did not
remarry. The home atmosphere was all that it could be, no bickering or
quarrels ever marring the quiet of the house.
My father for as long as I can remember had been nearsighted. Whether
it was hereditary or not, I too soon developed that condition of the
eyes. I have always been supersensitive about that defect in my vision,
and at the time did all that I could to prevent the fact becoming
known at home. This defect of vision I shall dwell on at more length
hereafter, as I believe it to have been one of the contributory causes
of my entering the underworld.
The neighborhood in which I lived up to about my fifteenth year
was just that kind one would expect to find around the home of the
prosperous workingman. About this time in my life, however, an
undesirable class of people began coming in, and the older neighbors
began seeking new homes. My family followed the exodus and moved into
one of the established suburbs of the city. I shall call the place
Rosedale. Rosedale was like unto a strange town to me, and I found it
lonesome. I was a youngster then, craving companionship. I had left all
of my boyhood friends five miles away in the city below. I knew no
one, and I needed the fellowship of a youngster of my own age. Whatever
sports I entered into I entered as a stranger. I went to school and
missed sadly the presence of my mates of the city. I was diffident to
an extreme, and to make matters worse my father decided at this time
that I should wear eyeglasses. That was before the time when glasses
became popular, you must remember. I hated the thought of putting them
on. I feared the derision of the boys with whom I must associate. I
felt them a drawback in my search for companionship.
How well I remember the day I first put them on! I went to school, and
the jibes of the boys and the half-concealed smiles of the girls made
life miserable for me. The poison of melancholy crept into my heart. I
would not have any of their proffered friendships, and the rancor in
my heart kept me alien from their fellowships. I drew myself, as it
were, into a shell. I made a pal out of solitude and out of silence. I
suckled the poison of discontent. Can you imagine the life of a boy
like that? The life of a lad is incomplete when it lacks the joys and
pleasures found in companionship with other boys. These are a necessary
part of his life, essential to his well-being and vitally important in
the formation of a good character.
About four squares distant from my house there stood a car barn.
Opposite this car barn was a pool room, where, for two and a half
cents a cue, one could knock around the balls to his heart’s content.
To this pool room my steps gravitated. I remember the first time I
entered. It was an evening of the middle winter; the cold was bitter
and a cold sleet driving down from the northwest made life miserable
on the outside. I hesitated a while before entering, then, summoning
up my courage, I went in. My! but it felt good. A hot stove showed red
in the background, the odor of tobacco smoke struck strong upon my
nostrils, but, above all, the good-natured chaff and jokes of those at
play. This I thought was fellowship of the highest order. No one gave
me more than a passing glance as I entered, except the proprietor, who
was all smiles. He wished me a pleasant evening, mentioned something
about the weather and went on about his work. I soon was made to feel
at home, and some minutes later found myself busily engaged at my first
game of pool. That pool room soon became the Mecca of all of my goings
out. Initiations into the mysteries of crap, poker, and other games of
a strictly gambling character soon followed. Before long I had acquired
a passion for gambling that knew no limit. A year passed in this
environment gave me pals a plenty. These friendships, irretrievably
given, led into the complex shadows of the underworld.