V
Next morning, handcuffed to a young prisoner and accompanied by a score of men, I am taken to a pen. The place cannot be described in decent writing, but I can safely assert that a more filthy, disgusting place does not exist in New York. The stench is so sickening that I suffer the rest of the day from a splitting headache.
After an hour's wait I am brought into the presence of a kindly faced probationary officer who asks me for addresses of friends who might write to the judge, and inquires for certain facts concerning my case which did not come out during my trial. She also begs me to write a letter giving these facts, so that she can show it to the judge before sentence is passed on me. The result is negative, as the judge has already made up his mind about my case.
The young man who was handcuffed to my wrist goes into court to get his sentence. He returns, pale, trembling, almost fainting, and can only whisper hoarsely that he is going to state's prison in the morning for four years.
Another companion in misery is an Italian waiting for trial. He is indignant, even furious, at his treatment by the District Attorney. His case is a record breaker; he has been brought up for the two hundredth time without being tried. This is done to wear him out and force him to plead guilty.
A lean, dark-haired, young man with unpleasant features, suspected of having murdered a pal, tells a story of a third degree at headquarters.
After two days and nights, passed in a cell without food and water, he says he was brought in to the presence of several masked detectives. Stripped to his bare skin, he was forced to stand on a metal rack with burning hot points until he attempted to jump off, when the whole gang of sleuths assaulted him, beat and kicked him, and forced him back.
Without rest or halt, questions were yelled at him in quick succession; when the answers did not come fast enough, they battered him unmercifully with their fists; when the answers were unsatisfactory, the vilest and foulest of insults were shouted at him, tauntingly, sneeringly, to arouse his anger and loosen his tongue.
No opportunity was given him to concentrate his mind. He was racked by a gnawing hunger, a parched throat, a delirious thirst; by painful stinging wounds of cut lips, bleeding teeth, two half closed black eyes and a constant hopping on the radiator to keep the soles of his feet from burning.
Then they tempted him by bringing a table covered with luscious, steaming food, sparkling drinks and expensive cigars. Like Tantalus, he was intercepted and derided when he attempted to partake of the food or the drink. Meanwhile the detectives ate and drank with relish almost under his nose; they drank to his health, and blew into his face the fragrant smoke of their cigars.
They continued this torture for several hours, until his body and mind could bear the strain no longer; and then he fell to the floor in a dead faint.