VI
The one-legged, bull-faced negro in the hospital was watching my assistant, who, of his own volition, and without being ordered to do it, was laboriously polishing the brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
"That boy ain't no thief," he remarked philosophically. "A thief is a thief 'cause he won't work, in or out of jail."
A crook will waste many days, nay, sometimes weeks and months, and take infinite pains to plan a robbery, the result of which he imagines is getting something for nothing. Sometimes the prize is nothing, sometimes it is considerable; and then it is dissipated in gambling, dope, and riotous living. The fruit of legitimate work he considers a meagre result of foolish painstaking effort.
The mental calibre of these men is similar to that of naughty, precocious children, or of savages; they have streaks of yellow and streaks of insanity; they often have a strong will, but no morality; a keen intelligence, but no principle; a purpose, but no good or high-minded ambition. Almost without exception they are gamblers; they lack imagination, but they are possessed of an over-weening, childish vanity; they have great stubbornnesses, but no sense of proportion or responsibility.
Their ideals are wholly physical; they love fine clothes, jewelry, good food; they admire the fair sex, they crave money for all the physical results it will bring. They are very proud of their criminal successes, of their reputations as "tough guys," bad men with terrible records, fierce and relentless in their loathing for "squealers" and "bulls."
They consider their gallery of Immortals as unique, and never sufficiently appreciated by those outside their world of life.
A complete lack of imagination prevents them from foreseeing the futility and the inevitable result of their lonesome battle against the united forces of society.
An almost unanimous characteristic is their cheap sentimentality, but at bottom they are nearly always kind hearted. They have, too, a keen sense of justice, and often they are willing to admit that they deserve their punishment; but they rebel savagely against the injustices, the inhuman treatment, the tortures, inflicted by prison authorities. It is the helplessness of these prisoners, and the indifference of the public towards them and their fate, that make prison authorities so cowardly and brutal. A healthy publicity in prison matters, and a more charitable and sympathetic attitude on the part of the public, would very soon change the attitude of the wardens and the keepers.