"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

With the first dreadful feeling of suffocation and nausea caused by the foul air and the odor of unwashed bodies and open drains, and the awful fear of fire as I realized the impossibility of escape from behind so many iron-bound doors in the old rookery of a building, I would have begged to be released, but neither the jailer nor anyone else appeared until six o’clock the next morning. I therefore had to endure, and after I had finally adjusted myself to the frightful conditions around me, I was able to make my observations.

There were twenty canvas hammocks, all of unspeakable filthiness, hung one above the other, on iron frames. There was no pretense of bedding. The occupants covered themselves with their old ragged overcoats, if they happened to have any, and those who were not so fortunate, simply shivered in their rags.

The cots were all taken and an old man some seventy-five years of age lay on the concrete floor, which was covered with tobacco juice and the expectorations of diseased men. Vermin were running over the floor and on the tin dishes left there from the last night’s supper.

Water from the toilet of the women’s department above had run down the wall, and under this old man now sound asleep, and on into the waste basin.

I walked back and forth in my horror for some time, passing in front of the hammock beds and finally a man raised his head and, evidently thinking I was walking for warmth, said:

“Friend, you will find it warmer over there by the steam pipes.”

I wonder why he called me “friend”? A spirit of kindness from one man to another, in a place like that! Think of it!

I spent the entire night walking the floor or sitting on an old battered, inverted tin pail, studying the wretched inmates of the dirty, desolate cell.

I saw a man get up, and with outstretched hands, feel his way to the drinking place. I went over and helped him. He was totally blind. He told me he had once been kept in that place seventeen days. A one-legged man who had gotten up, hobbling without his crutch, helped him back to bed.

Never was sound sweeter to my ears than the rattle of the jailer’s keys when he came to let me out. He kindly asked me to stay to breakfast, but I did not accept. I was only too glad to escape to my hotel, to wash out the material evidence of contact with the foulness gathered on that most miserable night.