People who have never broken the law—I beg pardon, who were never caught—can not understand how a man who has once served in stir will take another chance and go back and suffer the same tortures. A society lady I once met said she thought criminals who go on grafting, when they know what the result will be, must be lacking in imagination. I replied to her: "Madam, why do you lace tight and indulge in social dissipation even after you know it is bad for the health? You know it is a strain on your nerves, but you do it. Is it because you have no imagination? That which we all dread most—death—we all defy."
The good book says that all men shall earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, but we grafters make of ourselves an exception, with that overweening egotism and brash desire to do others with no return, which is natural to everybody. Only when the round-up comes, either in the sick bed or in the toils, we often can not bear our burdens and look around to put the blame on someone else. If a man is religious, why should he not drop it on Jesus? Man! How despicable at times! How ungallant to his ancestor of the softer sex! From time immemorial he has exclaimed: "Only for her, the deceiving one, my better half, I should be perfect."
Convicts, particularly if they are broken in health, often become like little children. It is not unusual for them to grow dependent on dumb pets, which they smuggle into prison by means of the Underground Tunnel. The man in stir who has a white mouse or robin is envied by the other convicts, for he has something to love. If an artist could only witness the affection that is centered on a mouse or dog, if he could only depict the emotions in the hard face of the criminal, what a story! I had a white rat, which I had obtained with difficulty through the Underground. I used to put him up my sleeve, and he would run all over my body, he was so tame. He would stand on his hind legs or lie down at my command. Sometimes, when I was lonely and melancholy, I loved this rat like a human being.
In May, 1896, when I still had about a year to serve on my second term, a rumor circulated through the prison that some of the Salvation Army were going to visit the stir. The men were greatly excited at the prospect of a break in the dreary routine. I imagined that a big burly Salvationist, beating a drum, with a few very thin Salvation lasses, would march through the prison yard. I was dumbfounded by the reality, for I saw enter the Protestant chapel, which was crowded with eager convicts, two delicate, pretty women. No actor or actress ever got a warmer welcome than that given to Mrs. Booth and her secretary, Captain Jennie Hughes. After the clapping of hands and cheering had ceased, Mrs. Booth arose and made a speech, which was listened to in deep silence. Certainly she was eloquent, and what she said impressed many an old gun. She was the first visitor who ever promised practical Christianity and eventually carried out the promise. She promised to build homes for us after our release; and in many cases, she did, and we respect her. She spoke for an hour, and afterwards granted private interviews, and many of the convicts told her all their troubles, and she promised to take care of their old mothers, daughters and wives.
Before leaving the chapel, she sang: "O Lord, let the waves of thy crimson sea roll over me." I did not see how such a pretty, intelligent, refined and educated woman could say such a bloody thing, but she probably had forgotten what the words really meant. At any rate, she is a good woman, for she tried hard to have the Parole Bill passed. That bill has recently become a law, and it is a good one, in my opinion; but it has one fault. It only effects first-timers. The second and third timers, who went to Sing Sing years ago when there was contract labor and who worked harder than any laborer in New York City, ought to have a chance, too. Show a little confidence in any man, even though he be a third-timer, as I have been, and he will be a better man for it.
After the singing, on that first morning of Mrs. Booth's visit, she asked those convicts who wanted to lead a better life to stand up. About seventy men out of the five or six hundred arose, and the others remained seated. I was not among those who stood up. I never met anybody who could touch me in that way. I don't believe in instantaneous Christianity. I knew half a dozen of the men who stood up, and they were not very strong mentally. I often wondered what the motives were that moved the men in that manner. Man is a social animal, and Mrs. Booth was a magnetic woman. After I had heard her speak once, I knew that. She had a good personal appearance and one other requisite that appealed strongly to those who were in our predicament—her sex. Who could entirely resist the pleadings of a pretty woman with large black eyes?
Certainly I was moved by this sincere and attractive woman, but my own early religious training had made me suspicious of the whole business. Whenever anybody tried to reform me through Christianity I always thought of that powerful Celt who used to rush at me in Sunday school with a hickory stick and shout "Who made you?" And I don't think that most of the men who profess religion in prison are sincere. They usually want to curry favor with the authorities, or get "staked" after they leave stir. One convict, whom I used to call "The Great American Identifier," because he used to graft by claiming to be a relative of everybody that died, from California to Maine and weeping over the dead body, was the worst hypocrite I ever saw—a regular Uriah Heep. He was one of Mrs. Booth's converts and stood up in chapel. After she went away he said to me: "What a blessing has been poured into my soul since I heard Mrs. Booth." Another hypocrite said to me on the same occasion: "I don't know what I would do only for Mrs. Booth. She has lightened my weary burdens." Now, I would not trust either of those men with a box of matches; and so I said to the Great American Identifier: "You are the meanest, most despicable thief in the whole stir. I'd respect you if you had the nerve to rob a live man, but you always stole from a cadaver." He was horrified at my language and began to talk of a favorite subject with him—his wealthy relatives.
Some of these converts were not hypocrites, but I don't think even they received any good from their conversion. Some people go to religion because they have nothing else to distract their thoughts, and the subject sometimes is a mania with them. The doctors say that there is only one incurable mental disease—religious insanity. In the eyes of the reformers Mrs. Booth does a great thing by making some of us converts, but experts in mental diseases declare that it is very bad to excite convicts to such a pitch. Many of the weak-minded among them lose their balance and become insane through these violent religious emotions.
I did not meet so many of the big guns on my second term as on my first; but, of course, I came across many of my old pals and formed some new acquaintances. It was on this term that four of us used to have what I called a tenement house oratory talk whenever we worked together in the halls. Some of us were lucky enough at times to serve as barbers, hall-men and runners to and from the shops, and we used to gather together in the halls and amuse ourselves with conversation. Dickey, Mull, Mickey and I became great pals in this way. Dickey was a desperate river pirate who would not stand a roast from anybody, but was well liked. Mull was one of the best principled convicts I ever knew in my life. He was quiet, delicate and manly, and opposed to abusing young boys, yet if you did him an injury he would cut the liver out of you. He was a good fellow. Mickey was what I called a tenement house philosopher. He'd stick his oar into every bit of talk that was started. One day the talk began on Tammany Hall and went something like this:
"All crooked officials," said Mull, "including all of them, ought to be railroaded to Sing Sing."