On the road to Sing Sing again! The public may say I was surely an incorrigible and ought to have been shut up anyway for safe keeping, but are they right if they say so? During my confinement I often heard the prison chaplain preach from the text "Though thou sinnest ninety and nine times thy sin shall be forgiven thee."
Probably Christ knew what He meant: His words do not apply to the police courts of Manhattan. These do not forgive, but send you up for the third term, which, if it is a long one, no man can pass through without impairment in body or in brain. It is better to make the convict's life as hard as hell for a short term, than to wear out his mind and body. People need not wonder why a man, knowing what is before him, steals and steals again. The painful experiences of his prison life, too often renewed, leave him as water leaves a rubber coat. Few men are really impressionable after going through the deadening life in stir.
Five months of my third term I spent at Sing Sing, and then, as on my first bit, I was drafted to Auburn. At Sing Sing I was classified as a second term man. I have already explained that during my first term I earned over a year's commutation time; and that that time would have been legally forfeited when I was sent up again within nine months for my second bit if any one, except a few convicts, had remembered I had served before.
When, on my third sentence, I now returned to Sing Sing, I found that the authorities were "next," and knew that I had "done" them on the second bit. They were sore, because it had been their own carelessness, and they were afraid of getting into trouble. To protect themselves they classified me as a second term man, but waited for a chance to do me. I suppose it was some d—— Dickey Bird (stool-pigeon) who got them next that I had done them; but I never heard who it was, though I tried to find out long and earnestly.
When I got back to my cell in Sing Sing this third time I was gloomy and desperate to an unusual degree, still eaten up with my desire for vengeance on those who had sent me to stir for a crime I had not committed. My health was so bad that my friends told me I would never live my bit out, and advised me to get to Clinton prison, if possible, away from the damp cells at Sing Sing. But I took no interest in what they said, for I did not care whether I lived or died. I expected to die very soon, and in the meantime thought I was well enough where I was. I did not fear death, and I had my hop every day. All I wanted from the keepers was to be let alone in my cell and not annoyed with work. The authorities had an inkling that I was in a desperate state of mind, and probably believed it was healthier for them to let me alone a good deal of the time.
Before long schemes began to form in my head to make my gets (escape). I knew I wouldn't stop at murder, if necessary in order to spring; for, as I have said, I cared not whether I lived or died. On the whole, however, I rather preferred to become an angel at the beginning of my bit than at the end. I kept my schemes for escape to myself, for I was afraid of a leak, but the authorities must somehow have suspected something, for they kept me in my cell twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. Perhaps it was just because they had it in for me for beating them on my second bit. As before, I consoled myself, while waiting a chance to escape, with some of my favorite authors; but my eye-sight was getting bad and I could not read as much as I used to.
It was during these five months at Sing Sing that I first met Dr. Myers, of whom I saw much a year or two later in the mad-house. At Sing Sing he had some privileges, and used to work in the hall, where it was easy for me to talk to him through my cell door. This remarkable man, had been a splendid physician in Chicago. He had beaten some insurance companies out of one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, but was in Sing Sing because he had been wrongfully convicted on a charge of murder. He liked me, especially when later we were in the insane asylum together, because I would not stand for the abuse given to the poor lunatics, and would do no stool-pigeon or other dirty work for the keepers. He used to tell me that I was too bright a man to do any work with my hands. "Jim," he said once, "I would rather see you marry my daughter than give her to an ignorant business man. I know you would treat her kindly and that she would learn something of the world. As my wife often said, I would rather die at thirty-eight after seeing the world and enjoying life than live in a humdrum way till ninety."
He explained the insurance graft to me, and I still think it the surest and most lucrative of all grafts. For a man with intelligence it is the very best kind of crooked work. About the only way the insurance companies can get back at the thieves is through a squeal. Here are a few of the schemes he told me for this graft:
A man and his female pal take a small house in town or on the outskirts of a large city. The man insures his life for five thousand dollars. After they have lived there a while, and passed perhaps as music teachers, they take the next step, which is to get a dead body. Nothing is easier. The man goes to any large hospital, represents himself as a doctor and for twenty-five dollars can generally get a stiff, which he takes away in a barrel or trunk. He goes to a furnished room, already secured, and there dresses the cadaver in his own clothes, putting his watch, letters and money in the cadavers pockets. In the evening he takes the body to some river or stream and throws it in. He knows from the newspapers when the body has been found, and notifies his woman pal, who identifies it as her husband's body. There are only two snags that one must guard against in this plot. The cadaver must not differ much in height from the person that has been insured; and its lungs must not show that they were those of anybody dead before thrown into the water. The way to prepare against this danger is to inject some water with a small medical pump into the lungs of the stiff before it is thrown overboard. Then it is easy for the "widow" to get the money, and meet the alleged dead man in another country.
A more complicated method, in which more money is involved, is as follows. The grafter hires an office and represents himself as an artist, a bric-à-brac dealer, a promoter or an architect. Then he jumps to another city and takes out a policy under the tontien or endowment plan. When the game is for a very large amount three or four pals are necessary. If no one of the grafters is a doctor, a physician must be impersonated, but this is easy. If there are, say, ten thousand physicians in Manhattan, not many of whom have an income of ten thousand a year, it is perhaps not difficult to get a diploma. After a sheepskin is secured, the grafter goes to another State, avoiding, unless he is a genuine physician, New York and Illinois, for they have boards of regents. The acting quack registers so that he can practice medicine and hangs out his shingle. The acting business man takes out a policy, and pays the first premium. Before the first premium is paid he is dead, for all the insurance company knows. Often a live substitute, instead of a dead one, is secured. The grafter goes to the charity hospital and looks over the wrecks waiting to die. Some of these poor dying devils jump at the chance to go West. It is necessary, of course, to make sure that the patient will soon become an angel, or everything will fall through. Then the grafter takes the sick man to his house and keeps him out of sight. When he is about to die he calls in the grafter who is posing as a physician. After the death of the substitute the doctor signs the death certificate, the undertaker prepares the body, which is buried. The woman grafter is at the funeral, and afterwards she sends in her claim to the companies. On one occasion in Dr. Myers's experience, he told me, the alleged insured man was found later with his head blown off, but when the wife identified the body, the claim had been paid.