The Autobiography of a Thief

by Hutchins Hapgood

One afternoon, after I had been at Sing Sing five months, I was taken from my cell, shackled hand and foot, and sent, with fifty other convicts, to Auburn. When I had been at Auburn prison about six months I grew again exceedingly desperate, and made several wild and ill-thought-out attempts to escape. I would take no back talk from the keepers, and began to be feared by them. One day I had a fight with another convict. He struck me with an iron weapon, and I sent him to the hospital with knife thrusts through several parts of his body. Although I had been a thief all my life, and had done some strong arm work, by nature I was not quarrelsome, and I have never been so quick to fight as on my third term. I was locked up in the dungeon for a week and fed on bread and water in small quantities. After my release I was confined to my cell for several days, and used to quarrel with whoever came near me. The keepers began to regard me as a desperate character, who would cause them a great deal of trouble; and feared that I might escape or commit murder at any time. One day, I remember, a keeper threatened to club me with a heavy stick he had. I laughed at him and told him to make a good job of it, for I had some years still to serve, and if he did not kill me outright, I would have plenty of time to get back at him. The cur pigged it (weakened). They really wanted to get rid of me, however, and one morning the opportunity came.

I was feeling especially bad that morning and went to see the doctor, who told me I had consumption, and transferred me to the consumptive ward in the prison. There the doctor and four screws came to my bedside, and the doctor inserted a hyperdermic needle into my arm. When I awoke I found myself in the isolated dungeon, nicknamed the Keeley Cure by the convicts, where I was confined again for several weeks, and had a hyperdermic injection every day. At the end of that time I was taken before the doctors, who pronounced me insane. With three other convicts who were said to be "pipes" (insane) I was shackled hand and foot, put on a train and taken to the asylum for the criminal insane at Matteawan. I had been in bad places before, but at Matteawan I first learned what it is to be in Hell.

Why was I put in the Pipe House? Was I insane?

In one way I have been insane all my life, until recently. There is a disease called astigmatism of the conscience, and I have been sorely afflicted with that. I have always had the delusion, until the last few months, that it is well to "do" others. In that way I certainly was "pipes." And in another way, too, I was insane. After a man has served many years in stir and has contracted all the vices, he is not normal, even if he is not violently insane. His brain loses its equilibrium, no matter how strong-minded he may be, and he acquires astigmatism of the mind, as well as of the conscience. The more astigmatic he becomes, the more frequently he returns to stir, where his disease grows worse, until he is prison-mad.

To the best of my knowledge and belief I was not insane in any definite way—no more so than are nine out of ten of the men who had served as much time in prison as I. I suppose I was not sent to the criminal insane asylum because of a perverted conscience. The stir, I believe, is supposed to cure that. Why did they send me to the mad-house? I don't know, any more than my reader, unless it was because I caused the keepers and doctors too much trouble, or because for some reason or other they wanted to do me.

But whether I had a delusion or not—and I am convinced myself that I have always been right above the ears—there certainly are many perfectly sane men confined in our state asylums for the criminal insane. Indeed, if all the fake lunatics were sent back to prison, it would save the state the expense of building so many hospitals. But I suppose the politicians who want patronage to distribute would object.

Many men in prison fake insanity, as I have already explained. Many of them desire to be sent to Matteawan or Dannemora insane asylums, thinking they will not need to work there, will have better food and can more easily escape. They imagine that there are no stool-pigeons in the pipe-house, and that they can therefore easily make their elegant (escape). When they get to the mad-house they find themselves sadly mistaken. They find many sane stool-pigeons there, and their plans for escape are piped off as well there as in stir. And in other ways, as I shall explain, they are disappointed. The reason the "cons" don't get on to the situation in the mad-house through friends who have been there is that they think those who have been in the insane asylum are really pipes. When I got out of the mad-house and told my friends about it, they were apt to remark, laconically, "He's in a terrible state." When they get there themselves, God help them. I will narrate what happened to me, and some of the horrible things I saw there.

After my pedigree was taken I was given the regulation clothes, which, in the mad-house, consist of a blue coat, a pair of grey trousers, a calico shirt, socks and a pair of slippers. I was then taken to the worst violent ward in the institution, where I had a good chance to observe the real and the fake lunatics. No man or woman, not even an habitual criminal, can conceive, unless he has been there himself, what our state asylums are. My very first experience was a jar. A big lunatic, six feet high and a giant in physique, came up to me in the ward, and said: "I'll kick your head off, you ijit (idiot). What the —— did you come here for? Why didn't you stop off at Buffalo?" I thought that if all the loons were the size of this one I wasn't going to have much show in that violent ward; for I weighed only one hundred and fifteen pounds at the time. But the big lunatic changed his note, smiled and said: "Say, Charley, have you got any marbles?" I said, "No," and then, quick as a flash, he exclaimed: "Be Japes, you don't look as if you had enough brains to play them."

I had been in this ward, which was under the Head Attendant, nick-named "King" Kelly, for two days, when I was taken away to a dark room in which a demented, scrofulous negro had been kept. For me not even a change of bed-clothing was made. In rooms on each side of me were epileptics and I could hear, especially when I was in the ward, raving maniacs shouting all about me. I was taken back to the first ward, where I stayed for some time. I began to think that prison was heaven in comparison with the pipe house. The food was poor, we were not supposed to do any work, and we were allowed only an hour in the yard. We stayed in our ward from half past five in the morning until six o'clock at night, when we went to bed. It was then I suffered most, for there was no light and I could not read. In stir I could lie on my cot and read, and soothe my nerves. But in the mad-house I was not allowed to read, and lay awake continually at night listening to the idiots bleating and the maniacs raving about me. The din was horrible, and I am convinced that in the course of time even a sane man kept in an insane asylum will be mad; those who are a little delusional will go violently insane. My three years in an insane asylum convinced me that, beyond doubt, a man contracts a mental ailment just as he contracts a physical disease on the outside. I believe in mental as well as physical contagion, for I have seen man after man, a short time after arriving at the hospital, become a raving maniac.

For weeks and months I had a terrible fight with myself to keep my sanity. As I had no books to take up my thoughts I got into the habit of solving an arithmetical problem every day. If it had not been for my persistence in this mental occupation I have no doubt I should have gone violently insane.