“Betcher life yuh did, Judge,” he said. “I’m wit’ yuh. W’at d’ yuh want?”
I told him what I wanted—every boy that he could get, who had been in jail. “And they’ve got to be in this room by two o’clock. Can you do it?”
Mickey threw out his dirty little hand. “Sure I kin. Don’t yuh worry, Judge. Get me a wheel—dhat’s all.”
I hurried out with him and got him a bicycle, and he flew off down Sixteenth Street on it, his legs so short that his feet could only follow the pedals half way round. I went back to my chambers to wait....
As two o’clock approached, the ministers began to come into my room, one by one, and take seats in readiness. Mr. Wilson of the Police Board arrived to represent his fellow-commissioners. The Deputy District Attorney came, the president of the upper branch of the City Council came, Mayor Wright came, and even Governor Peabody came—but no boys! I felt like a man who had ordered a big dinner in a strange restaurant for a party of friends, and then found that he had not brought his purse.... I was just about to begin my apologies when I heard an excited patter of small feet on the stairs and the shuffle and crowding of Mickey’s cohorts outside in the hall. I threw open the door. “I got ’em, Judge,” Mickey cried.
He had them—to the number of about twenty. I shook him by the shoulder, speechless with relief. “I tol’ yuh we’d stan’ by yuh, Judge,” he grinned.
He had the worst lot of little jailbirds that ever saw the inside of a county court, and he pointed out the gem of his collection proudly—“Skinny,” a lad in his teens, who had been in jail twenty-two times!“ “All right, boys,” I told them, “I don’t know you all, but I’ll take Mickey’s word for you. You’ve all been in jail and you know what you do there—all the dirty things you hear and see and do yourselves. I want you to tell some gentlemen in here about it. Don’t be scared. They’re your friends the same as I am. The cops say you’ve been lying to me about the way things are down in the jails there, and I want you to tell the truth. Nothing but the truth, now. Mickey, you pick them out and send them in one by one—your best witnesses first.”
I went back to my chambers. “Gentlemen,” I said, “we’re ready.”
I sat down at the big table with the Governor at my right, the Mayor at my left and the president of the Board of Supervisors and Police Commissioner Wilson at either end of the table. The ministers seated themselves in the chairs about my room. (We allowed no newspaper reporters in, because I knew what sort of vile and unprintable testimony was coming.) Mickey sent in his first witness.
One by one, as the boys came, I impressed upon them the necessity of telling the truth, encouraged them to talk, and tried to put them at their ease. I started each by asking him how often he had been in jail, what he had seen there, and so forth. Then I sat back and let him tell his story.