CHAPTER XXI
REFORMATION
The underworld weaves about its citizens a sort of magic spell. I little thought, determined as I was to lead a different life, that I would ever again listen to its call. But I underestimated its influence over me. I had been out some seven or eight weeks when in company with a “stir” (prison) acquaintance I took to the road again. A fast freight took us away from the city back again toward the shadows of the underworld. I stopped just short of its boundaries. We lay the following evening in the “jungles” (outside the city) waiting to continue our journey. The train was late in coming and to while away the time I took some letters from my pocket and began to read them. They were old letters, one from my friend the minister, and another from my pal in prison. They were letters such as an old and true friend would write to one in trouble. They were so proud of the fight I was making; they knew that I would succeed in my endeavor to make good. They were anxious for the time when I could once again hold up my head with the rest of them. I read the letters and then I re-read them. As I did so I realized the folly of the course that I was taking. The call of the road I found was not as inviting as I had supposed. The road itself lost its magic. The underworld ceased to beckon. I was sincerely unhappy. I saw the two lives from the right angle, and the life of the shadows was not for me. I determined to go back. To show them, my friends, that I was not unappreciative of their friendships, I resolved to make the fight at any cost and win out.
I found a right royal welcome awaiting me. I got back into the fight, and while meeting with occasional disappointments, made some progress. I have been on the outside now for over two years, and I can say that in that time I have never lapsed in my endeavors. I have congenial employment, and am happy doing it. I have met the one girl, and my friend, the minister, made us one. I am happier now than I have ever been before.
CHAPTER XXII
COMPARISONS
In contrasting my life of the present with that of the underworld I am struck by the similar characters inhabiting both. The men of the underworld are little different from those living a legitimate life. They are possessed of the same emotions. They work and love with the same intensity of purpose as do their brothers of the moral life. They have their ideals too. Strip the thief of his propensity to steal, and you develop a character of genuinely wholesome quality. The idea that the denizen of the underworld is a character different from the rest of society is a fallacious one. Lombroso, from his scientific deductions, may tell you that the criminal is one of a distinct class, differentiated from the rest of mankind. But I say to you, out of an experience of over seventeen years, that the peculiar conformation of an ear isn’t necessarily a sign of criminal depravity. I know the men of whom I speak. I know their strength and some of their weaknesses. I know their vices and some of their virtues. In the life of the elect I have never met an angel; in the underworld I have yet to meet a man absolutely bad.
The great fact in the formation of criminal tendencies, to my mind at least, is environment. If this is so, then the society is in part responsible for the crime existing. A vast number of folks believe that the criminal is born so. They point to the son or daughter of criminal and vicious parents as proof of their reasoning. But when they do so they forget the force of the environment surrounding the child from its birth. That to me is the essential factor. I know a son of a thief who developed into a professional man of no mean standing. Why? Because at an early date he was adopted into the home of respectable and honest folk. In this environment, colored by love, he developed those faculties which afterward made him succeed. I can understand certain physical characteristics being transmitted to the children, but for the life of me I cannot understand the transmission of thought. And morality to me is nothing if not a condition of the mind.