The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

But while he was talking about others I was thinking about him, and when I inquired what I could do for him personally he asked me to obtain the warden's permission to have a pencil and a writing-tablet in his cell, as he liked to work at mathematical problems in his cell. This was the only favor the man asked of me while he was in prison, and to this day I do not know if he thought his fourteen-year sentence was unjust. As he was quite friendless, and neither received nor wrote letters, he was only too glad to correspond with me. I was surprised on receiving his first letter to find his left-handed writing regular and clear, with only an occasional slip in spelling or in correct English.

Always interested in the origin and in the formative influences which had resulted in the criminal life of these men, I asked Belden to write for me the story of his youth; and I give it from his own letters, now before me, in his own words as far as possible:

"I have often thought that the opportunities of life have been pretty hard with me, still I have tried always to make the best of it. I know there are many who have fared worse than I, and in my pity towards them I have managed to find the hard side of life easier than otherwise.

"I was born on an island off the coast of England. My father and mother were of Irish descent, but we all spoke both English and French, and I was in school for four years before I was twelve. My studies were French and English, history, grammar and spelling; but I put everything aside for arithmetic and other branches of mathematics: as long as I can remember I had a greedy taste for figures; I earned my school expenses by doing odd jobs for a farmer, for we were very poor. My father was a hard drinker and there were fourteen of us in the family. There were days when we did not have but a meal or two, and some days when we had nothing at all to eat."

The boy's mother was ambitious for his education; she had relatives in one of our western States, and when Peter was twelve years old he was sent to this country with the understanding that he was to be kept in school.

"But instead of going to school as I had expected I was knocked and kicked about here and everywhere. My cousin would say, 'It's schoolin' ye want is it? I'll give ye schoolin',' and her schoolin' was always given with a club or a kick. 'Learnin' and educatin'? It's too much of thim ye have already; go out and mind the cow.'"

The boy endured this life for several months, "dreading this cousin so much that sometimes I'd stay out all night, sleeping in the near-by woods." Then, in an hour of desperation, he decided to run away, and after two or three temporary places where he worked for his board he drifted into the lumber regions of Michigan. There his ambition for an education was gratified in an unlooked-for and most curious fashion.

During the seventies various rumors of immoral houses in connection with these lumber regions were afloat, and later measures were taken which effectually dispersed the inmates. One of these houses was kept by a college graduate from the East, who had been educated for the ministry but had deflected from the straight and narrow path into the business of counterfeiting; in consequence he spent five years in prison and afterward sought refuge from his past in the wilds of Michigan.

Chance or fate led Peter Belden, a boy of thirteen, into the circle of this man's dominion, where, strangely enough, the higher side of the boy's nature found some chance of development. Peter was given employment at this "Rossman's" as caretaker to the dogs and as general-errand boy. The man, Rossman, studied the boy, and discovering his passion for learning cemented a bond between them by the promise of an equivalent to a course in college.