The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

In back rooms in the third story of the house lived the Zabrinski family, the father and mother with Anton and his sister two years younger. The mother was terribly crippled from an accident in childhood, and was practically a prisoner in her home. Anton, her only son, was the idol of her heart.

When scarcely more than a child Anton began work tailoring. He learned rapidly, and when sixteen years old was so skilful a worker that he earned twelve dollars a week. This energy and skill, accuracy of perception and sureness of touch, gave evidence of a fine organization. His was an elastic, joyous nature, but his growth was stunted, his whole physique frail; sensitive and shy, he shrank with nervous timidity from contact with the stronger, rougher, coarser-fibred boys of the neighborhood. Naturally this served only to make Anton a more tempting target for their jokes.

Two of these boys in particular played upon his fears until they became an actual terror in his existence; though the boys doubtless never imagined the torture they were inflicting, nor dreamed that he really believed they intended to injure him. It happened one evening that Anton was going home alone from an entertainment, when these two boys suddenly jumped out from some hiding-place and seized him, probably intending only to frighten him. Frighten him they did, out of all bounds and reason. In his frantic efforts to get away from them Anton opened his pocket-knife and struck out blindly. But in this act of self-defence he mortally wounded one of the boys.

Anton Zabrinski did not go back to his mother that night; this gentle, industrious boy, doing the work and earning the wages of a man, had become, in the eye of the law, a murderer. I have written "in the eye of the law"; a more accurate statement would be "in the eye of the court," for under fair construction of the law this could only have been a case of manslaughter; but——

I once asked one of Chicago's most eminent judges why in clear cases of manslaughter so many times men were charged with murder and tried for murder. The judge replied: "Because it is customary in bringing an indictment to make the largest possible net in which to catch the criminal."

Anton Zabrinski had struck out with his knife in the mere animal instinct of self-defence. The real moving force of evil in the tragedy was the love of cruel sport actuating the larger boys—a passion leading to innumerable crimes. Were the moral origin of many of our crimes laid bare we should clearly see that the final act of violence was but a result—the rebound of an evil force set in motion from an opposite direction. It sometimes happens that it is the slayer who is the victim of the slain. But to the dead, who have passed beyond the need of our mercy, we are always merciful.

Had an able lawyer defended Anton he never would have been convicted on the charge of murder; but the family was poor, and, having had no experience with the courts, ignorantly expected fairness and justice. Anton was advised to plead guilty to the charge of murder, and was given to understand that if he did so the sentence would be light. Throwing himself upon "the mercy of the court," the boy pleaded "guilty." He was informed that "the mercy of the court" would inflict the sentence of imprisonment for life. It chanced that in the court-room another judge was present whose sense of justice, as well as of mercy, was outraged by this severity. Moved with compassion for the undefended victim he protested against the impending sentence and induced the presiding judge to reduce it to thirty years. Thirty years! A lifetime indeed to the imagination of a boy of seventeen. The crippled mother, with her heart torn asunder, was left in the little back room where she lived, while Anton was taken to Joliet penitentiary.

It did not seem so dreadful when first it came in sight—that great gray-stone building, with its broad, hospitable entrance through the warden house; but when the grated doors closed behind him with relentless metallic clang, in that sound Anton realized the death-knell of freedom and happiness. And later when, for the first night, the boy found himself alone in a silent, "solitary"[8] cell, then came the agonizing homesickness of a loving young heart torn from every natural tie. Actually but two hours distant was home, the little back room transfigured to a heaven through love and the yearning cry of his heart; but the actual two hours had become thirty years of prison in the future. The prison life itself was but a dumb, unshapen dread in his imagination. And the unmeaning mystery and cruelty and horror of his fate! Why, his whole life covered but seventeen years, of which memory could recall not more than twelve; he knew they were years of innocence, and then years of faithful work and honest aims until that one night of horror, when frightened out of his senses he struck wildly for dear life. And then he had become that awful thing, a murderer, and yet without one thought of murder in his heart. If God knew or cared, how could he have let it all happen? And now he must repent or he never could be forgiven. And yet how could he repent, when he had meant to do no wrong; when his own quivering agony was surging through heart and mind and soul; when he was overwhelmed with the black irrevocableness of it all, and the sense of the dark, untrodden future? One night like that, it holds the sufferings of an ordinary lifetime.

We who have reached our meridian know that life means trial and disappointment, but to youth the bubble glows with prismatic color; and to Anton it had all been blotted into blackness through one moment of deadly fear.

When young convicts are received at Joliet penitentiary it is customary for the warden to give them some chance for life and for development physically and mentally. They are usually given light work, either as runners for the shops or helpers in the kitchens or dining-rooms, where they have exercise, fresh air, and some variety in employment. Anton came to the prison when there was a temporary change of wardens, and it happened when he was taken from the "solitary" cell where he passed the first night that he was put to work in the marble-shop, a hard place for a full-grown man. He was given also a companion in his cell when working-hours were over.