Read Ebook: Within Prison Walls being a narrative during a week of voluntary confinement in the state prison at Auburn New York by Osborne Thomas Mott

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less comrade, were the sounds I heard far away in my cell. One of the trusties who, having the freedom of the corridors, was enabled to see most of the occurrence, so far forgot his position as to venture the opinion that it was a "pretty raw deal." This remark was overheard by an officer; and the trusty at once received the warning that he had better keep his mouth shut and not talk about what didn't concern him.

If it is realized that these officers have what almost amounts to the power of life and death over the convicts, it can be understood that such a warning was not one to be lightly disregarded.

Lavinsky, having been landed again in the jail, was kept there from Wednesday evening until Saturday afternoon. What special care or attention was given him during that time I am unable to state, but there is no reason to suppose that any exception was made in his case. Like the other denizens of the jail, he was fed only on bread and a very insufficient quantity of water--three gills in twenty-four hours--and also experienced the intolerable conditions of that vile place.

On Saturday afternoon, three days later, he was still down there, and still bughouse. Then as there was a disturbing rumor among the officials that I was planning to be sent to the jail, he was taken away about an hour before my arrival. His cell was the very one which I occupied, after it had been thoroughly cleaned.

He was removed from the jail to a special cell, where his case was taken up personally by the Warden, and where the poor youth was at last put under the care of the doctor, and received some humane and sensible treatment. When I first saw him, some three weeks after my term had ended, he had not become entirely rational, although he has since recovered himself. As I have already said, he had at first no clear recollection of the brutal treatment of which he had been the victim, nor in fact of anything that occurred at the time. Perhaps it was all the better that this was so.

An exceptionally intelligent convict, whose term expired soon after these events, and who could have had no earthly object in misrepresenting the matter, described to me after his release the episode in detail. He had been an eye-witness of the entire occurrence, as he was standing on the gallery where he could see everything that happened. He summed it up in these exact words: "Mr. Osborn, it was one of the most brutal things that I have ever seen, in all my experience in prison."

His story is fully corroborated by what I have learned, upon careful inquiry from other men.

Doubtless some will say that the statements of convicts are not to be believed. That touches upon one of the very worst features of the situation. No discrimination is ever made. It is not admitted that, while one convict may be a liar, another may be entirely truthful; that men differ in prison exactly as in the world outside. It is held, quite as a matter of course, that they are all liars, and an officer's word will be taken against that of a convict or any number of convicts. The result is that the officers feel themselves practically immune from any evil consequences to them from their own acts of injustice or violence. What follows from this is inevitable. Our prisons have often been the scenes of intolerable brutality, for which it has been useless for the victims to seek redress. They can only cower and endure in silence; or be driven into insanity by a hopeless revolt against the System.

Not so very long ago one of the prisoners at Auburn, on a hot night in summer, as an officer was shutting the windows in the corridor outside, called out from his cell, "Oh, Captain, can't you let us have a little more air?"

The officer promptly went to the tier of cells whence the voice came and made a chalk-mark around the keyhole of one of the locks. When a man is "round-chalked" he is not released when the rest of the prisoners are let out of their cells, but reserved for punishment. In this case the officer mistook the cell from which the voice had come, and round-chalked the prisoner who was locked in next to the one who had dared to ask for more air.

The next morning, finding that his neighbor was about to receive the punishment intended for himself, the culprit promptly told the officer that he was the guilty party, and if anyone was to be punished, he ought to be. This honorable action was allowed no weight. He had some of his hard-earned money taken away from him, three days of his commutation cancelled, and the disc removed from his sleeve as a mark of disgrace; in short, he was severely punished--as his innocent neighbor would have been, had he not prevented it by taking the punishment upon himself.

The point is this: that no convict has any rights--not even the right to be believed; not even the right to reasonably considerate treatment. He is exposed without safeguard of any sort to whatever outrage an inconsiderate or brutal keeper may choose to inflict upon him; and you cannot under the present system guard against such inconsiderate and brutal treatment.

I should not like to be understood as asserting that all keepers are brutal, or even a majority of them. I hope and believe that by far the greater number of the officers serving in our prisons are naturally honorable and kindly men, but so were the slave-owners before the Civil War. And just as it was perfectly fair to judge of the right and wrong of slavery not by any question of the fair treatment of the majority of slaves, but by the hideous possibilities which frequently became no less hideous facts, so we must recognize, in dealing with our Prison System, that many really well-meaning men will operate a system in which the brutality of an officer goes unpunished, often in a brutal manner.

The reason of this is not far to seek--a reason which also obtained in the slave system. The most common and powerful impulse that drives an ordinary, well-meaning man to brutality is fear. Raise the cry of "Fire" in a crowded place, and many an excellent person will discard in the frantic moment every vestige of civilization. The elemental brute will emerge, and he will trample down women and children, will perform almost any crime in the calendar in his mad rush for safety. The truth of this has been demonstrated many times.

In prison, where each officer believes that his life is in constant danger, the keeper tends to become callous, the sense of that danger blunts his higher qualities. He comes to regard with mingled contempt and fear those dumb, gray creatures over whom he has such irresponsible power--creatures who can at any moment rise in revolt and give him the death blow. And as they undoubtedly possess that power, he is always fearful that they may use it, for are they not dangerous "criminals"? And undoubtedly there is basis for his fear, for some of those men are dangerous, rendered more so by the nerve-racking System.

I can conceive no more terribly disintegrating moral experience than that of being a keeper over convicts. However much I pity the prisoners, I think that spiritually their position is far preferable to that of their guards. These latter are placed in an impossible position; for they are not to blame for the System under which their finer qualities have so few chances of being exercised.

But I have been betrayed into rather more of a discussion than I intended, a discussion out of place in this chronicle of facts. I have inserted so much by way of explanation both of what I have narrated in the foregoing chapter and of what I shall have to tell in those that are to come.

Since the above was written I have run across a passage in a book on English prisons which confirms so strikingly one of the statements just expressed that room must be made for it. "The real atmosphere of Dartmoor," says the author, Mr. Albert Paterson, writing of Dartmoor Prison, "so far as the men responsible for its well-being and discipline are concerned, is that of a handful of whites on the American frontier among ten times their number of Apache Indians. 'We stand on a volcano,' an officer said to the writer in a matter-of-fact tone. 'If our convicts here had opportunity to combine and could trust one another, the place would be wrecked in an hour.'"

Aside from the author's ridiculously belated simile of the American frontier, we have here an accurate and forcible statement of the prison keeper's constant nervous apprehension of danger and the necessity of being prepared at any moment to sell his life as dearly as possible. And, of course, this feeling of the keeper increases his severity and the severity increases the danger, and so we have the vicious circle complete.

I am not now in any way disputing the necessity of a keeper being constantly on his guard, I am not saying whether this view of things is right or wrong, and when I use the word fear I do not mean cowardice--a very different thing, for a brave man can feel fear. I am simply trying to point out that in prison, as elsewhere, when men are dominated by fear, brutality is the inevitable result.

THURSDAY

In my cell, Thursday evening, October 2.

This morning is cloudy and dark; it has been raining heavily during the night, and the atmosphere is damp and oppressive. Oppressive too is the feeling left by the unexplained occurrences of last evening.

My first visitor is Officer X, the man who wouldn't answer my question last evening when he was standing back of the Warden and I asked him what that noise was. This morning he is exceedingly bland and also, like the weather, oppressive. He is so very anxious to know how I passed the night; and I tell him. He then says that a thousand people have inquired of him about me; and I remark that I'm glad my experiment is arousing so much interest. He then says that several men have said to him that I must have something special in mind, that I must be here for some ulterior purpose, and they believe the result will be some dismissals among the officers; to which I say that doubtless there are many people who, not having taken the trouble to read my address in the chapel last Sunday, although it was printed in the newspapers, are quite ready to believe anything except the simple truth.

He then enters upon a long rigmarole, the gist of which is how necessary it is for a man to do his duty; with which novel sentiment I express my entire agreement. Then he adds that he has always been careful to do his own duty; upon which I make the startling comment that it is in the long run the best course to pursue. Then he casually turns the conversation around to show how closely connected he is to various admirers of my father and myself, and gracefully insinuates that he also shares these feelings; to which I can answer nothing, as this sort of thing always reduces me to embarrassed and wrathful silence. I hate to tell a man that he's a fool, and I hate quite as much to have him take me for one.

As the officer stands there talking, it is borne in upon me that he not only knows all about last night's disturbance, but that he was probably concerned in it, and is now deliberately trying to switch me off the track. He would not answer my question last night, and he avoids all reference to the matter this morning, substituting for the explanation which he knows I want, for he heard me speak to the Warden about it last evening, all this stuff I have outlined. Instead of being frank and telling the plain truth about last night's occurrence, he is trying to flatter me and pull the wool over my eyes.

He walks away and the taste in my mouth is not pleasant.

Soon Captain Kane unlocks the levers, and George presses them down to release us for a new day. I regret to say that I again create some confusion on the gallery by being late; but, as there is trouble with the lock on the tier around the corner, I catch up while the front of the line is held back by the delay.

Marching down the yard, my interest is aroused by a long, whispered conversation between Roger Landry at my side and Jack Bell who is immediately in front of him. Neither is farther than a foot or so away, yet my ears are not sensitive enough to catch a single word of what they say; and when I glance toward Landry I am unable to detect the faintest motion of his lips, although the talk is still going on.

Upon return from bucket duty I sweep out the cell, finding it for some reason especially dirty. Soon after I have finished this task, I come into possession, through a channel it is best not to specify, of an account of last night's performance, including the names of most of the actors. I judge that it is a bad business. This is the story as it comes to me.

Before the march to breakfast George kindly brings me another package of sugar. It is evidently of distinct advantage, in more ways than one, to stand well with the trusties; I wish I knew them all, but possibly some may be afraid to show themselves at the door of my cell. I have a vague feeling that it is being closely watched.

Breakfast to-day consists of some kind of porridge, with the usual bootleg and punk. Thanks to George, I do not need the sugar which Landry again offers me; and, having more than enough for my own portion of porridge, I silently pass what I have left to my neighbor on the other side, who receives it without daring to express any evidence of gratitude.

Arrived back in my cell, George stops to have a pleasant chat with me, and tells me a little about himself and his experiences. Then, after the usual operations attendant upon our release from the cells, we march down the yard and arrive at the basket-shop, ready for the business of the day.

Murphy is on hand with his usual cheerful smile:

"Well, good morning, Tom."

"Good morning, Jack." And upon this more intimate footing we commence our fourth day's work together.

As I left a bottom incomplete last evening, I begin work with vigor in order to finish it; but unfortunately the rattan we are now using is so stiff and rotten that it not only breaks constantly and is very hard on the fingers, but makes good workmanship quite impossible. Finally we are compelled to stop altogether, while the withes are taken and soaked in hot water, instead of the cold water in which they have been lying over night. Once in a while we have been getting soft and pliable withes that make work easy and pleasant, but most of them have been very brittle and difficult to handle.

While we are waiting for material, I hear the name of Brown called out; and find that I am told off, along with Jack and a number of others, to help pull up another car. This time it is lumber and not coal; the identical lumber, in fact, that stood in front of the north windows and caused the P. K. such anxiety about our eyesight yesterday afternoon.

The gang is duly counted and handed over to the officer charged with the job; and soon we are enjoying the exercise of successive tugs of war with the block and tackle, similar to those of Tuesday. It is not so hard a job as that was, however, there being but one car and that a comparatively light one; so Jack and I regret that our spell of exercise is not longer and stronger. It is far better than nothing, however, and we return, refreshed and invigorated, to our basket-work.

While we are waiting for working material, Jack approaches me cautiously, leaning against the table with a very listless air, as if nothing were further from his thoughts than a subject of serious import.

"Did you hear anything last night, Tom?" he asks, turning his face just enough in my direction to reach me with his voice, which is subdued to its lowest tone.

"Did I? I should think I did," is my low reply. "What can you tell me about it?"

Jack repeats the story substantially as I have already heard it. The affair happened in one of the upper tiers almost directly over him, but he could see nothing of it, and he only heard the details through others. He thinks it is a bad matter, and adds one new item of information. He says that a certain trusty has threatened to go to the Warden about the case; he told the P. K. to his face that he would do so, and the P. K. threatened the trusty with retaliation if he did; but that the man feels so outraged by the brutality he witnessed that he intends to do it in spite of the P. K.

I know this particular trusty and should be sorry to have him get the ill-will of the P. K., or any of the prison authorities. So I decide to try to take steps to prevent this. Convicts, as I have already hinted, have underground means of communication of which the officials do not always know.

The truth of this last statement was demonstrated in an interesting way this morning. Strict orders were given by the Warden when I first came here that there was to be no photographing. We cannot prevent publicity about this affair of mine. But at least we can, and have, cut out the moving pictures; and discouraged other attempts to exploit and emphasize the personal side of it. It is not our fault if many of the newspapers print ridiculous statements which are not founded upon fact.

I have, by the way, been seeing a number of newspapers, as the men in the shop are all keenly interested and are anxious to share with me any "Tom Brown dope" that comes their way. Every day half a dozen papers reach me in roundabout ways. I always read them, taking care to lurk behind a post or otherwise screen myself from the eye of the Screw. Captain Kane, like Captain Lamb, evidently feels that it is well to temper discipline with tact and discretion. He is firm in manner, quiet and self-contained, allowing no liberties from anyone, but evidently bent upon doing his duty and at the same time being kindly and fair in his treatment of the men.

What I started to say was that the order against photography was obeyed until to-day. There is doubtless a good reason for this morning's exception--I have to leave that for the Warden to explain; but while Jack and I were talking, one of the convicts passing behind me said in an undertone, "Look out, Brown! Camera inside."

In due course of time, Grant makes his appearance, showing around a visitor who carries a kodak. He makes no attempt to exercise the machine in our neighborhood, and is simply shown through like any other visitor. Not long after he is gone the hour of noon approaches. We form in due order, and, while awaiting the signal to start, for the first time I dare to turn my head sufficiently to get a good look at the dapper young prisoner who leads the right line of our company, the back of whose head and manner of marching had so pleased me. And whom should I discover him to be but my own boss, Harley Stuhlmiller. Here have I been three days marching behind him ten times a day, and seeing him at frequent intervals all day long in the shop; and now for the first time I am able to match his face and the back of his head together. This gives a good idea of the remoteness of man and man in this unnatural place.

We make our usual march down to the stands, where each man secures his bucket, and then back up the length of the yard.

Sure enough--there he is. The camera fiend is standing with Grant and some others just outside of the main door. Evidently he has not been told that at noon we turn aside to the door leading into the north wing; it is only at night that we march directly into the main building in order to secure our bread for supper. The men quickly catch the humor of the situation, and there is a deal of quiet enjoyment of the photographer's disappointment. He hastens down toward us, but only succeeds in snapping our rear ranks as we enter the building. Tom Brown has escaped him.

It is certainly wonderful how news gets about in this prison. From what the Warden tells me this evening, it could not have been more than half an hour after the man with his kodak entered the front gate before the warning of his camera was received by me, over at the farther end of the yard. The Marconi system hasn't very much advantage in speed over the wireless telegraphy of the prison.

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