The Autobiography of a Thief

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s drier, and better than at Sing Sing, but the food not so good. The warden was not liked by the majority of the men, but I admired him for two things. He believed in gi

blankets; then I went to breakfast, then if there was no work to do, back to my cell, where I ate a small portion of opium, and sometimes read the daily paper, which was also contraband. It is only the stool-pigeons, those convicts who have money, or the cleverest among the rascals, who get many of these privileges. After I had had my opium and the newspaper I would exercise with dumb-bells and think or read in my cell. Then I would have a plunge bath and a nap, wh

enings in the same way. I would lie on my cot and sometimes a thought like the following would come to me: "Yes, I have stripes on. When I am released perhaps some one will pity me, particularly the women. They may de

n on a ship-wreck very often, or on some other painful subject; and I might tell the story to myself in jingles, or jot it down on a piece of paper. Then my whole being would be quiet. A gentle, soothing melancholy would steal upon me. Often my imagination was so powerfully affected that I could really see the events of my dream. I could see the ship tossing about on waves mountai

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book would quiet me. The best soother I had was the most beautiful poem in the English language-Walt Whitman's Ode To Death. When I read this poem, I often imagined I was at the North Pole, and that strange shapes in th

the opium, but my experience on the outside, that made me eager for philosophy and the deeper poetry; for a grafters wits, if they don't get away from him altogether, become keen through his business, since he lives by them. It was philosophy, and the spectacle of men going suddenly and violently insane all about me, that led me first to think of self-control, though I did not muster enough to throw off the opium habit till many years afterwards. I began to think of will-power about this time, and I knew it was an acquired virtue, like truth and honesty. I think, from a moral standpoint, that I lived as good

n fall into the vilest of habits. I found, for my part, that only opium would calm me. It takes only a certain length of time for almost all convicts to become broken in health, addicted to one form or another of stimulant which in the long run pulls them down completely. Diseases of various kinds, insanity and death, are the result. But before the criminal is thus released, he grows d

with the desire to give it up, that I became so irritable and violent. The strain of reform, even in this early and unsuccessful attempt, was terrible. At times I used to go witho

etimes good-natured or avaricious keepers would carry them; but as a rule a convict did not like to trust a note to a keeper. He was afraid that the screw would read it, whereas it was a point of honor with a convict to deliver the note unread. The contents of these notes were usually news

thel, sent me things regularly, and came to see me. They used to send me soap, tooth brushes and many other delicacies, for even a tooth brush is a delicacy in prison. Ethel stuck t

ue friend. If she had fallen away from me, I couldn't have blamed her; she would only have gone with the rest of the world; but she didn't. She was good not only to me, but to my friends, and she had

him, his old mother, bowed and sad, will trudge up the walk from the station to visit her thoughtless and erring son! She carries on her arm a heavy basket of delicacies for the son who is detested by all good citizens, and in her heart there is still hope for her boy. She has waited many years and she will continue to wait. What memories come to the mother as she sees

ep, or working about the yard or in the halls, I used to "feel out" my brother "cons," often with a kindly motive. I grew very expert in telling when a friend was becoming insane; for imprisonmen

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ws an?mic and then is on the road to insanity. If he has a wife he almost always grows suspicious of her, though he does not speak about it until he has

was like a ray of sunshine, witty and a good story teller. His laugh was contagious and we all liked to see him. He was one of the best night prowlers (burglars) in the profession, and had many o

he consulted me and two others as to whether he ought not to "shoot a bug" (sham insanity); and so get transferred to the hospital. One advised him to attack a keeper and demand his baby back. But as Billy had big, black eyes and a cadaverous face, I told him he'd better shoot the melancholy bug; for he could do that better. Accordingly in the morning when the men were to go to work in the stone yard, Billy appeared in the natural (naked)

howl. If it was at night and they had been awakened out of an opium sleep, they would damn him a thousand miles deep. His friends, however, who knew that he was acting, would plug his game along by talking about his insanity in the presence of stool-pigeons. These latter would tell the keepers that he was buggy (insane), and, if there was not a blow, he might be sent to the hospital. Before that happened, however, he had generally d

and then from a fake he becomes a genuine freak. Another common fake is to tell the keeper that you have a snake in your arm, and then take a knife and try to cut it out; but it requires nerve to carry this fake through. Sometimes the man who wants to make the prison hospital merely fakes or

sometimes until we fainted. Auburn had a jail, now used as the condemned cells, where there was no bed and no light. In this place the man to be punished would remain from four to ten days and live on ten ounces

he front with a hall-room man when a stiff was put in the wagon. "Who's dead?" I asked. The hall-man wanted to bet it was a nigger. I bet him a dollar it was a white man, and then asked the hospital nurse, who said it was not a nigger, but an old pal of mine, named Jerry Donovan. I felt sore and would not accept the mone

ves usually keep together as much as possible in prison, or communicate together by means of notes; though sometimes they associate with men who, not professional grafters, have been sent up for committing some big forgery, or other big swindle. The reason for this is business; for the gun generally has friends among the politicians, and he wants to associate while in stir only with others who have influence. It is the guns who

r, Ed said he thought he could place her in a good position. The old screw laughed and said; "You loafer, if you were made to carry a hod you wouldn't be a splitting matches in stir." But Ed meant what he had said, and wrote to the famous Tammany politician, Mr. Wet Coin, who gave the girl a position as stenographer at a salary of fourteen dollars a week. The old

es; and the men believe that convicts can not be on friendly terms with the powers that be unless they are stool-pigeons. Another thing that made the "cons" dislike the Mayor was the fact, that, when he was chief of police, he had settled a popular dip named Feeley for ten years and a half. The very worst thing against him, however, was his private refrigerator in which he kept butter, condensed milk and other luxuries, which he did not share with the other convicts. One day a young convict named Sammy, tried to beat Sing Sing. He bricked himself up in the wall, leaving a movable opening at the bottom. While waiting a chance to escape Sammy used to sally forth from his hiding-place and steal something good from McBlank's box. One night, while helping himself to the Mayor's delicacies, he thought he heard a keeper, and hastily plunging his arm into the refrigerator he made away with a large

millions from the Manhattan Bank. The father got away, and Johnny, who was innocent, was nailed by a copper looking for a reputation, and settled for twenty years in Sing Sing, because he was his father's son and had the misfortune to meet an ambitious copper. When Johnny had been in prison about ten years, the inspector,

boy," he would say, "unless you can't help

ct," and a third was: "It is as easy to steal fiv

. I ranked him as a manly old fellow, and he was an idol among the small crooks, though he did not have much to do with them. He seemed to like to talk to me, partly because I never talked graft, and he detest

ks, who had a snap,-the position of book-keeper, in the clothing department. In his desk he kept whiskey, beer and cigars, and lived well. One day a big bug paid him a visit, and Weeks belched how he had to give up his watch and chain in order to secure luxuries.

and once, when a mere boy, who had stolen a ten dollar watch, was given fifteen years, had publicly criticized the judge and raised a storm in the newspapers. Ellerson compared this lad's punishment with that of a man like Weeks, who had robbed orphans out of their all and only received ten years for it. Many is the time that this man, Biff Ellerson, has been k

ve or fifty years of age. The second or third class gun is more likely to lay by something. His general expenses are not so large and he does not need so much fall-money; and in a few years he can usually show more money than the big gun who has a dozen living on him. I knew a Big One

too much about his past life. When I ran across him in the city I started in to talk about old times in stir and of pals we knew in the long ago, but he answered me by saying, "Nix", which meant "Drop It". To get him to talk I was forced to throw a few "Larrys" into him, such as: "Well, old man, only for your few mistakes of the past, you might be leader of Tammany Hall." Gradually he expanded and told me how much he had gained in weight

for him; for he had married a little shop girl and had two children at that time. When he got out of stir he started in to square it, that is, not to go to prison any more. He was wise and no one can blame him. He is a good father and a successful man. If he

he takes great pride. I could not help thinking that that picture showed a far more prosperous man and one in better surroundings than a certain photograph