"I"ve jest come in fer a broom."
"You old reprobate, you, I saw you sneak in there an hour ago, and you"ve been chawin" the rag to beat the band. Think this a barroom, do you? Get to your cells, all of you."
He trudges slowly away, mumbling: "You loafers, when I catch you here again, don"t you dare talk so loud."
One by one the men steal back into the cage, jokingly teasing each other upon their happy escape. Presently several rangemen join the group.
Conversation becomes animated; voices are raised in dispute. But anger subsides, and a hush falls upon the men, as Blind Charley gropes his way along the wall. Bill Nye reaches for his hand, and leads him to a seat on the barrel. "Feelin" better to-day, Charley?" he asks gently.
"Ye-es. I--think a little--better," the blind man says in an uncertain, hesitating manner. His face wears a bewildered expression, as if he has not yet become resigned to his great misfortune. It happened only a few months ago. In company with two friends, considerably the worse for liquor, he was pa.s.sing a house on the outskirts of Allegheny. It was growing dark, and they wanted a drink. Charley knocked at the door. A head appeared at an upper window. "Robbers!" some one suddenly cried.
There was a flash. With a cry of pain, Charley caught at his eyes. He staggered, then turned round and round, helpless, in a daze. He couldn"t see his companions, the house and the street disappeared, and all was utter darkness. The ground seemed to give beneath his feet, and Charley fell down upon his face moaning and calling to his friends. But they had fled in terror, and he was alone in the darkness,--alone and blind.
"I"m glad you feel better, Charley," Bill Nye says kindly. "How are your eyes?"
"I think--a bit--better."
The gunshot had severed the optic nerves in both eyes. His sight is destroyed forever; but with the incomplete realization of sudden calamity, Charley believes his eyesight only temporarily injured.
"Billy," he says presently, "when I woke this morning it--didn"t seem so--dark. It was like--a film over my eyes. Perhaps--it may--get better yet," his voice quivers with the expectancy of having his hope confirmed.
"Ah, whatcher kiddin" yourself for," "Snakes" interposes.
"Shut up, you big stiff," Bill flares up, grabbing "Snakes" by the throat. "Charley," he adds, "I once got paralyzed in my left eye. It looked just like yours now, and I felt as if there was a film on it. Do you see things like in a fog, Charley?"
"Yes, yes, just like that."
"Well, that"s the way it was with me. But little by little things got to be lighter, and now the eye is as good as ever."
"Is that right, Billy?" Charley inquires anxiously. "What did you do?"
"Well, the doc put things in my eye. The croaker here is giving you some applications, ain"t he?"
"Yes; but he says it"s for the inflammation."
"That"s right. That"s what the doctors told me. You just take it easy, Charley; don"t worry. You"ll come out all right, see if you don"t."
Bill reddens guiltily at the unintended expression, but quickly holds up a warning finger to silence the giggling "s...o...b..ll Kid." Then, with sudden vehemence, he exclaims: "By G.o.d, Charley, if I ever meet that Judge of yours on a dark night, I"ll choke him with these here hands, so help me! It"s a d.a.m.n shame to send you here in this condition. You should have gone to a hospital, that"s what I say. But cheer up, old boy, you won"t have to serve your three years; you can bet on that.
We"ll all club together to get your case up for a pardon, won"t we, boys?"
With unwonted energy the old yegg makes the rounds of the cage, taking pledges of contributions. "Doctor George" appears around the corner, industriously polishing the bra.s.swork, and Bill appeals to him to corroborate his diagnosis of the blind man"s condition. A smile of timid joy suffuses the sightless face, as Bill Nye slaps him on the shoulder, crying jovially, "What did I tell you, eh? You"ll be O. K. soon, and meantime keep your mind busy how to avenge the injustice done you," and with a violent wink in the direction of "Snakes," the yegg launches upon a reminiscence of his youth. As far as he can remember, he relates, the spirit of vengeance was strong within him. He has always religiously revenged any wrong he was made to suffer, but the incident that afforded him the greatest joy was an experience of his boyhood. He was fifteen then, and living with his widowed mother and three elder sisters in a small country place. One evening, as the family gathered in the large sitting-room, his sister Mary said something which deeply offended him.
In great rage he left the house. Just as he was crossing the street, he was met by a tall, well-dressed gentleman, evidently a stranger in the town. The man guardedly inquired whether the boy could direct him to some address where one might pa.s.s the evening pleasantly. "Quick as a flash a brilliant idea struck me," Bill narrates, warming to his story.
"Never short of them, anyhow," he remarks parenthetically, "but here was my revenge! "you mean a wh.o.r.e-house, don"t you?" I ask the fellow. Yes, that"s what was wanted, my man says. "Why," says I to him, kind of suddenly, "see the house there right across the street? That"s the place you want," and I point out to him the house where the old lady and my three sisters are all sitting around the table, expectant like--waiting for me, you know. Well, the man gives me a quarter, and up he goes, knocks on the door and steps right in. I hide in a dark corner to see what"s coming, you know, and sure enough, presently the door opens with a bang and something comes out with a rush, and falls on the veranda, and mother she"s got a broom in her hand, and the girls, every blessed one of them, out with flatiron and dustpan, and biff, baff, they rain it upon that thing on the steps. I thought I"d split my sides laughing. By an" by I return to the house, and mother and sisters are kind of excited, and I says innocent-like, "What"s up, girls?" Well, you ought to hear "em! Talk, did they? "That beast of a man, the dirty thing that came to the house and insulted us with--" they couldn"t even mention the awful things he said; and Mary--that"s the sis I got mad at--she cries, "Oh, Billie, you"re so big and strong, I wish you was here when that nasty old thing came up.""
The boys are hilarious over the story, and "Doctor George" motions me aside to talk over "old times." With a hearty pressure I greet my friend, whom I had not seen since the days of the first investigation.
Suspected of complicity, he had been removed to the shops, and only recently returned to his former position in the block. His beautiful thick hair has grown thin and gray; he looks aged and worn. With sadness I notice his tone of bitterness. "They almost killed me, Aleck!" he says; "if it wasn"t for my wife, I"d murder that old Warden." Throughout his long confinement, his wife had faithfully stood by him, her unfailing courage and devotion sustaining him in the hours of darkness and despair. "The dear girl," he muses, "I"d be dead if it wasn"t for her." But his release is approaching. He has almost served the sentence of sixteen years for alleged complicity in the bank robbery at Leechburg, during which the cashier was killed. The other two men convicted of the crime have both died in prison. The Doctor alone has survived, "thanks to the dear girl," he repeats. But the six months at the workhouse fill him with apprehension. He has been informed that the place is a veritable inferno, even worse than the penitentiary. However, his wife is faithfully at work, trying to have the workhouse sentence suspended, and full liberty may be at hand.
CHAPTER XLIII
"Pa.s.sING THE LOVE OF WOMAN"
The presence of my old friend is a source of much pleasure. George is an intelligent man; the long years of incarceration have not circ.u.mscribed his intellectual horizon. The approach of release is intensifying his interest in the life beyond the gates, and we pa.s.s the idle hours conversing over subjects of mutual interest, discussing social theories and problems of the day. He has a broad grasp of affairs, but his temperament and Catholic traditions are antagonistic to the ideas dear to me. Yet his att.i.tude is free from personalities and narrow prejudice, and our talks are conducted along scientific and philosophical lines.
The recent death of Liebknecht and the American lecture tour of Peter Kropotkin afford opportunity for the discussion of modern social questions. There are many subjects of mutual interest, and my friend, whose great-grandfather was among the signers of the Declaration, waxes eloquent in denunciation of his country"s policy of extermination in the Philippines and the growing imperialistic tendencies of the Republic. A Democrat of the Jeffersonian type, he is virulent against the old Warden on account of his favoritism and discrimination. His prison experience, he informs me, has considerably altered the views of democracy he once entertained.
"Why, Aleck, there _is_ no justice," he says vehemently; "no, not even in the best democracy. Ten years ago I would have staked my life on the courts. To-day I know they are a failure; our whole jurisprudence is wrong. You see, I have been here nine years. I have met and made friends with hundreds of criminals. Some were pretty desperate, and many of them scoundrels. But I have to meet one yet in whom I couldn"t discover some good quality, if he"s scratched right. Look at that fellow there," he points to a young prisoner scrubbing an upper range, "that"s "Johnny the Hunk." He"s in for murder. Now what did the judge and jury know about him? Just this: he was a hard-working boy in the mills. One Sat.u.r.day he attended a wedding, with a chum of his. They were both drunk when they went out into the street. They were boisterous, and a policeman tried to arrest them. Johnny"s chum resisted. The cop must have lost his head--he shot the fellow dead. It was right near Johnny"s home, and he ran in and got a pistol, and killed the policeman. Must have been crazy with drink.
Well, they were going to hang him, but he was only a kid, hardly sixteen. They gave him fifteen years. Now he"s all in--they"ve just ruined the boy"s life. And what kind of a boy is he, do you know? Guess what he did. It was only a few months ago. Some screw told him that the widow of the cop he shot is hard up; she has three children, and takes in washing. Do you know what Johnny did? He went around among the cons, and got together fifty dollars on the fancy paper-work he is making; he"s an artist at it. He sent the woman the money, and begged her to forgive him."
"Is that true, Doctor?"
"Every word. I went to Milligan"s office on some business, and the boy had just sent the money to the woman. The Chaplain was so much moved by it, he told me the whole story. But wait, that isn"t all. You know what that woman did?"
"What?"
"She wrote to Johnny that he was a dirty murderer, and that if he ever goes up for a pardon, she will oppose it. She didn"t want anything to do with him, she wrote. But she kept the money."
"How did Johnny take it?"
"It"s really wonderful about human nature. The boy cried over the letter, and told the Chaplain that he wouldn"t write to her again. But every minute he can spare he works on that fancy work, and every month he sends her money. That"s the _criminal_ the judge sentenced to fifteen years in this h.e.l.l!"
My friend is firmly convinced that the law is entirely impotent to deal with our social ills. "Why, look at the courts!" he exclaims, "they don"t concern themselves with crime. They merely punish the criminal, absolutely indifferent to his antecedents and environment, and the predisposing causes."
"But, George," I rejoin, "it is the economic system of exploitation, the dependence upon a master for your livelihood, want and the fear of want, which are responsible for most crimes."
"Only partly so, Aleck. If it wasn"t for the corruption in our public life, and the commercial scourge that holds everything for sale, and the spirit of materialism which has cheapened human life, there would not be so much violence and crime, even under what you call the capitalist system. At any rate, there is no doubt the law is an absolute failure in dealing with crime. The criminal belongs to the sphere of therapeutics.
Give him to the doctor instead of the jailer."
"You mean, George, that the criminal is to be considered a product of anthropological and physical factors. But don"t you see that you must also examine society, to determine to what extent social conditions are responsible for criminal actions? And if that were done, I believe most crimes would be found to be misdirected energy--misdirected because of false standards, wrong environment, and unenlightened self-interest."
"Well, I haven"t given much thought to that phase of the question. But aside of social conditions, see what a b.i.t.c.h the penal inst.i.tutions are making of it. For one thing, the promiscuous mingling of young and old, without regard to relative depravity and criminality, is converting prisons into veritable schools of crime and vice. The blackjack and the dungeon are surely not the proper means of reclamation, no matter what the social causes of crime. Restraint and penal methods can"t reform.
The very idea of punishment precludes betterment. True reformation can emanate only from voluntary impulse, inspired and cultivated by intelligent advice and kind treatment. But reformation which is the result of fear, lacks the very essentials of its object, and will vanish like smoke the moment fear abates. And you know, Aleck, the reformatories are even worse than the prisons. Look at the fellows here from the various reform schools. Why, it"s a disgrace! The boys who come from the outside are decent fellows. But those kids from the reformatories--one-third of the cons here have graduated there--they are terrible. You can spot them by looking at them. They are worse than street prost.i.tutes."
My friend is very bitter against the prison element variously known as "the girls," "Sallies," and "punks," who for gain traffic in s.e.xual gratification. But he takes a broad view of the moral aspect of h.o.m.os.e.xuality; his denunciation is against the commerce in carnal desires. As a medical man, and a student, he is deeply interested in the manifestations of suppressed s.e.x. He speaks with profound sympathy of the brilliant English man-of-letters, whom the world of cant and stupidity has driven to prison and to death because his s.e.x life did not conform to the accepted standards. In detail, my friend traces the various phases of his psychic development since his imprisonment, and I warm toward him with a sense of intense humanity, as he reveals the intimate emotions of his being. A general medical pract.i.tioner, he had not come in personal contact with cases of h.o.m.os.e.xuality. He had heard of pederasty; but like the majority of his colleagues, he had neither understanding for nor sympathy with the s.e.x practices he considered abnormal and vicious. In prison he was horrified at the perversion that frequently came under his observation. For two years the very thought of such matters filled him with disgust; he even refused to speak to the men and boys known to be h.o.m.os.e.xual, unconditionally condemning them--"with my prejudices rather than my reason," he remarks. But the forces of suppression were at work. "Now, this is in confidence, Aleck,"
he cautions me. "I know you will understand. Probably you yourself have experienced the same thing. I"m glad I can talk to some one about it; the other fellows here wouldn"t understand it. It makes me sick to see how they all grow indignant over a fellow who is caught. And the officers, too, though you know as well as I that quite a number of them are addicted to these practices. Well, I"ll tell you. I suppose it"s the same story with every one here, especially the long-timers. I was terribly dejected and hopeless when I came. Sixteen years--I didn"t believe for a moment I could live through it. I was abusing myself pretty badly. Still, after a while, when I got work and began to take an interest in this life, I got over it. But as time went, the s.e.x instinct awakened. I was young: about twenty-five, strong and healthy. Sometimes I thought I"d get crazy with pa.s.sion. You remember when we were celling together on that upper range, on R; you were in the stocking shop then, weren"t you? Don"t you remember?"
"Of course I remember, George. You were in the cell next mine. We could see out on the river. It was in the summer: we could hear the excursion boats, and the girls singing and dancing."
"That, too, helped to turn me back to onanism. I really believe the whole blessed range used to "indulge" then. Think of the precious material fed to the fishes," he smiles; "the privies, you know, empty into the river."
"Some geniuses may have been lost to the world in those orgies."
"Yes, orgies; that"s just what they were. As a matter of fact, I don"t believe there is a single man in the prison who doesn"t abuse himself, at one time or another."
"If there is, he"s a mighty exception. I have known some men to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e four and five times a day. Kept it up for months, too."
"Yes, and they either get the con, or go bugs. As a medical man I think that self-abuse, if practised no more frequently than ordinary coition, would be no more injurious than the latter. But it can"t be done. It grows on you terribly. And the second stage is more dangerous than the first."