wreaked upon me? I had not even violated
their "sleeping-out" ordinance. I had slept outside their
jurisdiction, in the country, that night. I had not even begged for a
meal, or battered for a "light piece" on their streets. All that I had
done was to walk along their sidewalk and gaze at their picayune
waterfall. And what crime was there in that? Technically I was guilty
of no misdemeanor. All right, I'd show them when I got out.

The next day I talked with a guard. I wanted to send for a lawyer. The
guard laughed at me. So did the other guards. I really was
_incommunicado_ so far as the outside world was concerned. I tried to
write a letter out, but I learned that all letters were read, and
censured or confiscated, by the prison authorities, and that
"short-timers" were not allowed to write letters anyway. A little
later I tried smuggling letters out by men who were released, but I
learned that they were searched and the letters found and destroyed.
Never mind. It all helped to make it a blacker case when I did get
out.

But as the prison days went by (which I shall describe in the next
chapter), I "learned a few." I heard tales of the police, and
police-courts, and lawyers, that were unbelievable and monstrous. Men,
prisoners, told me of personal experiences with the police of great
cities that were awful. And more awful were the hearsay tales they
told me concerning men who had died at the hands of the police and who
therefore could not testify for themselves. Years afterward, in the
report of the Lexow Committee, I was to read tales true and more awful
than those told to me. But in the meantime, during the first days of
my imprisonment, I scoffed at what I heard.

As the days went by, however, I began to grow convinced. I saw with my
own eyes, there in that prison, things unbelievable and monstrous. And
the more convinced I became, the profounder grew the respect in me for
the sleuth-hounds of the law and for the whole institution of criminal
justice.

My indignation ebbed away, and into my being rushed the tides of fear.
I saw at last, clear-eyed, what I was up against. I grew meek and
lowly. Each day I resolved more emphatically to make no rumpus when I
got out. All I asked, when I got out, was a chance to fade away from
the landscape. And that was just what I did do when I was released. I
kept my tongue between my teeth, walked softly, and sneaked for
Pennsylvania, a wiser and a humbler man.

THE P