Thomas Mott Osborne

Cell 15, second tier, north, north wing, Auburn Prison. September 29. It is noon hour; somewhere about 12:45 I should think.

I am a prisoner, locked, double locked. By no human possibility, by no act of my own, can I throw open the iron grating which shuts me from the world into this small stone vault. I am a voluntary prisoner, it is true; nevertheless even a voluntary prisoner can’t unlock the door of his cell—that must be done by someone from outside. I am perfectly conscious of a horrible feeling of constraint—of confinement. It recalls an agonized moment of my childhood when I accidentally locked myself into a closet.

My cell is exactly four feet wide by seven and a half feet long, measuring by my own feet, and about seven and a half feet high.[2] The iron bed is hooked to the wall and folds up against it; the mattress and blankets hang over it. The entire furniture consists of one stool, a shelf or table which drops down against the wall when not held up by hooks, an iron basin filled with water for washing purposes, a covered iron bucket for other purposes, a tin cup for drinking water which was filled shortly before noon by the convict orderly, and an old broom which stands in the corner. A small wooden locker with three shelves is fastened up in the farther left-hand corner. The pillow hangs in the opposite right-hand corner over the edge of the bed.

This is a cell in one of the oldest parts of the prison. It has a concrete floor and plastered walls and ceiling, and looks clean. From my grated door, being on the second tier, I can see diagonally out of four heavily barred windows in the outer wall, looking across about ten feet, over the open space which drops to the stone corridor below, and rises to the highest galleries. Through the two lower windows I catch glimpses of the ground, through the two upper, of leaves and branches and the sky. The daylight in the cell is enough at the present moment to read and write by, but none too good. Outside it is a very bright, sunny day. If it were a dark day I could not see much without a light. The electric bulb hangs from a hook in the center of the rounded ceiling and my head nearly touches it.

So much for my present surroundings; now let me begin the story of the day.

Upon arising this morning at home, the toothache, although I could still feel it grumbling, had so modified that I became convinced that it was largely imagination. As it has since disappeared it must have been entirely imagination. There seems to be no excuse whatever for not going ahead.

Having noticed yesterday that, although the prisoners are allowed to wear their hair as they please, their faces are all smooth shaven, I begin the day by the sacrifice of my mustache. I shave, dress, and eat as much breakfast as I can—which is not very much.

At nine o’clock I am at the railway station to say good-bye to the Warden, who has been called to Albany on business. After the train leaves at 9:30 I go to my office, where there are some last matters to attend to, bid farewell to the few friends who are about, and at ten o’clock present myself at the prison entrance.

The polite guard at the gate unlocks it, I enter, and the first barrier between me and the world shuts behind me. I mount the steps to the main building, and turn into the Warden’s office. I am dressed in old clothes, appropriate for the occasion, and have no valuables or money about my person.

In the Warden’s office a few last details are arranged with Grant, the Prison Superintendent of Industries, who is acting for the Warden; and my name and certain details of my family history and career of crime are taken down by the Warden’s clerk on a slip of paper, which is handed over to a good-looking, well-groomed young officer, to whom I am given in charge.On Saturday, when writing out yesterday’s address, it occurred to me that it might be useful to take an alias. Such a notion doubtless seems a trifle foolish at first thought; considering that there is no secret of my identity, but I reasoned that if officers and prisoners always had my own name in mind or on tongue every time they looked at or addressed me, it would really make it more difficult to be accepted on the basis of an ordinary inmate. I decided, therefore, to take a name which would have no association whatever with the chairman of the Prison Reform Commission, yet would be somewhat in character. So on the records I am entered as Thomas Brown, No. 33,333x.

The young officer in his neat blue uniform, carrying his loaded stick, says briefly, “Step this way, Brown.” I am hazily aware of being a momentary object of interest to the men in the back office; a heavy iron door is unlocked at the head of a flight of iron stairs; and as the door clangs behind me and I hear the key turn in the lock, I begin to realize that I am a prisoner. I have made a bargain with myself to stay here a week, and I cannot leave sooner without serious loss of self-respect.

The taciturn young officer takes me downstairs and across the yard. I am conscious of many pairs of eyes looking out from windows and doors, and the few prisoners scattered about the yard singly or in groups stare with interest. My guide accompanies me to one of the buildings about halfway down on the left, which proves to be the tailor shop. Here in a corner of the shop, without any screens and in full view of all passers in and out, are three porcelain-lined iron bathtubs side by side, looking very white and clean. I am directed to take off my clothes, which I do, and then ordered to get into one of the tubs, in which a negro prisoner has drawn a warm bath. I obey and make use of the soap, and later of the towel which the attendant hands me. After I am dry I am given my prison clothes—a suit of underwear, a pair of socks, a cotton shirt with narrow blue and white stripes, and a suit of rough gray cloth. There is also a pair of very thick and heavy shoes. All the clothes are new. My coat fastens down the front with five light metal buttons, on which are the words State Prison in raised letters. The seven smaller buttons of the waistcoat are similar. My uniform is not exactly a first-class fit, but good enough for the purpose. A cap, rough gray to match the suit, together with a stiff new gray towel and a cake of white soap, completes my outfit. I am ordered to remove my wedding ring, but the officer explains that I am to be allowed to retain it. This is the first exception made in my case.

The rest of my belongings are bundled up and disappear from sight. All that is left of my former self is what can’t very well be eradicated. So far as is humanly possible, I am precisely like the other 1,329 gray figures which to-day inhabit this abnormal world within the walls.

We return to the administration building and I am taken to the office of the Principal Keeper, where are propounded to me a series of questions, the answers to which are duly entered on the records: name, age, occupation, married or single, Protestant or Catholic, parents living or dead, any children, character of my crime, is this my first term, have I ever gone under any other name, temperate or intemperate, and so forth and so on. Some of these questions have already been answered at the front office, and the officer holds the paper in his hand; but I answer them again, suppressing such facts as I do not wish to have a matter of record.[3]

After my history has been duly taken, I am handed a copy of the rules of the prison; and the Principal Keeper facing me across a small desk makes a neat little speech, giving friendly advice as to my conduct while in the institution. It is excellent advice, as far as it goes, and for it I thank him respectfully.

Then clearing his throat he says slowly and ponderously, “Brown, after you have had your medical examination, you will be put to work in the basket-shop, under Captain Lamb. He will give you full instructions concerning your place in his company and your work.”

It is on the tip of my tongue to say, “But it was all arranged with the Warden that I should be put first with the Idle Company.” Fortunately, however, I catch myself just in time. It is not for a convict to offer objections or to argue with the P. K. So I utter another brief but respectful, “Thank you, sir,” and feel a certain relief at the postponement of my acquaintance with the “toughest bunch of fellows in the Prison.” The Warden returns to-morrow, and an exchange can then be made if it is thought advisable; in the meantime it is my business to do exactly what I am told.

From the Principal Keeper’s office I am taken next door to the Chaplain. Here my reception is in marked contrast to the previous official frigidities. I fear that this is partially due to the Chaplain’s failure quite to realize that it is only Thomas Brown, a stranger and a new arrival, whom he takes so warmly by the hand. My evident embarrassment evidently embarrasses him, for I am beginning to enter so much into the spirit of the place that I almost feel as if I had been detected in an attempt to conceal my identity. The Chaplain turns me over to a convict stenographer who plies me with another series of questions, and I give my statistics for a third time. I can only hope that my answers to these various sets of questions are fairly uniform, or else that they will not be compared too closely.

The Chaplain and his assistant (a very nice-looking prisoner named Dickinson, whose acquaintance I made yesterday) inquire as to what books I should like to read, and I am shown a typewritten list from which to choose. I am hardly in a mental state to do so, but manage to make a selection. Unfortunately nothing I want seems available; but Dickinson promises to get one of the books later, and in the meantime I am presented with a Bible. Then I am taken upstairs and left with the Doctor.

The Doctor puts me through another series of questions, the fourth; many of them duplicates of the others. Then he starts on a careful physical examination which he does not finish as it is getting too near dinner time. The officer returns for me, and laden with my complete prison baggage—one towel, a cake of soap and a Bible—I am conducted to the north wing, up a short flight of iron stairs and along a narrow wooden gallery with an iron bar for a rail, to my cell on the second tier, Number 15. It has already been described. I remain here while the officer goes to get the small handbag left at the Warden’s office, containing a few things which I am to be allowed to have in my cell—writing paper, toothbrush, towels, sponges, toilet paper, and a razor. Most of the men are shaved twice a week by convict barbers in the different shops, and not even the barbers are allowed razors in their cells. As a new man I ought not to be allowed any of these luxuries, but this is exception number two.

The officer first returns with the wrong bag, but soon after with the right one, and I am then locked in until dinner time. Soon my keeper turns up, Captain Lamb, the head of the basket-shop. He introduces himself and then gives me instructions as to my immediate conduct; explains the marching signals, the seating at meals, et cetera. In obedience to his instructions, I take off my cap and coat to leave them in the cell; and when he soon passes along the gallery outside, unlocking the cells by pressing down the levers, I push open the grated door and follow close behind him. At the foot of the iron stairs he allots me a place toward the end of the line; and at the word of command we first shuffle and then march in double file along the stone corridors, and in single file into the mess-hall. As we enter, the Principal Keeper stands at the door. I had been warned to place my right hand on my left breast, by way of salute; but the prisoner behind me, fearing I have forgotten, gives me a friendly poke, and I assume the proper attitude of respect. Our line swings around to the right and marches past row after row of men in gray, all facing in the same direction and bending silently over their food.

Well beyond the center of the room I have a place at the end of a long wooden shelf which forms the table. At a sharp rap of the Keeper’s iron-shod stick on the floor, we pull out our stools, and stand again erect; a second rap, we seat ourselves and immediately fall to, as our dinner has been waiting for us. I am pleased and rather surprised to find it, if not hot, at least sufficiently warm. Our bill of fare includes a cup of something presumably meant for coffee; a bowl of a thick liquid (I could not decide whether it was soup or gravy, so I waited to see what the others did with it; some used it for one, some for the other; but it turned out to be very palatable bean soup); a slice or two of very good ham; excellent boiled potatoes; two or three pickles I did not try; and two large thick slices of bread. It was not a bad meal, and had I been hungry I should have done more justice to it.

One of the rules the Captain mentioned is that no bread must be left on the table; so, noticing what the other men do, I watch for the passing of the waiter with a large pail of bread, from which he gives an extra slice to those who want it, and shy my second slice into his pail as he goes by. Of course no conversation is allowed at meals; and anything less appetizing than the rows of gray shoulders and backs of heads in front of one I cannot imagine. The watching keepers, standing sternly and silently by, certainly do not add to the hilarity of the occasion. I am reminded of what my convict friend once said to me, “You know we don’t really eat here; we just stoke up.”

During the beginning of our meal other companies are continually arriving and taking their places in front of us; and during the latter part others are departing from behind us, accompanied by a curious noise which sounds like the rattling of castanets. I soon make out that it is the disposal of the spoons, forks, and knives. I have been cautioned by the Captain that upon leaving the table the three implements must be held in full view; in my left hand if I march on that side, otherwise in my right. These implements are jealously watched so that a prisoner shall not carry them to his cell and turn them into means of attack, escape, or self-destruction.

At the end of the meal the officer’s stick again strikes the stone pavement sharply; we rise, shove our stools back under the table shelf, then fall in line behind another departing company, each man holding aloft his knife, fork, and spoon which he drops into the proper receptacles near the door where a watchful officer keeps careful tally. We march back along the stone corridors, break ranks at the foot of the iron stairs, traverse the narrow gallery, and are soon in our cells where we are locked in; and I begin to write this journal.

It is curious what a resentful feeling overtakes one as that iron grated door swings to and is double locked. I can perfectly imagine a high-strung man battering himself against it from sheer nervousness.

Captain Lamb has just been to the door of my cell again. He begins with a reprimand. “Brown, I noticed you turning around at dinner; that is not allowed. I will let it pass this time, but don’t let it happen again. The rule is always, ‘Eyes front.’”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Captain then gives instructions regarding my next moves. It seems that I am soon to put on coat and cap and march to the shop, taking my bucket if I desire to empty it. The Captain explains that he will first pass along the gallery, unlocking the levers; then almost immediately return, pushing them down, and that when he pushes down my lever I must be ready to press heavily against the door so as to get it open quickly; then follow after the others, and take my place in line. He also gives instructions as to my conduct in the shop. “I call all my men by their first names, so I shall call you Thomas. I allow my company to have some talk in the shop. It is not strictly according to rule; but my men have the reputation of being a little hard to manage, and I find they get along better if I give them some leeway. So you may converse about your work; but you must be careful not to talk loud or create any disorder, and you must shut up at once in case another officer or a visitor comes into the shop. Also you must not leave your place of work without permission.”

I again thank the Captain, and say that I will try to mind my own business and not make any more trouble than I can help. He smiles rather a grim smile, and replies dryly that he doesn’t think there will be any trouble, and goes away. My time for writing must be nearly up for the present.

Yes! I hear a clicking, beginning at the far-distant end of the gallery around the corner to my left. It draws rapidly nearer and I can hear the key turning in the locks. I have put on my coat and cap. The Captain unlocks my lever and passes along the gallery to the right. He will soon be back, so this writing must be put away in the locker; then I can stand ready and waiting at the door. It would be as well not to expose myself to another reprimand.

There is of course another side to the foregoing story, and that is the advent of Thomas Brown as viewed, not by himself, but by his new companions—the regular inmates of the prison. What did the convicts think of it all?

As it happens, two of them were moved to record their impressions, and their accounts have come to my hands in a roundabout way. I can not do better than supplement my own story by extracts from these papers. I do not know the writers, I do not even know their names, and the stories were written entirely without hint or solicitation from me. It is natural that I should think them interesting; I hope that others may find them so.

Here is A’s account:

On Monday, a little after 10 A. M., a man passed through the front gate, and without any ceremony was registered on the book of entries as Tom Brown and recorded as No. 33,333x. After a brief examination he was conducted to the tailor-shop where the cutaway was changed for a suit of prison gray.

The funds of Mr. Brown being at low ebb, the state graciously presented him with a towel, a pair of working shoes, and a red bandanna handkerchief.[4]

With these meager possessions Tom again emerged into the large yard; and the old adage, “What a difference just a few clothes make,” became very evident, for in every appearance he looked just like the brotherhood he was about to join.

When a new man enters, a general whisper is always heard throughout the various shops. “Well, here’s a new boarder!” This was applied to him as he passed through the yard accompanied by Captain D.

We all knew who Tom was, but on the Sunday previous when he outlined his intentions a silent compact had been made—to consider him as an ordinary inmate; and the promise was fulfilled to the letter. What our thoughts were—is an entirely different story.

B’s account is somewhat more racy and intimate, and contains some very characteristic touches:

A few comments in the cell house on the day of Tom Brown’s arrival at Auburn Prison to start his self-imposed bit.

“Hello, Bill! There he goes. And say, he just walks with the confidence of an old timer! Well, old pals, you will have to take your hats off to him as a game one, all right!”

By this time all the keepers in the cell house looking through the windows. But not with that same old smile they usually carry. Someone sung in a low tone that old time melody,

“O what has changed them?”

and the gang had to take to cover; a look from some of the sore keepers made it plain we better move.

While he was down getting dolled up in his new suit of gray, someone asked where the P. K. was; and Jack replied, “Why, he just passed me over in the alley; and say, fellows, he has got so thin I didn’t know him; I guess you’ll find him over in the jail office hiding behind a broom.”Someone gave us the wire that Tom was coming up the yard again, and we made a bee line for a rubber. Sure enough there is Tom, coming up the line in his new college makeup and a prison towel in his hand. All the boys stood quiet and watched. In fact nine out of ten had a lump in his throat too big to swallow. I must confess I got a cold chill that ran down my back, and it jumped from limb to limb like a cobblestone. Well, after we all came to, “our brave Tom” was locked in his cell, 15-2-N.N.W.; and then the stoolpigeons was put to work to watch who went to speak with him.

These extracts, which are given verbatim, throw interesting sidelights upon the attitude and state of mind of the prisoners—their extreme sensitiveness, their instant response to kindness, real or fancied, their relations to their keepers, their ready cheerfulness and sense of humor. As one can see, there was arising among them at the very outset something quite unexpected—a deep sense of gratitude for what they persisted in thinking a great sacrifice on my part; an eager answer to the sympathy from the outer world which my coming among them typified. The lump in the throat at the first sight of Tom Brown clad as a convict is significant of many things. The fact that they all greatly exaggerated my personal discomfort and in so many ways gave me credit where none was due, is only an evidence of their hunger for the human relationship, for that sympathy from our fellowmen which we all crave so intensely, and from which convicts are very far from exempt. There is no need to comment further upon these interesting extracts.

It is a real pity that we can not have as well the views of the third party in the affair—the keepers. Frank comment from them would be also most valuable. I only hope that the one who, on a certain occasion, invited and came very near receiving, personal violence by ejaculating, “Damn fool!” behind my back, represented an exception. Unquestionably, however, he did voice a considerable amount of official sentiment within the prison, as well as much unofficial sentiment outside. That was so natural as to be inevitable. There are always those who will misunderstand one’s motives and actions, no matter how plain the explanation may be.