Thomas Mott Osborne

Still Monday, but later in the evening. The hour is about—but why attempt to specify the exact time? In this place there seems to be no time—only eternity.

Having finished in my journal the account of this afternoon’s occurrences, I shall continue to chronicle the events of this evening as long as the light holds out, or as long as there is anything to write about. So I begin where I left off in the last chapter, just after being locked in for the night, as I sat writing and eating my evening meal of bread and water.

I receive a call from Captain Lamb after he has carefully counted all his men and locked us in for the night. As he turned the key in my lock, I was instructed to stand up with both hands on the door and rattle it violently, to show that it was firmly secured. The Captain is very pleasant, and grows quite confidential, telling about his experiences in the regular army in the Philippines. He also explains something of his ideas in regard to handling convicts. Before going away he says that, if I should be taken sick in the night, I must rattle the door and the officer on guard will come and take me to the hospital if necessary.

He goes away and I begin to have that feeling of lonesome desolation I have already attempted to describe. There are some noises; but they are the noises of tramping feet above, below, of clanging bars and grating locks, then of stealthy footfalls and distant doors. Of the many companions who are living all about me I can see no sight—hear no sound. If my cell were big enough, I should walk round and round as I have seen the caged animals do in menageries. As it is, if I get up from writing, I can only hang at my grated door, looking aimlessly out. It grows dark and ever darker in the corridor outside; there are few sounds now. Inside my cell the electric bulb gives barely light enough to read by. It is horribly lonesome.

Looking up from writing, I give a start at the sight of a white face and the figure of a man just outside the grated door. Peering out through the bars, so that I can get the light on his face, I recognize the Chaplain. He puts two fingers through the door, the nearest possible approach to a handshake, and I feel really grateful for a kindly touch and the sound of a friendly voice. I am conscious of an almost insane desire to talk, to pour forth words, as if the bars of my cell were damming back the powers of speech.

The Chaplain is anxious to know how I am getting along, and cheers me by saying that all the men are greatly interested and pleased. “They understand what you are trying to do for them, and appreciate it,” he says. Then he tells of one prisoner he has just left in his cell on one of the upper tiers, whom he found reading Schopenhauer. “He said he did not know you, has nothing at all to ask of you, and will probably never see you to speak to; but your action in coming here has somehow made him feel that the pessimistic view he has had of the world must be wrong.”

After some further talk, the Chaplain says “Good night,” and goes away. I sincerely hope that he is right in his belief; that the men do care; that, besides gaining the information I came here for, my visit may be of some interest and comfort to these poor fellows. Murphy said to me to-day, “Say, you’ve got the boys all right.” If he and the Chaplain are correct, I may get from my experience much more than I expected.

I have already told how, not very long after the Chaplain leaves me and as I sit writing, the lovely sound of a violin floats into the cell. Then come the sounds of many other instruments, and the noise of the train at the railway station, over the wall and across the street. I have also described the ensuing pandemonium. After twenty minutes of these evidences of the human life existing all around, the noise ceases as suddenly as it began, and there comes a silence more profound than that which preceded the musical explosion. Only an occasional cough, the sound of a stealthy footfall, the jar of some iron door or the clank of distant bolt or bar. Yet I am conscious of one curious sound which I am unable to place or explain. It is like a very delicate clicking upon iron and is almost continuous. I wonder whether it is the tapping of prisoners’ messages from cell to cell, of which I have heard. It would be convenient to know the telegraphic code, so as to take part in any such conversation. I listen with interest to the clicking, but it seems not to change its direction and to have but little regularity. I wonder what it is.

The night officer has just stopped for a moment at the grating of my cell. I ask him the time. Seven-twenty. Good Lord! I thought it must be nearly nine. I am usually very good at guessing time, but in this place I am utterly unable to make any accurate calculation. Just for the experience, I’m going to stop writing and lock up my writing materials, to see how it feels to have nothing to do.

I take down my paper and pencil again to record a most thrilling discovery. I have found—a pocket in my prison coat! All day I have worried at the absence of one; now I find it—left, on the inside. Imagine the state of mind when such a thing really produces almost a feeling of nervous excitement.

I simply must keep on writing out of sheer desperation. I have tried to use up some minutes by rearranging my clothes, pulling up my socks, and tightening my belt; I have not yet investigated the workings of my bed, as I wish to leave that for a later excitement.

From the distance I catch the single stroke of the City Hall bell, which marks eight o’clock. Another hour yet before the lights go out; and then ten hours more before I can leave this cell!

How in the world do they bear it—the men who look forward to long years of imprisonment? My working partner, Murphy, has a life term. For what, I wonder? He seems like such a good fellow; and the Chaplain has just spoken of him most highly.

What a mystery it all is! And what a commentary on our civilization that we can do nothing better with such men than to throw away their lives and ruin them, body and soul. The old ones arouse one’s pity; but the young men—many of those in chapel yesterday were mere boys.

God! What a miserable, shameful waste of human life—of human energy! Must we not find some way in which the good there is in these broken lives can be repaired and made useful to society?

At last a bell, the first signal for the night. I think it is twenty minutes before nine. As the kindly gallery boy has brought me a glass tumbler, I brush my teeth with a minimum of inconvenience, wash my face, and then investigate the workings of the bed. It is loosely fastened to two iron hooks in the wall, on the inside; and the outside rests on two legs which dangle in the air vaguely, and will probably let me down in the night if they do not rest firmly on the floor to begin with. After manipulating the bed successfully, I let down the mattress on top of it and arrange the blankets as well as possible.

About a quarter of an hour more before lights out. It is all very well to look forward to that landmark, but what after that? What of the ten-hour night ahead of me? And this is only the first night of six. Suppose it were the first night of six thousand.

I hastily take a sheet of paper, mark off a space for each day and each night I expect to be here, and scratch off Monday. One-twelfth of my penance gone at any rate. I don’t count Sunday, because that will be only half a day; or I will write in Sunday at the bottom, as a sort of separate affair. I hang this rough calendar upon the wall; and then it suddenly occurs to me that it is exactly what I have always read of prisoners doing.

Oh! Will these lights never go out!

I shall put away this writing, and just wait.

Merciful God! How do they ever stand it?

Tuesday morning: after breakfast.

The first night is over. They all say it is the worst. It could hardly be called a success—considered as a period of rest and refreshment; at least it did not “knit up the raveled sleeve of care” to any very great extent. At nine o’clock the lights at last went out. I was already in bed and waiting, but I was not at all prepared for the shock I received. While there is light in the cell, the bars of the door look gray against the darkness outside—and that is bad enough; but when the lights go out, there is just enough brightness from the corridor below to change the door into a grating of most terrible, unearthly blackness. The bars are so black that they seem to close in upon you—to come nearer and nearer, until they press upon your very forehead. It is of no use to shut your eyes for you know they are still there; you can feel the blackness of those iron bars across your closed eyelids; they seem to sear themselves into your very soul. It is the most terrible sensation I ever experienced. I understand now the prison pallor; I understand the sensitiveness of this prison audience; I understand the high nervous tension which makes anything possible. How does any man remain sane, I wonder, caged in this stone grave day after day, night after night?

And always there come the sound of keys turning and the grating of iron hinges and bolts and bars. And as if the double-locked levers were not enough, I noticed for the first time last night a triple lock. A long iron bar drops down in front of all the cells on the tier; and against that iron bar rest the ends of iron brackets projecting from the iron doors. So that by merely unlocking and pressing down the levers you cannot be set free; the long bar must be raised at the end of the gallery, where it is fastened by another lock and special key. This discovery seems to put the crowning touch to that desperate sensation of confinement. I already hate the levers; I doubly hate the lock and big key; but no words can express my detestation of that iron bar.

However, just before ten o’clock I did manage to lose consciousness; I recall the time by the sounds of the nine-fifty New York Central train. Even in the midst of my discomfort I had to smile at the plight of one who has to tell time by trains on the Auburn branch of the New York Central. I do not know how much I slept through the night, but I was greatly disturbed by the frequent and pathetic coughing, sighing, and groaning from other cells. It was only too evident that many others were sleeping no better than I. Possibly the delicate attentions of the night keeper going his rounds and flashing his electric bull’s-eye through the bars straight in our faces, may have had something to do with it. Certainly that custom is hardly conducive to unbroken slumbers. Apparently, it is considered necessary to do this in order to prevent suicides. One poor fellow had tried to make away with himself on the previous night; such attempts are not uncommon, I’m told.

Again—what a commentary!

As I had not yet quite reached the point of self-destruction, the flashlight was distinctly annoying; it seemed always to come just after I had succeeded in dropping off to sleep.

And ever, as I started awake again, the blackness of those horrible bars against the faintly lighted corridor!

At last, through one of the upper windows in the outer wall, I detect the faint gray light of the coming dawn. Each time I open my eyes and sit up in bed the small piece of sky to be seen through the grated door of my cell seems a shade less dark; and at last I begin to feel that, after all, perhaps God has not forsaken the world. As the sky grows still brighter, I can distinguish the green of the trees outside; and within, the blackness and the shadows gradually fade away, and the terrible oppression of the night gives place to the confidence of a new day. I listen with a relief that is almost pleasure to the familiar sounds of the six-o’clock factory whistles; and the faithful old bell which has rung for fifty years at the Osborne Works, and which I think I should recognize if I were to hear it in Central Africa.

I partially dress, and then fold up my bed and arrange the mattress and blankets over it, so as to get more room for further evolutions. The night ache in my head is rather bad at first, but cold water on my face and the back of my neck revives me greatly; and by the time my toilet is completed and I am ready for the fray, I feel more nearly like myself. Before I am fully dressed and ready, the lights are switched on, about six-thirty, I judge; and soon the sounds of keys and iron hinges and bars and bolts are heard again; and the noise of shuffling feet in the corridor below tells that the day’s routine has begun.[6]

The first night has been worse than I expected; and I dare say it will be the worst of all, unless I find the punishment cells——However, I am not yet quite certain that I shall try those.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil of the night before. I must throw off the shadows and get a fresh hold. After all, in some ways it might have been worse: the air in my cell was good; I had more blankets than I needed; my bed was not very uncomfortable; and there were no vermin. This last was really what I dreaded most. My cell is clean and well ventilated; surely those are blessings which ought to counterbalance much else.

So I start the new day with courage and undiminished interest in my great experiment.

One of my fellow prisoners, whose comment I quoted in Chapter II, makes the following statement about the condition of the cells at Auburn. “The cells on the second and basement tiers smell fairly well; but in summer the stench from some of the cells is terrible.” Due, of course, to long use, no sewage, and no proper system of ventilation. In most of the cells the small square hole which opens into some crude sort of ventilating flue has long ago been plugged to prevent the inroads of vermin.

I seem to have been very fortunate in having a cell where discomfort was reduced to a minimum.

The condition of some of the cells I have seen in Sing Sing Prison is unspeakably bad. They are close, dark, damp, foul. To call them unfit for human habitation is to give them undeserved dignity; they are unfit for pigs.