After the emotional crisis I have just passed through, I find myself quite unstrung. For nearly half an hour I can do nothing but sit, limp and exhausted, in the chair and give way to my feelings. On the whole, this is a relief, although it leaves me very weak and wretched. At length, the realization that I must soon take my place in line for the duties of the early morning pulls me together; and after pouring cool water from the meager supply in my pail over my head and face, rearranging my clothes, and draining to the bottom my tin drinking cup, I am somewhat refreshed. Looking out from my cell across the corridor and through the barred windows of the outer wall, I find the promise of a bright, sunny day; but it gives me no pleasure. I feel utterly dull and depressed. Only a few hours more and I shall be gone forever from this narrow cell—back to my own comfortable home; but the thought arouses no enthusiasm. It does not seem to matter much in the sum of things whether I go or stay. Nothing seems to matter much except the physical sufferings of those poor fellows down in the jail; and at the thought a bitter anger sweeps over me again.

After a few moments, however, I once more regain control of myself, and wait patiently at the door of the cell for the day’s routine to begin.

Before long I hear in the corridor below the clicking of levers and the tread of marching feet. A shiver goes through me as I think of the last time I heard such sounds. But those were imaginary, these are real. Soon, bucket in hand, I am once more traversing the long gallery and falling in line with the rest of my company at the yard door. The prisoners whose faces I can see are eyeing me curiously, and in a vague way I am wondering whether I bear any outward marks of the jail. I feel as if I must have somewhere upon me an unmistakable stamp of it, which may be a disfigurement for the rest of my life.

Sharply the Captain gives the signal and we set off on our march down the yard. I know it is sunny, for I can see the shadows of the trees upon the ground, but all things look unfamiliar and unreal. I go through the usual motions, but I am not thinking of what I am doing, or of anything else, for that matter. Everything seems cold, lifeless, dead. Yet I am conscious of making an effort to do my duty cheerfully. I have a curious feeling of being two people at once. One going through the regular routine, and the other watching him as he does it.

One of my selves seems to be at a distance looking at the other self as he marches down the yard, empties his bucket at the sewage disposal building, and then, without pausing at the stands, marches up the yard again. There was a gleam of satisfaction in my passive self at the thought that my active self was going to leave the bucket behind, and that I should never see it again. But that mild pleasure is denied me. Of course on Sunday the buckets are needed in the cells, as the men are locked up after chapel services for the rest of the day. I had not thought of that.

On our way back I seem to be saying to myself, “You poor fellow! If you were not so dead tired, you’d march better.” And then I feel rather indignant at myself for the criticism.

Arrived back in my cell, it seems to occur vaguely to one of my two selves—I do not know which—that there is something I have to do to-day. Breakfast of course. But after that—Oh, yes—the chapel. I am expected to speak. I shake my head and shut my eyes, feeling ill at the thought. To speak! I feel upon my lips the ghost of a smile at the bare notion. How absurd for any one to think I could do such a thing!

Nevertheless something must be done. I ought to send word to the Chaplain that I can’t speak. How can I send it? I cannot think. Somehow the idea of blue floats across my mind. Oh, yes! Roger Landry and his blue shirt. I’ll ask Landry to get word to the Chaplain.

Click! Click! Click! Again the levers start. Still in a sort of a daze I open my door, fall in line behind Jack Bell, join Landry farther along the gallery, descend the iron stairs and march to the mess-hall. Here the regular weekday arrangements are changed. For some reason, instead of turning to the right as usual, we go to the left and occupy seats in quite a different part of the hall—on the left of the center aisle and much farther back. The change makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.

I don’t know what there is for breakfast. I believe that I have eaten something or other, although I am sure I have not sampled the bootleg. I wish I could share my breakfast—such as it is—with those poor fellows in the jail. I wonder if Number Two has any water yet. But I mustn’t think of that.

Returned from breakfast, Landry comes to my cell to express his interest and sympathy; for he once had his own dose of the jail. I wonder if his spirit was broken. I forget to ask him to do my errand to the Chaplain. I fear it is too late now. Perhaps I can find some way to do it after I reach the assembly room; perhaps I can, when called upon, explain briefly that I am unable to speak; or perhaps after all it would be better to bluff it out the best way I can, and let it go at that.

After this decision I feel somewhat better. Turning to the locker, I find a piece of paper with the few notes I scrawled yesterday noon. I had expected to revise and arrange them this morning. I may as well try to fix the thing up somehow. But I can do nothing but stare helplessly at the paper; my brain refuses to work. My stupidity finally annoys me so much that I shove the piece of paper into my pocket, and make up my mind not to bother any more about the matter.

One or two of the trusties, passing along the gallery, stop to chat. They all seem to look at me as one might at a person who has been restored to life from the dead. I’m sure I feel so. I have always wondered how Dante must have felt after he had visited the Inferno. I think I know now.

There are footsteps along the corridors and galleries; it is the noise made by good Catholics returning from Mass. It seems that I could have gone myself had I known of the service. I am sorry I did not; perhaps it would have helped me to forget.Soon the summons to chapel comes, and in single file we march upstairs and into the large assembly room, which is on the second story, immediately above the mess-hall. Here our company has seats on the right of the main aisle about two-thirds of the way to the platform. Row after row of men take their seats, until the large room is entirely filled with silent, motionless, gray figures. I do not see those sitting behind, I only hear them, for like the rest I stare straight in front of me.

Then I hear the sound of hand-clapping; and when I can see without turning my head, I join in the applause that greets the Chaplain and an organist and quartet of singers from one of the Auburn churches. As some of them are my personal friends, I can not help wishing that they had not chosen this particular Sunday to sing here.

In vain I try to fasten my attention upon the service, I can only follow my own thoughts. It is but one short week since I occupied a seat upon that same platform, and that short week has altered the whole tenor of my life. It can never be the same again that it has been. Whether I wish it or not, a bond of union has been forged between these men and me which can never be broken. I have actually lived their life, even if for only a short period of time; I have been made one of the gray brotherhood—for they have received me as a brother; and I have realized their sufferings because in a very small degree I have shared them.

But at the present moment what am I to do? When I am called up to the platform, as I soon shall be, what shall I say to these men? I must not speak of the jail; but how can I help speaking of it? It is the one thing that just now dominates my mind.

The singing is beautiful and restful. I could enjoy it were it not for this terrible feeling of oppression at my head and heart. Finally the critical moment arrives. The Chaplain advances to the front of the stage.

“At this point in the service,” he says, “we are to have something of a departure from the usual order of exercises. Last Sunday you listened to an address which the Honorable Thomas Mott Osborne came here to give you. To-day we are going to invite someone from your midst to speak.”

The Chaplain pauses, then clears his throat and says, “We have with us here to-day a man who calls himself Thomas Brown.”

With a startling suddenness that seems to threaten the roof comes a terrific explosion of hand-clapping, sounding, as a visitor afterwards described it, like a million of fire crackers. I feel my backbone tingling from end to end. At the same time I have an almost irresistible desire to get away somewhere and hide myself from all those eyes.

The Chaplain continues:

“His number is 33,333x.”

For some reason or other this excites the sense of humor which lies so near the surface here, and loud laughter interrupts the speaker.

“I will ask Thomas Brown to come to the platform.”

With my hands on the back of the bench in front, I pull myself up onto my feet; and when the men see me rise their frantic hand-clapping begins again. As I leave my seat and gain the central aisle, the whole room seems to rock back and forth. I walk to the front and mount the platform. As I do so, the Chaplain, the singers and others sitting there rise and join in the applause. I am absurdly, but momentarily, conscious of my prison clothes—the rough cotton shirt, gray trousers and heavy shoes, as I bow to the people on the stage and then face the audience.

The applause subsides and every face turns towards me expectantly. Oh, for the gift of the tongues of men and of angels! What an opportunity lies here before me! And I feel helpless to take advantage of it.

As I stand for a moment looking over the large audience, feeling unable to make a start, my attention is arrested by the face of one of my gray brothers. He is an old man, I do not know him, I am not conscious of ever having seen him before, but the tears are rolling down his cheeks as he sits looking up at me.

Then as if a cloud were lifted from my spirit, I suddenly understand what it all means. These men are not seeing me, they are looking at Tom Brown—the embodied spirit of the world’s sympathy. They have felt the sternness of society—the rigor of its law, the iron hand of its discipline. But now at this moment many of these men are realizing for the first time that outside the walls are those who care.

I said to these men last Sunday that I should try to “break down the barriers between my soul and the souls of my brothers.” It was necessary so to endeavor in order to understand the conditions I came to study. But what has happened is that these men have broken down their own barriers; they have opened their hearts; they have dignified and ennobled my errand; they have transformed my personal quest for knowledge into a vital message from the great heart of humanity in the outside world—a heart that, in spite of all that is said and done to the contrary, beats in sympathy with all genuine sorrow, with all honest endeavor for righteousness.

Thrilling with this revelation of the true meaning of my own mission, lifted out of apathy and discouragement, I make my speech; but, alas, the words come haltingly and reflect but little of the warmth and exhilaration in my heart.

It is not necessary to give every word of my utterly inadequate address. I was in no physical or mental condition to speak; my audience was almost too moved to hear. From a mere reading of the words that fell from my lips no one would understand the situation. But the prisoners understood; they listened with emotions which few can appreciate to my words of greeting and farewell and my prophecy of the new day soon to dawn for them.

First I spoke of the value of my experience to the Commission on Prison Reform as well as to me personally, for I knew that they had seen the doubts expressed in many of the newspapers as to the usefulness of my “experiment.” I thanked the officers for their coÖperation, and the prisoners for the way they had received me.

I believed that a wide popular interest had been aroused, which could not help working for good.

Then I dwelt upon the tasks which lay before us to do—before them and before me. It was my task to go out in the world and help in the fight against human servitude in the prisons, but they had a much harder task.

In explaining why I could not go into particulars regarding any conclusions I may have reached as to the Prison System, I realized that I was on delicate ground. I was sorely tempted to relate some of my last night’s experiences in the jail, but I felt that were I to do so there was no telling what the result might be. The men were strangely moved by the whole situation, and I had the feeling that the room contained a great deal of explosive material that a chance spark might ignite. So I bit my lips, and forced myself away from the dangerous topic.

Reiterating my belief in the value of the experiment, I drew to a conclusion.

Halting and inadequate as are the words of my speech, I feel certain that my audience understands me. Had I stood up here and repeated the alphabet or the dictionary, I think it would have been the same. The men are going far behind the words; they are looking into my soul and I into theirs.

I have come among them, worn their uniform, marched in their lines, sat with them at meals and gone to the cells with them at night; for a week I have been literally one of them—even to fourteen hours in the dark punishment cells; what need therefore of words? It makes little or no difference what I say, or how far I fail to express my meaning. They understand.

A feeling of renewed life, a sense of hope and exhilaration kindles within me as I look in their faces and realize for the first time the full measure of their gratitude and affection. I step down from the platform and again take my seat with the basket-shop company; receiving warm grips of the hand from Stuhlmiller, Bell, and the others as I crowd past them to my seat in the center.There ensues a long and dreary wait. In the mess-hall the first ones in are the first ones out; but up here in chapel the first ones in are the last ones out. It is a very tiresome arrangement for the earlier ones; and as we are well beyond the center, the delay seems interminable. Over thirteen hundred men have to march down stairs in single file, and that apparently takes a long time.

However, it gives a chance for my excitement to calm down, and my tired senses to get a bit rested. So that by the time I have marched down stairs, through the stone corridor, up the iron stairs and along the gallery to Cell 15, second tier, north, north wing, I am in a more normal condition than I have been since yesterday afternoon.

While I am packing my few belongings into the small handbag, Grant appears at the door; and as soon as I am ready I accompany him for a last journey along the gallery, down the iron stairs and through the stone corridor. Then we turn up the stairway leading to the main office—the stairway down which I descended into prison six days ago. At the head of the flight two light taps on the iron door bring the face of the hall keeper to the pane of glass set in the door, the key grates in the lock and the heavy barrier swings open. I have passed the inner wall and breathe more freely.Arrived in the Warden’s rooms—he himself is unfortunately still away—I lose no time in getting into a tub. After a most refreshing bath, I dress in my ordinary citizen’s clothes and am served with eggs and bacon and a cup of coffee. It is real coffee, not bootleg.

I do full justice to the food and drink, and feel very sorry for any one who has not had the experience of a first meal out of prison. I envy the Warden his cook and his devoted attendants.

After being thus invigorated, I gird up my loins for the next duty, and go to measure arguments with the Principal Keeper in his private office. I begin by shaking hands with him warmly, for I wish to atone for any rudeness of last night and make him understand that I have no hard feelings toward him personally. Then I plunge at once into the subject.

“P. K., I don’t wish to be unpleasant, nor do or say anything I am not fully justified in doing or saying, but I must tell you plainly that I can not go from this place, leaving that poor sick boy down in that second cell in jail. There are others who, in my opinion, ought not to be there, but his is the worst case. He should be in the hospital, not in such a damnable hole as that. He’s sick, and you are driving him crazy with your absurd rules about water. And I shall not—I can not—leave the prison unless something is to be done about it.”This and much more I pour into the patient ears of the P. K. It is written in the veracious “Bab Ballads,” concerning Sir Macklin, a clergyman “severe in conduct and in conversation,” that:

“He argued high, he argued low,
He also argued round about him.”

It is much the same in this case. My arguments are many, and some are based on high moral ground and others on mere motives of self-interest. My words flow easily enough now.

The P. K. takes refuge behind the official policies. He disclaims any personal motives—almost any personal responsibility. He seems to think that there is little or no occasion for the exercise of any judgment on his part. A complaint comes from an officer about a prisoner. There is apparently nothing for the P. K. to do but accept the complaint, take the word of the officer as a matter of course, and punish the prisoner. I also get the impression that sending every offender to the jail is the most desirable form of punishment, as it involves no troublesome discrimination or attempt at careful adjustment; it makes the thing so simple and easy.

Anything more crude, any greater outrage upon justice and common sense than the system of prison discipline as revealed in this illuminating discussion, it would be impossible to conceive. If a deliberate attempt were to be made to draft a code of punishment which should produce a minimum of efficacy and a maximum of failure and exasperation among the prisoners, it could not be more skilfully planned. One can no longer be surprised at the anomalous condition of things, as revealed by the kind of men I found in the jail.

In the midst of the discussion I welcome a warm ally in the Doctor, who at my request is brought into consultation. He had by no means intended that Number Two should be sent to the jail when discharged from the hospital; although he states it as a fact that the boy was a somewhat troublesome and unruly patient—a fact which I do not doubt in the least. Under existing conditions I should think any man, unless he were a dolt or an idiot, would be troublesome.

This statement of the Doctor’s gives me the chance to utter a tirade against a System which has no gradation in its punishments. If stress is to be laid on punishment rather than reward, there should be at least some approximation to justice, and the punishment should bear some proportion to the offence. “You admit,” I say to the P. K., “that these punishment cells are the severest form of discipline that you have. Then why, in Heaven’s name, do you exhaust your severest punishment on trivial offences? If you use the jail with its dark cells and bread and water for whispering in the shop, what have you left when a man tries to murder his keeper?”

In reply the P. K. makes the best showing he can, but in truth there is no reply. One of the things that is most irritating about prison is the number of questions that admit of no sensible explanation. It irresistibly reminds one of the topsy-turvy world that Alice found in Wonderland; and of the Hatter’s famous conundrum, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” to which there was no answer.

The P. K., finding himself driven from point to point in the argument, takes refuge in the statement that complaint comes from the prison department in Albany that he doesn’t punish often or severely enough. This seems very extraordinary. How in the world can the clerks in Albany judge of the need of punishments in this prison, concerning the inner workings of which they know absolutely nothing?

I argue, I implore, I threaten. The Doctor more gently and diplomatically seconds my efforts. Finally the P. K. with an air of triumph brings out his last and conclusive argument.

“There is a great deal in what you say, gentlemen, and I should like to oblige you, Mr. Osborne, but you see this is Sunday; and you know we never let ’em out of jail on Sunday.”

The P. K. leans back in his chair, evidently feeling that he has used a clincher. Then I rise in wrath. “Sunday!” I exclaim. “In Heaven’s name, P. K., what is Sunday? Isn’t it the Lord’s Day? Very well, then. Do you mean to tell us that you actually think if you take a poor sick boy, with an open wound in his ear, out of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell, where he isn’t allowed to wash, and has but three gills of water a day—do you mean to say that to take that sick boy out of such a detestable hole and put him back into the hospital, where the Doctor says he belongs—do you really think that such an act of mercy would be displeasing to God? Do you think God approves of your infernal jail? Do you think——”

I break off, simply because I haven’t the strength to continue; anger and disgust, on top of all the excitements of the last twenty-four hours, bring me to my last ounce of endurance. Fortunately the tide turns. The P. K. is silent for a few moments after my last outburst, but as I watch him I see something beginning to stir, a light is dawning upon the official mind, a smile of triumph announces a solution of the difficulty.

“Why,” he gasps, “that’s true. I think you’re right. We put ’em in on Sunday; why shouldn’t we take ’em out?”

The great question is solved. The P. K.’s brilliant logic has made it possible for mercy to temper justice, and pleased at his great discovery he determines to do the thing handsomely while he is about it, and let not only one but all the prisoners out of the jail. To this I have no objection to offer. He also generously accedes to my desire to pay a visit to these as yet unseen friends of mine; and I assure him that I will not pose as their deliverer, but simply give them good advice, and leave it for him to take them the news of their liberation.

On this errand I pass once more behind the barriers. I descend the gloomy staircase from the rear office, and traverse part of my memorable walk of last night—through the stone corridor and down the yard to the jail office. Here the Captain in charge takes the heavy keys from the locker and opens the outer door. As our steps resound in the passage, I think how each of the five prisoners within is listening and wondering who and what is coming.

The inner door is unlocked and opened, and amid complete silence from the occupants of the other cells, Number Two’s door is thrown open.

As I have said, it is a curious experience making acquaintance and establishing intimate relations with people whom you cannot see; but it is equally curious to see for the first time men with whose voices and personalities you already feel well acquainted. Last night I had the first of these experiences, now I have the other. One by one the cell doors are opened and the occupants, unwashed and in their dirty jail clothes, are allowed to step forward, shake me by the hand and have a few words of friendly conversation. I tell them I have come to see them face to face before leaving the prison, to thank them for their friendly treatment of me, to renew my invitation to dine when they leave, and to talk briefly over the case of each.

Number Two I advise to apologize to the Doctor. He admits being troublesome in the hospital; and it is quite evident the poor fellow needs to go back there. He is a dark-haired lad, with a sweet voice and a confiding, boyish manner that is very winning.

Number Three I advise to apologize to the Captain of his company and to try to keep his temper better in the future. The person who called him ugly names, having been sent to the hospital, seems to have been sufficiently punished. To my relief Number Three seems to be decidedly better of his cold.

Number Four (it is needless to say that my heart warms toward the handsome young fellow whom I greet as Joe) I advise to apologize to his Captain for the fight with Number Five, and to be more careful for the future. Joe is rather abashed and self-conscious by daylight, but very prolific of promises. Methinks he doth protest rather too much, and in spite of his good looks, his eyes do not give the direct glance that one likes to see.

To Number Five I give advice similar to Joe’s, and he engages to profit by it.

To Number Eight I also urge an apology to the powers that be and submission to the inevitable. He is a little harder to convince than the others, but we reach an agreement.

“What is the use,” I say to all of them, “of letting your tempers get the better of you when it hurts nobody but yourselves?” My preaching is directed rather toward a cultivation of self-interest than of lofty idealism, but I believe it hits the mark. They none of them admit the justice of their jail sentences, and on that point I can not argue with them. I acknowledge the injustice, but ask them to face the facts. So one and all admit they have been wrong and express themselves ready to make all amends for the present and try their best for the future.

And so, in a much pleasanter frame of mind than when I last left this place, I retrace my steps to the Warden’s rooms.

Returning through the back office I shake hands all around—with both officers and prisoners—all but one man. A slight, pale figure in glasses is bending over his desk in a corner of the office. He is one of the Warden’s stenographers. Last July I had an extended conversation with him, at the Warden’s suggestion, and a more hopeless and discouraging proposition I never struck. He is an old-timer, knows all the ropes, has been through the game, and has settled down to hopeless cynicism. He seems to have no belief in himself or others, and I have no doubt is utterly uninterested in my whole experience, and will be one of the greatest stumbling blocks to any attempted reforms. He will condemn them at the outset, discouraging others who are willing to try. This, at least, is the impression I had of him last July when the Warden persuaded me to talk with him. Now, as he bends over his desk with his eyes on his work I pass him by; for he evidently has no interest in me and I can not see where I can be of any service to him.

There remains now but one more thing to do—bid farewell to my partner, my dear and loyal friend, Jack Murphy. He has been sent for; and, as I reËnter the Warden’s office, he stands looking out of the window.

“Jack, old fellow, I couldn’t leave here without saying good-bye to you.”

He turns, and the tears are running down his cheeks. As for myself I have long since got beyond that stage. “Oh, Mr. Osborne——” he begins, but I stop him.

“Cut it out, partner, cut it out! You mustn’t meddle with my last name. It has been Tom and Jack now since Wednesday, and Tom and Jack it must continue to be. I am still your partner, and clothes are not going to make any difference with you and me.”

“Oh, Tom!” says the poor fellow. “What am I going to do now?”

For the first time I fully realize how deep this experience has cut into the hearts of these men. I thought I already understood it, but Jack reveals a new depth.

“What are you going to do?” I ask in answer. “You are going right ahead making baskets down in the old shop. But you are also going to help out our Commission. While I am working outside, you will be working inside. And together, Jack, we are going to assist in giving things a good shaking up. You’ve got the hardest part of the work to do, but I shall keep in close touch with you, and we will often consult together. And sometime, Jack, some day in the future when the right time has come, you can count upon me to go to the Governor for you.”

At this suggestion of a pardon, I expect to get from Jack a quick word of gratitude, some sort of indication that he is conscious of having attained his first step toward freedom, the interest of a friend who may be able to secure fair consideration, at least, of an application for pardon.

To my surprise he turns to me almost roughly. “Put that right out of your mind, Tom,” he says. “Don’t you bother your head about that, one single minute. I am ready to stay behind these walls all my life if I can help you and the Commission bring about some of these reforms you have in mind. That’s all I want!”

I try to answer, but there is nothing to say. What can one do except to humble oneself before such a spirit of self-sacrifice? Moreover, while my whole being is thrilled with the wonder of all this new revelation of the essential nobility of mankind, my physical condition is approaching very near to complete collapse. Silently therefore I clasp Jack’s hand in mine, and silently we stand looking out of the window while each of us masters his emotion. Then with a brief “Good-bye, Jack!” “Good-bye, Tom!” in the back office, I watch the heavy iron door close with a clang behind him, as he descends the iron staircase back into the prison; and so to his stone cage, four feet by seven and a half, in the damp basement of the north wing.

Then, with one last look through the grated window of the back office, I turn and make my way down the front steps of the prison. The guard at the gate unlocks and opens the outer barrier. I am free.

No, not free. Bound evermore by ties that can never be broken, to my brothers here within the walls. My sentence, originally indeterminate, is now straight life, without commutation or parole.

It may be of interest, as a matter of record, to append a transcript of the official punishment report of the five prisoners with whom I spent the night in the jail.