A Modern Purgatory - free ebook by Carlo de Fornaro

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A Modern Purgatory

Carlo de Fornaro

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A MODERN PURGATORY

A MODERN PURGATORY

BY CARLO DE FORNARO NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY CARLO DE FORNARO PRINTED IN AMERICA TO M. L. R. " It is believed in this country that a poor man has less chance to get justice administered to him than a rich man. " —Woodrow Wilson, in a speech in Chicago, January 11, 1913....

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

This book is a record of the prison experiences of Carlo de Fornaro, artist, writer, editor, revolutionary. It is a record of experiences in the famous Tombs Prison, in New York City, and in the New York City penitentiary on Blackwell's Island—a record of the daily happenings of life in a prison, of brutalities and stupidities and abominations; a sordid record, from the pages of which gleam many fine human things, the sympathies and kindnesses and sacrifices of men thrust by society into the dar

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I

I

As we are forbidden to keep knives or razors in our possession, those who require a daily shave climb to the circle above to the barber shop. On the waiting line there is a familiar face, a young man who had been a waiter in a Broadway café. He has not lost his red cheeks and boyish manner while awaiting trial on the charge of seduction. Those who can afford it and cannot eat the common prison fare have their meals ordered from outside restaurants. A young man with a capacious basket offers us o

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II

II

I have become acquainted with a prisoner a few doors from my cell, next to the shower baths. Small of stature, almost a boy, deathly pale, dark, with strong features, this young English pickpocket is a new type in my limited experience with criminals. Every afternoon we sit together at a five o'clock tea in his model cell. The walls are covered with half-tone pictures of famous stage beauties. He offers me the place of honor, which is an old, rickety, but comfortable armchair which belonged to H

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III

III

In the evening I was interrupted in my conversation with a confidence man by the entrance of Lupo and some of his black hand confederates. Standing against the wall while being searched he refused to answer any questions either in English or in Italian. A dark mustache aggravated his villainous look, while his black, restless eyes surveyed his surroundings. One of his cronies muttered something, but he only growled, lifting the corners of his mouth and baring his teeth in angry contempt. Verily

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IV

IV

The trusties who clean up the floor and the cells and make up our beds are mostly short term prisoners from the penitentiary. In spite of his stripes, one of them looks like a Greek athlete; his dark, curly hair, powerful chin, strong nose, the muscles showing through the striped shirt at the neck and arms, excite the respect and admiration of his fellow prisoners. My trusty is a weak-faced individual, who is always fawning for a tip with which to gamble with his companions upstairs. His wife ha

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V

V

Next morning, handcuffed to a young prisoner and accompanied by a score of men, I am taken to a pen. The place cannot be described in decent writing, but I can safely assert that a more filthy, disgusting place does not exist in New York. The stench is so sickening that I suffer the rest of the day from a splitting headache. After an hour's wait I am brought into the presence of a kindly faced probationary officer who asks me for addresses of friends who might write to the judge, and inquires fo

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VI

VI

At last I am told to appear before the judge who is to pass sentence on me. They handcuff me to a negro and we climb into the "Black Maria," an omnibus with facing seats, tightly locked, and with small holes for ventilation. A mob collects in the streets to witness our humiliation. The room in the court house is crowded with people. Several men are sentenced, one after another, in rotation. I espy some of my loyal friends there; they look pale and uncomfortable. My name is called. I am freed of

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VII

VII

Two sisters of mercy come to see the prisoners during the hours of exercise; they distribute fruit, and walk freely and unconcerned among the men, who seem to think a great deal of them. One of them has kindly and intelligent looking eyes behind large, gold-rimmed spectacles, and speaks in the well modulated and authoritative voice of the woman of the world. Unlike other prison missionaries, they do not make religious propaganda by distributing tracts and pamphlets; their attitude is one of char

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I

I

I am locked in the old prison for the night—my first night in the penitentiary. A bed made of an iron frame with coarse canvas stretched across it, two cheap cotton blankets, a straw pillow, a large covered pail and a drinking cup, complete the total of my furniture. It is the simple life with a vengeance. The bed takes up the whole length of the cell; there is no room for walking except sideways from the bucket to the cell door. Sitting in a lateral position on the couch, with my back touching

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II

II

At 6 A. M. a quick, metallic carol announces a new day—and a Sunday. With a clanking noise and in swift succession the cell doors are unlocked and on every tier the whole line of convicts walks along the galleries and down to the ground floor, to a long iron sink, divided into small dirty tubs that are filled with murky water. Our ablutions are performed in rapid military style; those not strong or nimble enough to get near the crowded trough, before the command, "Back out," is shouted, have to

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III

III

The resting day without reading or occupation or exercise of any sort is agonizing; intolerable in the extreme. From four o'clock on Saturday afternoon until Monday morning at eight, except for the short freedom for meals, we are locked up in our cells. There is no exercise, no work, for almost forty hours. Most of the cases of insanity in prison are due to this enforced inaction, and the accumulation of foul air in the cells. Even the keepers who have to inspect the top tiers run swiftly along

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IV

IV

In the morning we are ordered into the new section of the prison. The old bums go to the workhouse, and we await our turn to be placed in the shops, according to our sentences and our work or profession. The distribution of labor among us is strange and mysterious. A butcher, for instance, is sent to work in the stone quarry, a smuggler into the kitchen gang, a lawyer in the "skin gang," a "sissy" into the coal gang, a waiter into the garden; a burglar is sent to make socks, and I am sent into t

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V

V

My skin has been itching for two days, and I attribute it to the coarse underwear and ill-fitting clothes. In my cell after the day's work I make a careful inspection and am quite frightened to find my whole body covered with red spots. Evidently I have caught some skin disease from those tattered old rags which have been worn by generations of unclean and diseased convicts. The thought of having to pass a year in a prison hospital is anything but cheerful. I turn my thoughts to other things by

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VI

VI

After breakfast I was watching from my cell some sparrows that had nested inside the prison walls, high up on top of the large windows facing the tiers. I dropped some bread crumbs on the floor of the gallery, and some on my cell floor, to induce the little birds to come in. At first they were afraid to trust themselves inside the bars of my cell; but they kept fluttering about nervously outside, keeping up an incessant twitter and chatter that sounded quite musical to my ears. Finally they grew

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VII

VII

At lunch time the sick convicts ask their keepers for permission to see the doctor. They are kept waiting in line near the head keeper's desk. The head keeper is a person of great power in the prison, only third in importance of rank, but as he comes in daily contact with the convicts, his good or ill will is felt more keenly than the warden's. The discipline of the prison, the distribution of the mails, of the clothes, underwear, shoes, all the details of management, are carried on through him.

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I

I

There are five sick men, plus three consumptives, in the two rooms; and our large room looks deserted. The patients wear a cheap, white shirt, instead of the striped one, and slippers instead of shoes. A bald-headed man with small, kindly gray eyes and a close-cropped mustache, keeps perfect discipline without raising his voice, using profane language, or bullying the patients. In character, breeding, morals, education, he is superior to the warden and to most of the keepers. His name is Charles

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II

II

The view from the hospital window shows the bridge on the right; in front, the row of cheap tenement houses and streets abutting on the river front from the forties to the sixties; and on the left, looming out of the city-scape, appears the Metropolitan tower. Behind the innumerable painted signs on the river front, the Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, the Plaza Hotel and the St. Regis can be seen distinctly; the Times Building is also vaguely outlined. In the daytime the sight is commonplace; but aft

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III

III

The trusty in charge of the hospital is getting nervous as the day of his release approaches. A week before the release, no matter how disciplined and peaceful the prisoner may have been, he starts getting cranky and impertinent to the keepers. He acts like a man under great stress, and when he is disturbed he turns savagely round like an angry dog. The old trusty acted like a drunkard, talking and laughing incessantly, and we thought it was for joy at the thought of his near release. But the re

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IV

IV

Before the old thief died the old trusty had gone, and I had to take his place. I did so only with great reluctance, and with many misgivings as to my peace of mind and body. I had noticed how the convicts nagged and harassed the old trusty with insults and petty, malicious persecutions to revenge themselves for his greed and his authoritative, arrogant manner towards them. I realized that life might be made unbearable for me, and that I might be forced to go downstairs to the cells before I had

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V

V

The orderly asks me to attend to the consumptive, as he hates to do it himself. I have to bring him his food, I have to clean the cup which he uses as a cuspidor, and be careful to wash it in a solution of carbolic acid, and wash my hands each time afterwards. The poor boy flies into uncontrollable fits of anger over trifles; then his face becomes almost a livid green, and he seems to be foaming at the mouth—little flecks of foam and saliva—like a vicious horned toad. When in that state I usuall

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VI

VI

The one-legged, bull-faced negro in the hospital was watching my assistant, who, of his own volition, and without being ordered to do it, was laboriously polishing the brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. "That boy ain't no thief," he remarked philosophically. "A thief is a thief 'cause he won't work, in or out of jail." A crook will waste many days, nay, sometimes weeks and months, and take infinite pains to plan a robbery, the result of which he imagines is getting something for nothing

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VII

VII

In the beginning the reticence of the convicts puzzled me, even after I knew that they regarded me as a political prisoner and not as a stool pigeon. Only after a long acquaintance, and then unwillingly, would they admit shamefacedly that their living was acquired by criminal methods. More than any other argument this proved to me that their criminal pride is only a bluff, their pose as "tough guys" only a pretence, and the supposed excitement of their profession only a misdirected and false ene

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VIII

VIII

The prison authorities are not supposed to abuse, vilify or use blasphemous language towards the prisoners; it is forbidden under penalty of the law. Of course, as far as the convict is concerned, such a law or rule is a dead letter. Should a prisoner protest to the warden against vilification or profanity, he would only be laughed at; and should he insist on making his complaint to the prison commissioner, his letter would never be sent, and his persecution would begin at once. The other day a

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IX

IX

The food, brought up by a convict from the keepers' kitchen to the hospital, is distributed by us thrice a day, on a long table covered by white linoleum and standing in the middle of the room. We have to clean the bathroom and the spittoons, sweep the floor, empty the garbage can, get the ice, make the beds, give the medicine, take the temperatures, mark the charts, help the doctor, besides giving and receiving the laundry—in short, the immediate and dirty work of the hospital is in our hands.

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X

X

One morning as a young convict was walking on an errand towards the shops, a letter dropped from his coat onto the ground in the yard. The warden, who was walking in the same direction, not far behind, picked up the letter and shouted to the man to stop. The convict turned back and appeared confused when he saw the warden with his letter in his hands. The warden flayed him with his heavy sarcasm, upbraided him for violating the rules about writing letters, and leered at him in malicious anticipa

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XI

XI

One day a poor Italian woman, after overcoming all the difficulties in actually getting to the gates of the prison, happened to arrive a few minutes late. The iron gates were banged in her face and she was ordered away. She had come a long way to see her son, and she could not tear herself away from the neighborhood of the prison. She was poorly dressed, without even a hat. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. In her ignorance she looked up to the barred windows of our hospital imagining that i

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XII

XII

About a dozen women convicts come twice a week to scrub the hardwood floor of the hospital. The majority of them are colored; the white women are either old and faded, or young and dissipated-looking. Very few of them are either refined or good-looking. Petty larceny is the crime for which most of them are sent to the prison. Two negro women, young and rather tough-looking, are scrubbing the floor. They are in prison for having held up and robbed a man in the streets of New York. The man never r

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XIII

XIII

Never a month passes but some convict is brought up to the hospital to be kept under observation to determine whether he is insane or faking insanity. The warden and the keepers always suspect prisoners of faking sickness or feigning insanity. As a rule the convicts do not like to stay very long in the hospital, as they are not allowed to smoke, and the time is very slow and tedious without any kind of work. A small, stocky, bearded, wild-looking Italian was brought over from the Tombs before hi

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XIV

XIV

The hospital has become a sort of observatory for the insane. But all the convicts who show signs of insanity are not brought up to the hospital. Confinement in the cells without work or exercise from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, and the punishment in the "cooler," are responsible for most of the cases of insanity. When the supposedly insane convicts do not try to commit suicide, or do not keep the prison section awake at night by their yells, they are usually kept in solitary confineme

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XV

XV

Another patient was sent up by the doctor. He seemed so sick and weak it appeared a wonder that he could still walk. He was a poor Jew, suffering from stomach trouble. Emaciated, yellow, with an expression of intense suffering on his face, which was deeply furrowed by wrinkles, with a beard a week old, and his long, pointed nose, he looked like a sick vulture. When he begged for special food, the orderly sarcastically offered him the choice between filet mignon with potatoes, or cutlets with Fre

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XVI

XVI

A boy with blond hair, blue eyes, pink and white as a girl, modest as a nun, gentlemanly and soft spoken as Lord Fauntleroy, came upstairs to be operated on for a tumor. A sentence of two and a half years had been inflicted on him for selling cocaine. This deadly drug was furnished to him by a friend once when he was suffering from a cold. He did not know what it was, but he felt a wonderful exhilaration and a new strength come upon him, so that his illness seemed to vanish. The reaction was ter

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XVII

XVII

A Jewish pickpocket is one of the patients who is under suspicion of faking. The young doctor suggested my watching him, and when I reported, he declared that he was satisfied in his suspicion, but did not send him to his cell at once, as he would have been punished. Meanwhile he helps and amuses us with stories of his checkered career. At first I could not make out what was the matter with him. He couldn't walk any distance without jerking his head backwards. I thought he suffered from some pec

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XVIII

XVIII

I had been three months in the hospital before I began to suspect that I would never get over my skin disease so long as I wore the tattered and patched striped trousers which had been handed to me on my arrival. Therefore I begged the hospital keeper for permission to get a new or at least a clean pair. He told me to go downstairs to the head keeper's desk. The reception I got from the head keeper was not surprising, but his sudden burst of anger and his intemperate language puzzled me not a li

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XIX

XIX

A great many doctors come to visit the hospital. Sometimes the young students from the city hospital, then the aristocratic and famous surgeons who operate on desperate cases, specialists, all grades and classes of physicians, enter accompanied by the little doctor who lives upstairs on the top floor. His name is B. Davidson. He is so small that he seems almost a schoolboy; his eye-glasses are the only elderly thing about him. But he is very efficient, scrupulous and—a marvelous thing in prison—

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XX

XX

The conversation at our meals in the hospital table d'hôte, although carried on in an undertone, is very often amusing and enlivened by quite witty repartee. The table manners of the men are not as bad as might be expected from the motley crowd which adorns our board. All the nationalities and races and classes of this wide world have been waited upon by us: negroes, Chinamen, Mexicans, Slavs, Italians, Jews, Hungarians, Arabs, Syrians, Hindus; members of all the different professions, such as w

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XXI

XXI

The other day a man was brought up to the hospital to have his broken arm bandaged. He had got up in the mess hall and started to voice a protest against the rotten meat. Two keepers jumped on him with their sticks and beat him until he was insensible. Later the "Dep" came upstairs to look him over, and said: "So you think you are a tough guy!" The man kept silent; but later he was sent to the "cooler." There is an old Italian tailor in the hospital who has become popular because he mends our so

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XXII

XXII

Protestant clergymen, Catholic priests, Rabbis, Sisters of Mercy, missionaries and even a Theosophist preacher, visit the prison and the hospital regularly. Saturday afternoon is a very busy time for the "sky pilots." One "sky pilot" comes only during the lunch hour and, walking to the busy table, invariably asks: "Well, boys, how goes it?" He has never been known to change his query in years—and that is the only service he has ever done for the souls of the convicts. A tall, thin, spectacled, P

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XXIII

XXIII

Convicts have a cunning and peculiar way of revenging themselves on bad and cruel keepers. When one of that type is put on night duty, following a prearranged sign the whole section suddenly starts a tremendous hullabaloo. Several hundred convicts, acting in unison, begin yelling, cat-calling, grunting, roaring, whistling, stamping their feet, beating the bars of their cages with tin cups and pail covers. The enraged keeper jumps up and down the tiers in a vain effort to catch the arch offenders

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XXIV

XXIV

The outlook from the windows of our hospital is a source of never ending interest. We can watch the grass grow and the trees, the birds hunting for food, the hospital cat waiting patiently under a bush for a stray sparrow, the orderly of the warden, haughty and always in a hurry, followed by a yellow dog. Another orderly is a red-headed young man who is called a "sugar man." He and two other men are the "goats" for the higher officials of the Sugar Trust. We watch the visitors come in from the b

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XXV

XXV

The first and the last week seem longest in the term of imprisonment. During the rest of the time the hours pass in swift succession, as the work and the regular hours help to shorten the time; there is a spirit of patience, and the mind becomes more and more introspective and philosophical. But in the last week all the thoughts, the plans, the ambitions, the discoveries of a new future, seem to be concentrated. The minutes drag by with a laborious and torpid slowness, and there is an intensity

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XXVI

XXVI

Only after a long while did the influence, the pernicious influx of the thought waves emanating from hundreds of convict minds, begin to play on my mind. I never imagined that convict habits and thoughts could touch me or have any effect on my inmost thoughts, my better self. During the day, in fact, when the conscious mind was active, nothing seemed to effect my habitual, set and crystallized character, my old trend of mental, moral and intellectual associations. Only in the last month, during

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XXVII

XXVII

I am finally called downstairs. The sun streaming through the narrow bars gives the gloomy prison almost a bright appearance. Hastily I put on my street clothes. I feel like a man putting on a strange, exotic costume for a fancy dress ball; the collar and necktie seem to choke me with a kind of joy and affection. Accompanied by my lawyer, I walk out of the fateful gates, and then I turn to look back, and to glance upwards to the hospital windows where the patients and the old keeper wave a frien

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