Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 31

This flow of moral sewage to our sh.o.r.es is constant and unceasing. Our Government has frequently protested against it, but with no success, for the officials in England indignantly deny that the State either encourages or a.s.sists the exodus of her criminal cla.s.ses; but from my personal knowledge I know this to be false. The officials over there have found out an effectual way to rid themselves of their discharged prisoners as fast as their sentences expire, and cast them on our sh.o.r.es, and this is so ingenious a way that the wrong can never be brought home to them.

During my twenty years' residence in Chatham I suppose nearly half as many thousands asked me for information about America, and at least 95 per cent. a.s.sured me that when released they would "join the society"

and depart at once for that happy hunting ground--that Promised Land which charms the imagination no less of the criminal than of the honest poor of the Old World. In every English prison the walls are decorated with placards, gorgeous in hue, of rival firms appealing to the readers for patronage. "Join us," they all say; and every prisoner knows the appeal "join us" means if you do we will ferry you over the Jordan that rolls between this desert land and the plains flowing with milk and honey on the other side. The "firms" I mention are those arch humbugs, the Prisoners' Aid Societies of England.

Elizabeth Fry, who made "aid to prisoners" fashionable and a society fad in England, has much to answer for. Prisoners' Aid Societies have sprung up in every quarter of England, and having a rich soil, and under the fostering care of the Government, have flourished with a rank and luxuriant growth. These societies draw their nourishment from English soil, but, unhappily for us, their tall branches hang over our wall and their ripened fruit falls on our ground.

From the time a prisoner becomes accustomed to his surroundings until the hour of his release the one thing ever uppermost in his thoughts, the one distracting subject and cause of anxious solicitude, is the question, "Which society shall I join?" It is a tolerably safe venture to predict that he will "join" "The Royal Prisoners' Aid Society of London," which society is happy in having Her Gracious Majesty and a long list of ill.u.s.trious lords and ladies for "governors." What that may mean no one knows. Certainly no benefit from these people ever accrues to the discharged prisoners, but who can describe the glory that falls on the four or five reverend gentlemen, sons, nephews or brothers of deans or bishops, high-salaried secretaries of this particular society, who pose at the annual meeting in Exeter Hall, before a brilliant audience, and after have the felicity of seeing their report in the church and society journals and their names connected with such exalted people.

The way the Government over there accomplishes its purpose of getting rid of its criminal population at our expense and at the same time is able to answer the charges of our Government with disavowal is this:

The Home Secretary alone possesses the pardoning power for the United Kingdom, and directly controls every prison, his fiat being law in all things to every official as well as to every inmate. He has officially recognized and registered at the Home Office every prisoners' aid society in England, Scotland and Wales, and in order to boom them he gives to every discharged prisoner an extra gratuity of 3 provided he "joins" a prisoners' aid society on his discharge, the result being that all do so. England is a small and compact country, and the police have practically one head, and that head is the Home Secretary. Under the circ.u.mstances the system of police espionage is so perfect that whenever a discharged prisoner is reconvicted for another crime he cannot escape recognition, and in all such cases the Home Secretary notifies the particular aid society who received the prisoner on his discharge of the fact, very much to the vexation of the officials of the society, who are all anxious for a good record in reforming men that come officially under their auspices. They publish that all who are never reported as reconvicted are reformed, and all love to make a big showing for the money subscribed at the all-important annual meeting, the result being that all the men hustled out of the country by the society count as reformed men.

These societies are supported by subscriptions, which all go in salaries and office rents. The a.s.sistance given to the discharged prisoner is limited to the 3 extra gratuity given the society by the Government on the prisoner's behalf. The London societies have an agreement with the Netherlands Line and the Wilson Line of steamers to "take to sea" for 2 10s. all "workingmen" they send to them. I have talked to thousands of men who "joined the society," most of whom intended to go to America, and I have talked to scores who had "joined," but who, unluckily for themselves, not leaving England, were reconvicted and sent back to Chatham. Throughout twenty years I conversed with several thousand men who joined the society avowing they were going to America, and were never heard of again in England, and have also known some scores of men who pa.s.sed through the hands of the society agents, yet were afterward reconvicted. Therefore I am in a position to speak with authority on the important question of England dumping her criminal population on our sh.o.r.es.

CHAPTER XLI.

"WELL MY MAN, WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO?" "I WANT TO GO TO AMERICA, SIR."

"TUT! TUT! YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO GO TO SEA!" "YES, SIR; I WANT TO GO TO SEA."

The Royal Society and The Christian Aid Societies, presided over by a Rev. Mr. Whitely, enjoy a bad pre-eminence in this respect. The year before my release the latter stated at the annual meeting that six thousand discharged prisoners had pa.s.sed through his society, and I venture to a.s.sert that five thousand of these found their way to this country through the a.s.sistance of this society. These two societies have been boomed to an incredible extent, and it would be a curious study if any report could be had as to how the large subscriptions were actually expended.

For the sake of making my narrative clear, I will here only speak of the first-named society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEAVING LIVERPOOL.--GEORGE BIDWELL'S FAREWELL TO JOHN BULL.]

Two months before release the prisoner must inform the warder that he intends to join the Royal Society. He notifies the Home Office, which in turn notifies the society and forwards a warrant for 3. The prisoner upon discharge takes a certain train for London, and is met upon his arrival at the station by an agent of the society. This agent ranks as a servant, is usually an ex-prisoner and is always paid 21 shillings a week. He pilots his man at a certain hour before the Reverend Secretary, and here follows a verbatim report of the dialogue between the great man and the poor, timid and dreadfully embarra.s.sed ex-prisoner:

Great Man--Well, my man, what do you intend to do?

Ex-Prisoner--I want to go to America.

Great Man--Tut! tut! my man; you mean you want to go to sea.

Ex-Prisoner (taking the hint)--Yes, sir; I want to go to sea.

Great Man--Very well, my man. Go with this agent, who will fix it with the ship captain so you can go to sea.

If a steamer of either line named is about to sail he is taken on board at once goes to the steerage, and just before sailing the agent hands him a ticket and the criminal is safely off for America. England is rid of a bad subject, and the Royal Society has one more "reformed" man to put in its report. In addition to the 3 gratuity the ex-prisoner has been paid 1, 2 or 3 in addition, provided his sentence had been at least five years. The society is not a cent out of pocket over him, and forlorn and friendless he lands here with from $2 to $15 in his pocket.

He has got the cheap suit of clothes he wears, one handkerchief and one pair of stockings extra. It is almost certain he will speedily drift into crime, spending the remainder of his life in prison, and finally dying there or in the poorhouse.

There is just one way this evil can be stopped--I might say two ways.

The first, and a method that would be effectual in stopping the influx of criminals from all countries, is to let Congress put a tax of $30 or $50 on the steamship companies for every pa.s.senger not an American citizen whom they bring to America. Not one discharged criminal in a thousand could meet the tax in addition to the fare. The only other way possible would be for our Government to request the English Government to furnish them with photographs, marks and measurements of all discharged criminals. Then have them copied and sent to the Immigration Commissioners of our ports. But that would involve a radical change in these boards and their methods. Efficiency there under our corrupt system is, I fear, hopeless.

I visited Ellis Island a few days ago and saw how they pa.s.sed a shipload of immigrants in a few minutes, and as I looked I felt it was hopeless to expect any efficient measures to throw back the foul tide that is polluting our sh.o.r.es.

Seldom as men of the criminal cla.s.s once safe in America ever return to England, yet they do now and then return. In the two or three cases that came under my observation it was very much to their loss and grief, for they only came back to undergo another term.

One day, in 1890, a man working in my party slipped a note into my hand that had been given him for me in chapel that morning. As in similar cases, I secreted the note, and when safe in my little room I read it.

The writer said he had lately come down from London, and was most anxious to get into my party in order to have a chance to talk with me.

He said he had been living in Chicago and could give me all the news. He ended the note by stating he was being murdered by hard work, and implored me to try and get him into my party, where it was not so hard.

This I was most anxious to do, as in my party you could talk almost with impunity. To have a man near me fresh and only a year before in Chicago would be like a letter from home and also a newspaper. Therefore, I determined to get Foster in my party if possible. At this time I had been seventeen years a resident, and was, in fact, the oldest inhabitant, and had some little influence in a quiet way. About eleven years before I had been put in the party, and had a chance to learn bricklaying, and having become an expert in the art was given charge of the bricklaying. I was on the best of terms with our officer, so when, a day or two later, one of our men was so fortunate (in the Chatham view of it) as to meet with an accident and be admitted to that heaven, the infirmary, I told my officer to ask for Foster to replace him. He did so, and he, very much to his gratification, found himself by my side, with a trowel instead of a shovel in his hand. We worked side by side, Winter and Summer, storm and shine, for two years, and in spite of myself I began soon to like the man. His chief and only virtues were truthfulness and fair-mindedness toward his friends--rare and incongruous virtues for a professional burglar; nevertheless, he possessed them in a marked degree. This is a statement to make a cynic smile, and is one of those cases where the result is justifiable; yet, however the cynic may smile, there is plenty of all-around good faith in the world, and there is no nation, race or color, no clique, religion nor social strata, that has a monopoly of the article. Good faith and truth grow in unlikely places, as I have found in my career, for I have looked on life from both sides, and to look on it from the seamy side is instructive, indeed, for then the mask is off and the true character is revealed. I have been away down in the depths, and for years have toiled cheek by jowl, through sunshine and storm, in blinding snows and pelting rain, with my brother men under conditions too brutal and demoralizing to be understood if described--conditions where the very worst side of human character would naturally be thought to come to the front, and I came out of the fierce struggle in that pit of death with conclusions as to the human animal that are decidedly favorable, and I am inclined to the view that man was born almost an angel, and that, in spite of the fearful temptations of the world into which he has been thrust, much of the angelic pottery abides.

CHAPTER XLII.

MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME.

Foster's experience during his four years' residence in Chicago was decidedly novel, and it had evidently brightened his wits--that is, increased his cunning without adding to his honesty. And as I think it will interest my reader to get a view of life from the actor's own standpoint, I will relate one of the many stories he told me during the years we worked together.

Upon Foster's release from his first term of imprisonment he joined the Christian Aid Society of London, and Mr. Whitely, the secretary, promptly "sent him to sea," as he has thousands of others. In due time he arrived in New York, but as he had heard much of Chicago he determined to go there. He arrived penniless, but within an hour ran against an old friend in the person of a former partner in the art of burglary who had been a fellow prisoner with him in London. This man's name was Turtle, and Mr. Whitely had only "sent him to sea" two brief years before. It was plain from his magnificent diamond ring, pin and big bank roll, freely displayed, that the seafaring life of the former protege of the London Prison Aid Society was a profitable occupation. He was delighted to meet Foster, and took him to a tailor's at once and fitted him out liberally, at the same time handing him $250, just for pocket money. When, on the next day, Foster stated to his friend that he was ready to undertake a burglary, Turtle was displeased, and said: "No; we are on the honest game, which pays better." What that was will appear. Turtle had a large private inquiry office, with two of the city detectives for side partners, who turned over to him all business in which there was a prospect of mutual profit. All imaginable schemes of villainy were concocted and executed there, and with perfect impunity, too. For Turtle had the ear of all the magistrates, and was in with all the gangs that made the City Hall of Chicago the worst and vilest den of robbers that enc.u.mbers this earth.

What cause the pessimist has for his boding views when in cities like New York, Quaker Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco, the City Halls, those centres of munic.i.p.al life, hold and are ruled by the worst and most dangerous gangs of criminals sheltered by any roof in any city!

Alas! that the centre which should be the purest stream within the city should be a foul cesspool, sending out poisonous vapors to pollute the life of the citizens!

Universal suffrage in our great centres is a corrupt tree and its fruits must needs be poisonous.

Turtle gave his friend Foster a welcome at his office and at once enrolled him on his staff, but virtually made him a member of the firm.

So, between the two Police Headquarters thieves and the two English ones, they had a combination indeed.

Many stories Foster told me during the years of our intercourse that were novel and strange, and gave me a view of the social world seldom seen. Here is a specimen:

One day a countryman appeared at Police Headquarters in Chicago and announced that he had been robbed of $20,000, and showed how his coat pocket had been cut open and the money taken. This, he explained, had been done in a crowd. It was a strange place for a man to carry so large a sum, and, still stranger, the pocket was cut on the inside. Of course, a pickpocket in the rare event of cutting the pocket of an intended victim must of necessity cut the pocket from the outside. The countryman had fallen at Headquarters to the tender mercies of the two partners of Turtle. One glance at the pocket showed them there was a colored gentleman in the woodpile, and as there was $20,000 in the deal somewhere, they determined to have some share of it. They, of course, pretended to believe the story of the countryman, but for fear some of the other Headquarters men might hear and want a share, they hurried him away from the office over to the Sherman House; then one went to Turtle's office and posted him on the situation. The countryman was anxious to leave town, but on various pretenses they held him for two days, but as he stoutly affirmed that the lost money was his own they were puzzled to solve the mystery; but their knowledge of human nature was such that they felt certain that if they could only arrive at the bottom the old gentleman would not be quite as white as he pretended to be. He came from an obscure mountain town in East Tennessee, and while they fancied a trip there might solve matters they feared to lose their victim--for victim these human tigers determined the countryman should be. The second day they resolved on decisive measures to get at the truth, and at the same time secure some plunder, provided the Tennesseean had any cash.

So far Turtle and Foster had not been seen by the victim. The detectives asked the countryman to remain one more night to see if they could not catch the men who had robbed him. That afternoon one of Turtle's staff secured a room at the same hotel, and, seizing an opportunity, slipped into the countryman's chamber and concealed some burglar tools under the mattress of his bed and in his carpet bag. This once done, they marched the "guy" along Clark street, and, as arranged, Turtle and one of his staff met them, and shaking hands with the two detectives asked if they were arresting their companion for a job. Upon their saying he was a wealthy gentleman from the South, Turtle burst out laughing, and said he knew him for an old-time burglar, and if they would search his house they would find stolen goods, and ended by saying, "Bring him down to my office and I will show you his picture." The detectives now changed their tones and threatened to arrest him. He having, as the sequel will show, a bad conscience, became frightened. Then they arrested him, and announced that they were going to search his room at the hotel. This they did, taking him along. Of course, they found what they had previously hidden, very much to the terror of the countryman, who, lashed by a bad conscience, began to think he was in a fix. The friends of the hour before now became threatening bullies, promising to get him ten years for the possession of burglar tools. They took him to Turtle's office, and there stripping him they found to their disappointment that he had no money, but found carefully folded up in an inner pocket a postoffice receipt for a registered letter sent from Nashville to St.

Paul. They kept him a prisoner that night while Turtle left by the first train for St. Paul with the receipt in his pocket. The next morning found him in St. Paul, and a few minutes later he walked out of the office with the registered letter, which proved to be a bulky one.

Tearing it open he found it full of United States bonds and greenbacks, amounting in all to $20,000. The next day all save $1,000, reserved for the victim, was divided among the four birds of prey. That day the victim was taken before a friendly magistrate and fully committed to await in jail the action of the Grand Jury. Twenty-four hours later a tool called on him at the jail, and gave him the option of taking $1,000 and getting out of town by the first train or getting ten years for the possession of burglar tools. The poor fool, with trembling eagerness, accepted the first part of the ultimatum, and within an hour a bail bond was filled up, and darkness found the baffled old man speeding westward, never again to look on his own people.

But how was he a baffled old man? He had embarked in a scheme of villainy, but had been beaten at his own game by sharper rascals. From whom did he steal the money? Read:

In a small Tennessee town there lived a widow whose husband had been killed in the Confederate army and who found herself, like so many more Southern ladies at the close of the war, impoverished, and with a family of children to be provided with bread. But it seems she was a brave body, and with a head for business. She opened a small hotel in Nashville, and by reason of her history, no less than her excellent hostelry, she thrived apace, and, investing all her savings in newly started industrial enterprises in Nashville, her small investments brought in large returns, which were reinvested, until at 40, finding herself mistress of a competency, she quit business and went to spend the remainder of her days where she was born. The hero of the adventure in Chicago was not only her neighbor, but had been the comrade of her husband through the deadly fights of the war. She naturally turned to him as a friend for advice. He first asked her to be his wife, and upon her refusal he began to urge her to dispose of all her interests in Nashville and reinvest her money in the nearby city of Knoxville. At last she consented, and sent him to Nashville with authority to act as her agent. He disposed of her property, except the old hotel. He was paid $20,000 on her account, and once with the money in his possession he determined to keep it. It was a cowardly deed, and dearly did he pay for it. He wrote her he was going to Chicago, and would take the money with him, as he would only remain for a day. To Chicago he came, and, as related, robbed himself, sending off the money in a registered letter to himself. Then he appeared at Police Headquarters with his cut pocket and clumsy story, which appeared in the next morning's paper. He sent a marked copy of the paper to the lady, and at the same time wrote a hypocritical letter stating that he was so heartbroken over losing her money that he did not have the courage to look her in the face, and never should until such time as he could repay the money. He said he was going to California to work, and when he had enough she would see him again, but not before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I RESOLVED TO LEAVE A MESSAGE OF HOPE AND HIGH RESOLVE."]

How easy it is for a man to become an unspeakable villain, and how nicely this one was hoisted with his own petard!

Eventually this catastrophe proved a blessing to the widow. It drove her back to her hotel again, and soon after she became the wife of one of the bravest and best men Tennessee ever produced. I was so interested in the fate of this lady that when in Nashville in 1893 I tried to hunt her up. I found several who knew the whole story, and from them I heard her after history and a full confirmation of Foster's narrative.

Foster remained four years in Chicago and flourished. He and Turtle became very influential in politics and partners in a combine of rascally Aldermen and police magistrates that robbed the city and the citizens with impunity. But unluckily for him, he one day took it into his head to pay a visit to his old haunts in England, there to display his diamonds and bank roll to such of his former cronies as happened to be at liberty. On arriving in London he began to play the role of a rich American, but was recognized by the police, an old charge raked up against him, arrested, promptly placed on trial, found guilty and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Although the possessor of considerable property, he is to-day toiling at Chatham like a slave and probably if he lives he will come out a broken man. It is a certainty that the very day he is liberated he will "go to sea," being sent by a prisoners' aid society, and a few days later become an ornament to that good city of Chicago. Once there, his ambition will not be satisfied until he takes his seat as Alderman, becoming one of the City Fathers.

Many more immoral and dangerous than he write Alderman after their names in that windy city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIDWELL PICKING OAk.u.m.]