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 passed through his society, and I

venture to assert that five thousand of these found their way to this

country through the assistance 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.

[Illustration: 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 L3. 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 embarrassed 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 L3 gratuity the ex-prisoner has

been paid L1, L2 or L3 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 passenger 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 passed 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 shores.

Seldom as men of the criminal class 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.