第72章

FORTY-EIGHT YEARS A PRISONER

John Hicks is the veteran penitentiary convict of the United States. Under an alias he served one term in the Missouri penitentiary. Most of his time has been spent in prisons further east. He is now eighty-four years of age, and quite recently was released from the Michigan City penitentiary. Prison authorities have compared notes and find that he has actually served forty-eight years of prison life. He is the oldest living criminal in this country. He has served ten terms, the greater portion of them being in Indiana. His first crime was committed in 1839. In some way he learned that a man named Bearder had $360 in his house. While the family were at church Hicks rifled the house and stole their money. A marked coin led to his conviction, and he got a three years' sentence. He was never, afterward, out six months at a time, and was sent up successively for burglary, criminal assault, robbery, larceny, cattle-stealing and horse-stealing. At the expiration of his fifth term, at Michigan City, he made his way to the office, where the directors were in session. He begged them to allow him to build a shanty in a part of the prison in which he could sleep and call his home. All that he asked was that the scraps from the table be given him for food. The board refused to allow him this, and Hicks bade them good-by. He walked to a small town near by, where he soon was arrested for thieving, and was taken to prison to serve what he declared to be his last term. His head is as white as snow, and in keeping with his long, flowing beard, and he looks like a patriarch, yet is not stooped a particle. His desire now is to secure honest work, that will guarantee him a home. He wishes to spend the rest of his days a free man. Had this man been assisted just a little at the expiration of his first term, he might have become auseful citizen, but as it was, his life was spent behind the bars. When once the feet find themselves walking in the pathway of crime, it is very difficult for them ever to walk in paths of honesty and uprightness thereafter.

NINE TIMES

As I was walking through the penitentiary, in company with Deputy Warden Bradbury, he pointed out an old convict, and said, "There is a fellow that has seen prison life. He is here this time under the name of Gus Loman. He is now serving his NINTH term in this prison. At the expiration of one of his sentences he went away and was gone over a year, and when he came back I asked him where he had been so long. His reply was, 'Simply rusticating at Joliet, Ill., with some friends.' Every time he is sent to prison he gives in a new and different name and, of course, no one but himself knows what his real name is." When asked why he comes to the prison so often, he remarked that, when once in prison it is impossible to get work to do on the outside, and he had made up his mind to spend the rest of his days in prison. He claimed that the fates were against him and he could not make a living on the outside, as no one would employ him; that he had tried it several times and failed, and now he had given up all hope. He is a bold, bad and natural thief. As soon as his term is out he goes a little distance from the prison, gets on a spree, gets into trouble, steals something, and soon finds himself back again in the penitentiary. He is now over seventy years of age, and is both a physical and moral wreck. What an awful warning for the young is the history of such a wasted life.

DESPERADO JOHNSON

This convict is the most daring and desperate criminal in the Missouri penitentiary. The prison authorities have had more trouble with him than with any other man who ever found a home behind the walls of this great institution. He was sent up from Jackson County, and was charged with murdering two men before he was finally convicted of crime. On trial for these two murders be was successful in proving an alibi. The last time be was not so successful, and received a sentence of twelve years. Soon after his arrival at the prison he was set to work in one of the shops. When he became a little acquainted, his innate cussedness induced him to raise ariot in the prison. It was a desperate undertaking, but he was equal to the emergency. For days and weeks he was on the alert, and when a guard was not on the watch he would communicate with a convict, and enlist his services, and give him his instructions as to what part he should perform when the signal should be given.