McClure's Magazine/Volume 25/Number 2/The Jailbird

BY

ARTHUR TRAIN

OW it had come, he was not quite sure that he wanted it. For a moment he longed to go back and join the men marching away to the shoe-shop. Inside those walls he had never had to think of what he should eat or drink, or wherewithal he should be clothed.

Over against the gray parapet echoed the buzzing of the electric cars, a strange sound to ears accustomed only to the tramp of marching feet, the harsh voices of wardens, and the clang of iron doors. Below him the harbor waves danced and sparkled, ferry-boats rushed from shore to shore, big ships moved slowly toward the distant islands and the still more distant sea, while near at hand the busy street flowed like a river, which he was compelled to swim but in which he already felt the millstone of his past dragging him down.

His heart sank as he asked himself what life could hold for him. How often, sitting on his prison-bed with his head in his hands, he had pictured joyously the present moment! Now, he felt like a child who has lost its parent's hand in the passing throng.

There had been a day, the year before, when his old mother's letter had not come, and, instead, only a line of stereotyped consolation from the country pastor to the village ne'er-do-well. No one had seen him choke over his bowl of soup and bread, or noticed the tears that trickled down upon the shoe-leather in his hand. She had been the only one who had ever written to him. There was nothing now to take him back to the little cluster of white cottages among the hills where he was born.

As he stood there alone facing the world, he yearned to throw himself once more upon his cot and weep against its iron bars—for three years the only arms outstretched to comfort him.

The judge concluded his charge with the usual, “I leave the case with you, gentlemen,” and the jury, collecting their miscellaneous garments, slowly retired. The clerk pushed an indictment across the desk whispering:

“Try him, he's a short one,” for it was getting late, and the afternoon sun was already gilding the dingy cornices of the big courtroom, now almost deserted save by a lounger or two half asleep on the benches.

“People against Graham,” called Dockbridge, the youthful assistant district attorney.

“Fill the box,” shouted the clerk: “James Graham to the bar!” and another dozen “good men and true” answered to their names and settled themselves comfortably in their places.

At the rear the door from the pen opened and the prisoner entered, escorted by an officer. He walked stolidly around the room, passed through the gate held open for him, and took his seat at the table reserved for the defendant and his counsel. There appeared, however, to be no lawyer to represent him.

“Have you counsel?” casually inquired the clerk.

“No,” answered the prisoner.

“Mr. Crookshanks, please look after the rights of this defendant,” directed the judge.

The prisoner, a thick-set man of medium height, half rose from his seat and, turning towards the weazened little lawyer, shook his head rather impatiently. It was obvious that they were not strangers. After a whispered conversation, Crookshanks stepped forward and addressed the Court.

“The defendant declines counsel and stands upon his constitutional right to defend himself,” he said apologetically.

There was a slight lifting of heads among the jury, and a few sharp glances in the direction of the prisoner, which seemed in no wise to disconcert him.

“Very well, then; proceed,” ordered the Court.

The prosecutor rapidly outlined his case—one of simple “larceny from the person.” The People would show that the defendant had taken a wallet from the pocket of the complaining witness. He had been caught in flagrante delicto. There were several eye-witnesses. The case would occupy but a few moments, unless, to be sure, the prisoner had some witnesses. The young assistant, who seemed slightly nervous at the unusual prospect of conducting a trial against a lawyerless defendant (savoring as it did of a hand to hand combat in the days of trial by battle), started to comment upon the novelty of the situation, gave it up, and to cover his retreat called his first witness.

Dockbridge was very young indeed. He was undergoing the process of being “whipped into shape” by the judge, a kind but unrelenting observer of all the technicalities of the criminal branch, and this was one of his first cases. He could work up a pretty fair argument in his office, but he now felt his inexperience and began to wish it was time to adjourn, or that his senior, “Colonel Bob,” the stout Nestor of Part I, whose long practice made him ready for any emergency, would return. But “Colonel Bob” could have proved an excellent alibi at that moment, and the battle had to be fought out alone.

The prisoner, meanwhile, was sitting calm but vigilant, pen in hand. His face, square and strong, with firmly marked mouth and chin, showed no sign of emotion, but under their heavy brows his black eyes played uneasily between the Court and jury. He was not more than thirty years of age, and his attitude and expression showed intelligence and alert capacity.

“Go on, Mr. District Attorney,” again admonished the judge, and Dockbridge pulling himself together, commenced to examine the complainant.

The prisoner was now straining eye and ear to catch every look and word from the witness-stand. Hardly had the complainant opened his mouth before the defendant had objected to the answer, the objection had been sustained and the reply stricken out. He continued to object from time to time, and his exceptions were so well taken that he dominated not only the examination but the witness as well, and the jury presently found themselves listening to a cross-examination as skilfully conducted as if by a trained practitioner.

But, although the defendant showed himself a better lawyer than his adversary, it was apparent that his battle was a losing one. Point after point he contested stubbornly, yet the case loomed clear against him.

The People having “rested,” the defendant announced that he had no witnesses, and would go to the jury on the evidence, or, rather, “failure of evidence,” as he put it, of the prosecution. It was done with great adroitness, and none of the jury perceived that by refusing to accept counsel he had made it impossible to take the stand in his own behalf, and had thus escaped the necessity of subjecting himself to examination as to his past career.

If the spectators had expected a piteous appeal for mercy or a burst of prison rhetoric they were disappointed. The prisoner summed his case up carefully, arguing that there was a reasonable doubt upon the evidence, to which he was entitled; begged the jury not to condemn him merely because he appeared before them as one charged with a crime; appealed to them for justice; and at the close, for the first time forgetting the proprieties of the situation, exclaimed, “I did not do it, gentlemen! I did not do it! There was an absolute failure of proof! You cannot find that I took the purse from the old gentlemen on such evidence! It is all a lie!”

It was his one false touch. To raise the issue of veracity is usually a mistake on the part of a defendant, and the defiant look in Graham's eyes might well have suggested conscious guilt.

As he paused for a moment after this concluding sentence, an Italian band came marching down Centre Street, playing the dead march. Some patriot was being borne to his last sleep in an alien land. Outside the court-house it paused for a moment with one melancholy crash of funereal chords. It seemed a vibrant echo of the discord of his own fruitless life. At the same moment a ray from the red sun setting over the Tombs fell upon the prisoner's face.

Dockbridge summed the case up in the stock fashion and then, for half an hour the judge addressed to the jury in a calm and dispassionate analysis of the evidence. not hesitating to compare the abilities of the prosecutor and prisoner to the disadvantage of the former, saying in this respect: “Neither must you be influenced by any feeling of admiration at the capacity shown by this defendant to conduct his own case. If he has appeared more than a match for the prosecution, it must not affect the weight which you give to the evidence against him.”

“More than a match for the prosecution!” That had been rather rough, to be sure, and the fifth juror had looked at Dockbridge and grinned.

The jury filed out the prisoner was led back to the pen, the judge vanished into his chambers and the prosecutor, his feet on the counsel table, lit a cigar and indulged in retrospection. The benches were deserted. There was no one but himself left in the court-room. Usually, when a jury retired, there was some mother or wife or daughter with her handkerchief to her eyes, waiting for them to come back, but this fellow had none such. He had fought alone! Well, d him! he deserved to! But who the deuce was he? It had been clever on his part not to take the stand. Strange to be trying a man you had never seen before—of whom you knew nothing, who had merely side-stepped into your life and would soon back out of it. “Poor devil!” thought the deputy as he lit another perfecto.

Now the jury, as juries sometimes do, wanted to talk, and had a consuming desire to smoke, so they both smoked and talked, and when O'Reilly came to turn on the lights in the court-room, they were still out, and Dockbridge had fallen fast asleep.

At half-past ten o'clock the big court-room still remained almost empty. Inside the rail the clerk and the stenographer, having returned from a short visit fo Tom Foley's saloon across the way, were languidly discussing the condition of the stock-market. A nebulous illumination in the vastness above only served to increase the shadowy dimness of the room. The talk of the pair made a scarcely audible whisper in the great silence. Outside, an electric car could be heard at intervals; within, only the slam of iron doors, subdued by distance. echoed through the corridors.

Dockbridge had awakened and. lounging before his table, was trying to get up a case for the morrow. The judge had gone home for dinner. One by one the court attendants had strayed away, coming back to push open the heavy door and, after a furtive glance at the empty bench, as silently to depart.

Below in the stifling pen, alone behind the bars, James Graham sat staring vacantly at the stained cement floor. A savage rage surged through him. Curse them! That infernal judge had not given him half a chance. Once more he recalled that day when he had stepped out into the sunlight a free man. Again he saw his iron bed, his cobbling bench, his coarse food, his hated stripes! He choked at the thought of them. Only two months before, he had been at liberty. Think of it! Good clothes, good food, pleasure! God! What a fool! A dull pain worked through his body; he remembered that he had not eaten since seven that morning.

Outside in the corridor the keeper was smoking a cigar. The fumes of it drifted in and mingled with the stench of the pen. It almost nauseated him. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The act brought rushing back the memories of his childhood, and of how, every night, he would lay his head upon his mother's knee and say, “Have I been a good boy to-day?” A sob shook him and he pressed closer against the wall.

A sound of moving feet roused him suddenly. A door swung open, shut again, and voices came with a draft of air, from the corridor.

The keeper waiting outside stirred and stood up, looking regretfully at his cigar.

“Get up there, you.” The prisoner obeyed perfunctorily, and followed the officer heavily up the stairs and down the dirty passage, to the court-room. Outside, he shrank from entering. Those eyes—those eyes! That hard, pitiless judge! But he was pushed roughly forward. Then his old pugnacity returned; he set his teeth, and entered.

He trudged around the room and stopped at the bar before the clerk. On his right sat the twelve silent men. On the bench the white-haired judge was gazing at him with sad but penetrating eyes.

It was different from the mellow glow of the afternoon. They were all so still—like ghosts—and all around—all about him! He wanted to shout out at them, “Speak! For God's sake! Speak!” But something stifled him. The overwhelming power of the law held him speechless.

The clerk rose without looking at the prisoner.

“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?”

“We have,” answered the foreman, with his eyes upon the floor.

“The jury will rise: the defendant will rise. Say you, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?”

“Guilty of grand larceny in the first degree.”

The prisoner involuntarily pressed his hand to his heart. He had weathered that blast before and could do so again. Dockbridge gave him a look full of pity. Graham hated him for it. That child! That snivelling little fool! He wanted none of his sympathy! His breath came faster. Must they all look at him? Was that a part of his trial—to be stared down? He glared back at them. The room swam, and he saw only the stern face on the bench above.

“Name?” broke in the harsh voice of the clerk.

“James Graham.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Married or unmarried? Temperate?” came the pitiless questions, all answered in a monotone.

“Ever convicted before?”

“No,” said the prisoner in a low voice, but the word sounded to him like a roaring torrent. Then came once more that awful silence. The dread eye of the judge searched his soul.

“Graham, is that the truth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you quite sure?”

That merciless question! What had that to do with it? Why should he have to tell them? That was not his crime! He was ready to suffer for what he had done, but not for the past, that was not fair—he had paid for that! He must defend himself.

“Yes, sir.”

“Swear him,” said the judge.

The officer took up the soiled Bible and started to place it in Graham's hand. But the hand dropped from it.

“No, no! I can't,” he faltered, “I can't—I—I—it is no use,” he added huskily.

“When were you convicted?”

“I served six months for petty larceny in the penitentiary six years ago.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir”

“Quite sure? Think again!”

“Yes, sir,” almost inaudibly.

“Swear him.”

Again the book was forced toward the unwilling hand and again it was refused.

“Have you no pity—no mercy?” his dark eyes seemed to say. Then they gave way to a look of utter hopelessness.

“I served three years in Charleston for larceny, and was discharged two months ago.”

“Is that all?”

“O, God! Isn't that enough?” suddenly groaned the prisoner. “No,no. It isn't all! It's always been the same old story! Concord, Joliet, Springfield, Sing Sing, yes, six times. Twelve years. . . I'm a jailbird.” He laughed harshly and rested wearily against the wooden bar.

“Have you anything to say why judgment should not be pronounced against you you?”

“Your Honor, will you hear me?” Graham choked back a dry sob.

The judge slightly inclined his head.

“Yes. I'm a jailbird,” uttered the prisoner rapidly. “I'm only out two months.” There was no defiance in his voice now, and his eyes searched the face of the judge, seeking for mercy. “I had a good home—no matter where—and a good father and mother. My father died and didn't leave anything, and I had to work while my mother kept house. I worked on the farm, winter and summer, summer and winter, early and late. I got sick of it. I quit the farm and went to the city. I worked hard and did well. I learned shorthand and finally got a job as a court stenographer. That's how I know about the rules of evidence. Then I got started wrong, and by and by I took a fifty-dollar note and another fellow was sent up for it. After that I didn't care. I had a good time—of its kind. It was better than a dog's life on the farm, anyway. By and by I got caught and then it was no use. Each time I got out I swore I'd lead an honest life. But I could n't. A convict might as well try to eat stones as to find a job. But when I got free this time, I made up my mind to starve rather than get back again. I meant it, too. I tried hard. It was no use in Boston—they're too respectable. All a convict can do there is to get a two weeks' job sawing wood. At the end of that time he's supposed to be able to take care of himself. I had to give it up and come to New York.

“It was August, and I went the rounds of the offices for three weeks, looking for work. No one wanted a stenographer, and there was nothing else to do that I could find. Once I thought I had something on the water-front, but the man changed his mind. A woman told me to go to Dr. Westminster, so I went. He was kind enough, said he was very busy, but would do all he could for me, that there was a special society for just such cases, and he would give me a card. I thanked him and took the card and went to the society. The young woman there gave me two soup tickets, and said she would do all she could for me. Next day she reported that there was nothing doing just then, but if I could come back in about a month they could probably do better. Then she gave me another soup ticket. I drank the soup and then I went back to Dr. Westminster. He was rather annoyed at seeing me again, and said that he had done all that he could, but would bear me in mind—meantime, unless I heard from him, it would be no use to call again. I'd lived on soup for two days.

“I got a meal by begging on the avenue. Then another woman told me to go to Dr. Emberdays, and I went to him. By this time I must have been looking pretty tough. He said that he would do what he could, and that there was a society to which he would give me a line. They asked me a devil of a lot of questions, and gave me a flannel undershirt. It made me sick! An undershirt in August, when I wanted bread and human sympathy!

“It was no use. I gave up parsons and tried the river-front again. I didn't get over one meal a day, and my head ached all the time. I heard of a job at One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Street, carrying lumber. I got a nickle [sic] for holding a horse, and went up. It was a gang of niggers. They got a dollar a day. The boss was a nigger, too, and they didn't want cheap white trash. I almost went down on my knees to him, and finally he said I might come the next day. I slept in a field, under a tree, without anything to eat that night, and started in at seven the next morning. The thermometer went up to ninety-six, and we worked without stopping. I had to lug one end of a big stick, with a nigger under the other end, one hundred yards—then go back and get another. I got so I didn't know what I was doing. At eleven o'clock I fainted, and then I was sick, dreadfully sick. At three the boss nigger kicked me and said I had to stop faking or I wouldn't get paid, and so I got up and lugged until six. But I was so ill I knew it was no use. I couldn't do that kind of work.

“It was an awfully hot night. I got off the 'L' at Thirty-fourth Street and walked through to the Avenue. When I got to the Waldorf I stopped and looked in the windows. There were men and women in there, and flowers and everything to eat—just what I could eat if I chose. And I had been working with niggers, Judge, all day long until I fainted, heaving timber! I just stood and waited, and when a chance came to snatch a roll of bills I took it. They couldn't catch me. I was good for ten of 'em, Judge.

“After that it was easy. I met some of the fellows that had served time with me and got back into the old life. Judge, it's no use. I don't blame you for what you are going to do, nor I don't blame the jury. Any one could see through the bluff I put up. I'm guilty. I'm a jailbird, I say. I'm done. Only I've had no chance, Judge. Give me another, let me go back to the farm. I'll go, I swear I will. It'll kill me to go to prison! I'm a human being! God meant me to live out of doors, and I've spent half of my life inside stone walls. Let me go back to the country. I'll go, Judge. I'm a human being. Give me one more chance.”

There was no sound when the prisoner stopped speaking. The judge did not reply for a full minute. His face wore its habitual look of sadness. Then he spoke in a very low tone, but one which was distinctly audible in the silence of the court-room.

“Graham, you have read your own sentence. You have confessed that you cannot lead an honest life. Your fault is that you will not work. There are plenty of towns in this state alone, and a thousand farms within a hundred miles where you could earn a livelihood for the asking. Your intelligence is of a high order. By ordinary application you could have risen far above your fellows. You are a dangerous criminal—all the more dangerous for your ability. You almost outwitted the jury, and conducted your own case more ably than nine out of ten lawyers would have done. You have ruined your own life, and cast away a pearl of price. You have my pity, but I cannot allow it to affect my duty. Graham, I sentence you to state prison for five years.”

The prisoner shivered and covered his face with his hands. Then the officer clapped him on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.

“Gentlemen, you are excused.” The judge bowed to the jury.

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” bawled the attendant: “all persons having business with Part 1 of the General Sessions of the Peace, held in and for the County of New York, may now depart. This Court stands adjourned until to-morrow morning at half-past ten o'clock.”