The next morning the Associated Charities had him arrested for non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, a good man, was on the bench. One of our workers said to the judge, “This man was converted last night, and if you will give him a chance he will now support his family.” “Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather than go to Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But, judge, this is no fake case; try him.”
The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, and the judge sent him up for eleven weeks. The little woman and her children were sent to her relatives in North Carolina by the Board of Charities and Children's Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding him that he had put himself in God's hands for discipline, and assuring him that if he could stand true, God had a useful life in store for him. A marked New Testament was given him when he left for down the river. There his head was shaved in the very cold weather, his clothing changed, so that he took a severe cold which came near carrying him off with pneumonia. It took about two weeks to bring political and social influence to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the Mission.
January and February of 1912 were very cold months, it was hard to get any kind of work for men to do, and the only thing we could secure for Connaught was passing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to $3.60 per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, to be sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline phoned me, “Connaught is trying to live on the rolls and coffee given in the bread line at six o'clock in the morning.” I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must have eggs and meat and strong coffee, or he will lose his religion.” “Well, who is going to provide all that?” “The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose you bring some of it right along,” which of course I did.
About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, the work gave out. We really prayed night and day, for we feared he would be rearrested and we had no money to support him. In a few days he secured work at digging on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with him on his poor blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad to get the work that the hurt is nothing.” Think of that for a man who had not done a lick of work, physically or mentally, for months and months.