My intelligence was naturally good, and when I began to get some education I felt myself superior to many of my companions in stir. I was not alone in this feeling, for in prison there are many social cliques; though fewer than on the outside. Men who have been high up and have held responsible positions when at liberty make friends in stir with men they formerly would not have trusted as their boot-blacks. The professional thieves usually keep together as much as possible in prison, or communicate together by means of notes; though sometimes they associate with men who, not professional grafters, have been sent up for committing some big forgery, or other big swindle. The reason for this is business; for the gun generally has friends among the politicians, and he wants to associate while in stir only with others who have influence. It is the guns who are usually trusted by the screws in charge of the Underground Tunnel, for the professional thief is less likely to squeal than the novice. Therefore, the big forger who has stolen thousands, and may be a man of ability and education appreciates the friendship of the professional pickpocket who can do him little favors, such as railroading his mail through the Underground, and providing him with newspapers, or a bottle of booze.
The pull of the professional thief with outside politicians often procures him the respect and consideration of the keepers. One day a convict, named Ed White, was chinning with an Irish screw, an old man who had a family to support. Jokes in stir lead to friendship, and when the keeper told Ed that he was looking for a job for his daughter, who was a stenographer, Ed said he thought he could place her in a good position. The old screw laughed and said; "You loafer, if you were made to carry a hod you wouldn't be a splitting matches in stir." But Ed meant what he had said, and wrote to the famous Tammany politician, Mr. Wet Coin, who gave the girl a position as stenographer at a salary of fourteen dollars a week. The old screw took his daughter to New York, and when he returned to Auburn he began to "Mister" Ed. "I 'clare to God," he said, "I don't know what to make out of you. Here you are eating rotten hash, cooped up like a wild animal, with stripes, when you might be making twelve to fifteen dollars a week." Ed replied, sarcastically, "That would about keep me in cigar money."