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Recorded by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD Author of "The Spirit of the Ghetto," etc.
Copyright, 1903, BY FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY
Entered at the Library of Congress, Washington, U. S. A.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England.
"_Oh, happy he who can still hope to emerge from this sea of error!_"
"_There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like; therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch because they can do no other._"
CHAPTER PAGE Editor's Note 9 I. Boyhood and Early Crime 15 II. My First Fall 34 III. Mixed Ale Life in the Fourth and Seventh Wards 50 IV. When the Graft Was Good 73 V. Mamie and the Negotiable Bonds 89 VI. What the Burglar Faces 107 VII. In Stir 132 VIII. In Stir (Continued) 154 IX. In Stir and Out 182 X. At the Graft Again 202 XI. Back to Prison 228 XII. On the Outside Again 255 XIII. In the Mad-House 300 XIV. Out of Hell 332 Editor's Postscript 348
I met the ex-pickpocket and burglar whose autobiography follows soon after his release from a third term in the penitentiary. For several weeks I was not particularly interested in him. He was full of a desire to publish in the newspapers an exposé of conditions obtaining in two of our state institutions, his motive seeming partly revenge and partly a very genuine feeling that he had come in contact with a systematic crime against humanity. But as I continued to see more of him, and learned much about his life, my interest grew; for I soon perceived that he not only had led a typical thief's life, but was also a man of more than common natural intelligence, with a gift of vigorous expression. With little schooling he had yet educated himself, mainly by means of the prison libraries, until he had a good and individually expressed acquaintance with many of the English classics, and with some of the masterpieces of philosophy.