________________________________________________
_ SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: You will remember that I had just been thrust violently
into a cell in the city prison when I wrote last. I stumbled and fell on
some one. I got a blow and a curse= and on top of these a kick or two
and a shove. In a second or two it was plain that I was in a nest of
prisoners and was being "passed around"--for the instant I was knocked
out of the way of one I fell on the head or heels of another and was
promptly ejected, only to land on a third prisoner and get a new
contribution of kicks and curses and a new destination. I brought up at
last in an unoccupied corner, very much battered and bruised and sore,
but glad enough to be let alone for a little while. I was on the flag-
stones, for there was, no furniture in the den except a long, broad
board, or combination of boards, like a barn-door, and this bed was
accommodating five or six persons, and that was its full capacity. They
lay stretched side by side, snoring--when not fighting. One end of the
board was four, inches higher than the other, and so the slant answered
for a pillow. There were no blankets, and the night was a little chilly;
the nights are always a little chilly in San Francisco, though never
severely cold. The board was a deal more comfortable than the stones,
and occasionally some flag-stone plebeian like me would try to creep to a
place on it; and then the aristocrats would hammer him good and make him
think a flag pavement was a nice enough place after all.
I lay quiet in my corner, stroking my bruises, and listening to the
revelations the prisoners made to each other--and to me for some that
were near me talked to me a good deal. I had long had an idea that
Americans, being free, had no need of prisons, which are a contrivance of
despots for keeping restless patriots out of mischief. So I was
considerably surprised to find out my mistake.
Ours was a big general cell, it seemed, for the temporary accommodation
of all comers whose crimes were trifling. Among us they were two
Americans, two "Greasers" (Mexicans), a Frenchman, a German, four
Irishmen, a Chilenean (and, in the next cell, only separated from us by a
grating, two women), all drunk, and all more or less noisy; and as night
fell and advanced, they grew more and more discontented and disorderly,
occasionally; shaking the prison bars and glaring through them at the
slowly pacing officer, and cursing him with all their hearts. The two
women were nearly middle-aged, and they had only had enough liquor to
stimulate instead of stupefy them. Consequently they would fondle and
kiss each other for some minutes, and then fall to fighting and keep it
up till they were just two grotesque tangles of rags and blood and
tumbled hair. Then they would rest awhile and pant and swear. While
they were affectionate they always spoke of each other as "ladies," but
while they were fighting "strumpet" was the mildest name they could think
of--and they could only make that do by tacking some sounding profanity
to it. In their last fight, which was toward midnight, one of them bit
off the other's finger, and then the officer interfered and put the
"Greaser" into the "dark cell" to answer for it because the woman that
did it laid it on him, and the other woman did not deny it because, as
she said afterward, she "wanted another crack at the huzzy when her
finger quit hurting," and so she did not want her removed. By this time
those two women had mutilated each other's clothes to that extent that
there was not sufficient left to cover their nakedness. I found that one
of these creatures had spent nine years in the county jail, and that the
other one had spent about four or five years in the same place. They had
done it from choice. As soon as they were discharged from captivity they
would go straight and get drunk, and then steal some trifling thing while
an officer was observing them. That would entitle them to another two,
months in jail, and there they would occupy clean, airy apartments, and
have good food in plenty, and being at no expense at all, they, could
make shirts for the clothiers at half a dollar apiece and thus keep
themselves in smoking tobacco and such other luxuries as they wanted.
When the two months were up they would go just as straight as they could
walk to Mother Leonard's and get drunk; and from there to Kearney street
and steal something; and thence to this city prison, and next day back to
the old quarters in the county jail again. One of them had really kept
this up for nine years and the other four or five, and both said they
meant to end their days in that prison. **--[**The former of the two
did.--Ed. Men.]--Finally, both these creatures fell upon me while I was
dozing with my head against their grating, and battered me considerably,
because they discovered that I was a Chinaman, and they said I was "a
bloody interlopin' loafer come from the devil's own country to take the
bread out of dacent people's mouths and put down the wages for work whin
it was all a Christian could do to kape body and sowl together as it
was." "Loafer" means one who will not work.
AH SONG HI. _
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