Whenever any hall-man was in trouble with a prisoner, the duty of any
other hall-man who happened to be around was to lend a fist. Never
mind the merits of the case--wade in and hit, and hit with anything;
in short, lay the man out.

I remember a handsome young mulatto of about twenty who got the insane
idea into his head that he should stand for his rights. And he did
have the right of it, too; but that didn't help him any. He lived on
the topmost gallery. Eight hall-men took the conceit out of him in
just about a minute and a half--for that was the length of time
required to travel along his gallery to the end and down five flights
of steel stairs. He travelled the whole distance on every portion of
his anatomy except his feet, and the eight hall-men were not idle. The
mulatto struck the pavement where I was standing watching it all. He
regained his feet and stood upright for a moment. In that moment he
threw his arms wide apart and omitted an awful scream of terror and
pain and heartbreak. At the same instant, as in a transformation
scene, the shreds of his stout prison clothes fell from him, leaving
him wholly naked and streaming blood from every portion of the surface
of his body. Then he collapsed in a heap, unconscious. He had learned
his lesson, and every convict within those walls who heard him scream
had learned a lesson. So had I learned mine. It is not a nice thing to
see a man's heart broken in a minute and a half.

The following will illustrate how we drummed up business in the graft
of passing the punk. A row of newcomers is installed in your cells.
You pass along before the bars with your punk. "Hey, Bo, give us a
light," some one calls to you. Now this is an advertisement that that
particular man has tobacco on him. You pass in the punk and go your
way. A little later you come back and lean up casually against the
bars. "Say, Bo, can you let us have a little tobacco?" is what you
say. If he is not wise to the game, the chances are that he solemnly
avers that he hasn't any more tobacco. All very well. You condole with
him and go your way. But you know that his punk will last him only the
rest of that day. Next day you come by, and he says again, "Hey, Bo,
give us a light." And you say, "You haven't any tobacco and you don't
need a light." And you don't give him any, either. Half an hour after,
or an hour or two or three hours, you will be passing by and the man
will call out to you in mild tones, "Come