hopeless
to expect any efficient measures to throw back the foul tide that is
polluting our shores.

Seldom as men of the criminal class once safe in America ever return to
England, yet they do now and then return. In the two or three cases that
came under my observation it was very much to their loss and grief, for
they only came back to undergo another term.

One day, in 1890, a man working in my party slipped a note into my hand
that had been given him for me in chapel that morning. As in similar
cases, I secreted the note, and when safe in my little room I read it.
The writer said he had lately come down from London, and was most
anxious to get into my party in order to have a chance to talk with me.
He said he had been living in Chicago and could give me all the news. He
ended the note by stating he was being murdered by hard work, and
implored me to try and get him into my party, where it was not so hard.
This I was most anxious to do, as in my party you could talk almost with
impunity. To have a man near me fresh and only a year before in Chicago
would be like a letter from home and also a newspaper. Therefore, I
determined to get Foster in my party if possible. At this time I had
been seventeen years a resident, and was, in fact, the oldest
inhabitant, and had some little influence in a quiet way. About eleven
years before I had been put in the party, and had a chance to learn
bricklaying, and having become an expert in the art was given charge of
the bricklaying. I was on the best of terms with our officer, so when, a
day or two later, one of our men was so fortunate (in the Chatham view
of it) as to meet with an accident and be admitted to that heaven, the
infirmary, I told my officer to ask for Foster to replace him. He did
so, and he, very much to his gratification, found himself by my side,
with a trowel instead of a shovel in his hand. We worked side by side,
Winter and Summer, storm and shine, for two years, and in spite of
myself I began soon to like the man. His chief and only virtues were
truthfulness and fair-mindedness toward his friends--rare and
incongruous virtues for a professional burglar; nevertheless, he
possessed them in a marked degree. This is a statement to make a cynic
smile, and is one of those cases where the result is justifiable; yet,
however the cynic may smile, there is plenty of all-around good faith in
the world, and there is no nation, race or color, no clique, religion
nor soc