He said that if I could spare two
months for the visit it would be better to come disguised, but that it
would certainly take as long as that to get into the game. "You know we're
awful suspicious," he added, by way of explanation; "and we don't open up
to any new fellow until we know he's on the level." He maintained
therefore that, having only a week, I had much better make no secret of
it, but come in my own person. His view was confirmed by the event. I not
only learned far more than if I had been unknown, but I so gained the
confidence of the prisoners that many of them have become my devoted and
valued friends.

The account in the following chapters of my week in Auburn Prison is taken
from the pages of a journal I kept during my confinement. In that I jotted
down, day by day, every incident no matter how trivial it seemed at the
time; so that I possess a very complete record of my week in prison.

As I have transcribed the pages of the diary I have lived over again every
moment of that remarkably vivid experience, finding that almost every act,
every word, every detail, is fairly burned into my memory. I have scarcely
needed the pages of the journal, nor the long account of our week together
which my working partner in the basket shop, Jack Murphy, wrote out at my
request.

I shall not attempt to draw up any bill of indictment against the Prison
System, or to suggest specific improvements, either in general principles
or administrative details; I shall simply set down the facts and my
feelings as accurately as I can.

One final word by way of introduction. Many newspapers, presumably
reflecting the impressions of a considerable number of individuals, have
expressed the idea that nothing of value could possibly have been obtained
because I was not a real convict; although the same newspapers would
probably be the first to discredit any statements a real convict might
make. Foreseeing such criticism, I had tried to forestall it in the
remarks I addressed to the prisoners the day before my experiment began;
and if some of my editorial critics had taken the trouble to read their
own press dispatches, they might have been saved some distress of mind. No
one could have understood better than I did at the outset, that it is
impossible to place yourself exactly in the shoes of a man who has been
sentenced to prison for an actual crime; I did not expect to do so. No
one, so far as I know, has ever yet succeeded in putt