Show I Scenes and Incidents of the Municipal Guard House I r DAY IN THE CITY JAIL Its Inmates and Their Daily Monotonous Round I How would you like to be a guest at the city Jail for a day That rotten old shack standing behind be-hind the old city hall thutM the place Stroll In from First South street and ho careful you do go that way In past the lolling llrcmcn In under Judge Dlehln hall of Justice further along the corridor past police headquarters where Is the serge IIH privates the lire gongs climb and past another doorthe Pollee Chiefs office Before you Is a doorway through which Is the way to the Jail ynrd and the Jail A Chinaman In the second story looks out stolidly Ah Wong should be 10 Jolclng Maybe he IH He should know that his color and qucu have made him it trusty have relegated him from the rest of the lads In the chaingang which made up at dnwn and rode along up the hill to toll on the fashionable roadways All Wong all la not unfair toward the Mongol after oil in Uncle Sams land Otherwise you would be spending spend-ing the day onr of the thirty you owe the cltrIn swinging UK great American Ameri-can anchor or the inland He sits then at the window always looking out He has cleaned up about his bed has had his breakfast of coffee and bread What Intcrcntrt him Wonder Won-der If he Is counting the day and hours since last Friday when he wan sentenced I sen-tenced for keeping an opium Joint His face looks better than on that occasion There Is more of the human in it Straight ncrosr from where he ails IH the second story of the old city hall A preliminary trial for murder Is beginning be-ginning Ah Wong teems not to care Who can tell that his vision Is even directed that way Those eyes are not Caucasians Perhaps he may he seeIng see-Ing around tlC corner toward his old rendezvous In Plum alloy A sound several l sounds distract the onlookers from Ah Skip a window and the eye sees a young woman sitting behind a grated aperture singing When Ethic sees eyes of outsiders gating her voice swells in volume Tho casunl person wonders why she docs that the sociologist mentally places himself In the girls position with her capacity and feels It natural that when cooped up one would wish to cause some interest in-terest to the world at liberty None with a wellbalanced mind woud attempt to romance over this girl prisoner See the good in her first by all means smile at her attempts at Joy In her unguilded dreary Illsmell ing cage Find fault with heredity In I lack of opportunity in many matters that would excuse her and yet the police po-lice records show that the reformation of a girl like this one at the window with her few chances and her handicaps l handi-caps Is I on the verge almost of the impossible Im-possible The night police who have cleared the pave for many years will tell you that o such a girl long ago wronged by man when free Is the chief factor In causing caus-ing the downfall of brother men Lets take another look at her this girl of 19 or so Her face shows a natural brightness she Js restless agile lookIng look-ing sitting there on the sill She would talk to some oneseems nil animation All that she can see if she turns from the window grating are the four walls of her ccllroom the two cots for herself her-self and that slothfullooking dozing older woman Looking through the wlndows grating she can ecu the dingy gray yard the rear of the police station sta-tion the witnesses gathering upstairs for the murder trial and farther away to the north and to the west the Indian summers morning sunshine blazing over the city and away Into the hills beyond Anywhere her vision reaches outside there is multiplied brightness I everywhere other than where her body Is confined She notices across the way one of the young girl witnesses enterIng enter-Ing the corutroom to testify In the roadhouse case and she turns to the woman on the cot with the remark Another girl going to hI 1 Across the arenway nit I an attorney and a politician men of some ordinary note In city affairs At the most they allow a halfBmllc to form on their lips for they are court habitues and UfO no more thoughtful than average men of their callings This young creature behind her bars opposite Is jdmply of no special Interest to them that la I nil Here thrlr places arc taken ta-ken by two men of lower mental caliber cali-ber curiously I morbid on tin golnpaon Inside They look ncropH nt the girl who has finished Old Kentucky Home from the cheap songbook and starts Sunny Tennessee To these men but for something there would probably come a tinge of manly sympathy sym-pathy maybe there docs come some such fouling Who knows Still they arc men of no great mental command and the girl across the way has had practically no control since the time long ago she came to the conclusion that a Rood man was a myth Result across the area there Is only an Idiotic uncertain animallike flirtation The jailer la waiting to show us In A door nt the right opens Into the drunkroom Enough to say that throttler of booze could he but secure a whlfC of this true prison smell mixed an It Is with the lingering breaths of late lodgers would renounce overindulgence overIn-dulgence forever Now wo go out and upstairs through the main entrance Jineslng the bunch of sick cells where light comes not Ah Wong Is I upstairs there by the grating grat-ing Wonders of improvement are noted In his uncomely countenance Separation from the opium seems to be accomplishing wonders for him Oddly enough he presents no evidence of the craving which must be within him In the first few days All about Is a sickening aroma The Jailer says It I IH I only the prison smell which cannot be ridden from a jail especially es-pecially from one so old A couple of young fellows come forward to meet us In the corridors Trusties these are termed Somewhat less desirable is their lot than that of the other men Inside those cells beyond that heavy Iron door When gates are placed ajar silent somber men arise from the bunks Anything or any person to look upon IH welcome to break up thfe monotony of twentyfour hours after twentyfour hours spent under the same roof behind be-hind the same gratings of Iron The I visitor wonders ns to the average sentence sen-tence of u man in this dreary place The turnkey says ten fifteen days Of I course there aru nluch longer sentences I I tences Moat of the prisoners the more able bodied onesarc out on the chaingang One fellow had been taken sick the day before He now convalescent says ln has nothing to complain of other than that the Jail is subject to the things that crawl In the night that seem possessed pos-sessed of a thousand legs and stick closer cnan a brother When he goes out with the gang In the morning he gets his tobacco for chewing His was a thirtyday sentence live will be taI ken ta-I off for behavior ho has done Jive so but twenty remains remain-s Out we go across the corridor to the womens section A narrow passage separates tho rows of rooms as In a cheap roominghouse In u seaport town Except for the barred gate we passed through and the grated windows and something else one would not know this to be a jail Something else Is that look on the inmates such as would make any ordinary ordi-nary man feel an almost Infinite pity I rise up in his heart There are five women In the room on the l left a woman lounges The visitor I notices her not so much as the girl stanc mig on the floor broom In hand swe < pin > O Inn I-nn over again the board floor She is neither pious pretty nor clever Still she Is Interesting its a study attemptIng attempt-Ing a personal cleanliness under such II conditions The other woman docs not arise In the corridor lIlts about the wreck of a once woman a present morphine mor-phine lend awful In her 1 emaciation She Is talking talking constantly She rails with fretful voice against the woman wo-man who dozes The others seem not to be aware that the deranged one Is about Not a word Is uttered other than the multerlngs of the halfmad one The noon whistles In the town are Joyous signals Then for a half hour every prisoner Is released from his cell and allowed to walk downstairs to tho room where the coarse midday meal Is served on wooden benches the women at a place by themselves The afternoon passes with the same lack of excitement until close to twilight twi-light when the men come home from IS t 5 f C r First Tramp When I seen you last Saturday you wuz halfdrunk Second Tramp Well Saturdays a halfholiday an I got half a load on work Tills means the return of the chaingang In a wagon from the hlllx They go to their cells to await supper tune some of them gloomily enough Working for a dead horse says one a skilled mechanic Who has been shoveling all dny minus pay makes nv feel ao poor as a snake he says to a comrade who would rally him with a quip Presently night fallsnnd silence W H FJ2I3NJ3Y |