were not of the best, for whatever his remarks, the "glassy eye" which he gave me was evidence sufficient that forgiveness on his part was not so complete as he would have me believe.
I was then manacled again and taken to the Alameda County jail, in Oakland, by Marshal Shine and a deputy, and upon arriving there, was placed in a cell, to which there was no opening whatever, except the small one in the door through which the meals were passed. The cell itself was so situated as to exclude all light, except that which came through the wicket, or opening mentioned.
Adjoining the one in which I was placed, were two other cells, making three in a row and immediately opposite were three more, the corridors serving for all six cells, with two prisoners to each one. As the top of the corridor was made of flat iron or steel bars, above which there was a skylight, and there was a window within a few feet of the bars at one end of the corridor, the corridor itself was amply supplied with light during the day, but this light, as a stated heretofore, could not penetrate into the cell rooms proper, so the prisoners were in almost total darkness between the hours of 7 and 9 o'clock in the evening, when miniature electric lights were turned on.
At the time of my incarceration in the Alameda County jail, there were ten men, besides myself, or eleven of us in all, occupying the six cells. Some were serving jail sentences, while others were being held as witnesses, but all were treated alike, being permitted to exercise in the corridor between 7 and 8 o'clock every morning and from five to six in the evening; also being given the freedom of the corridor for a time on Friday of each week for the purpose of cleaning up their cell rooms and scrubbing the corridor. They were likewise permitted to occupy the corridor during the religious services which were conducted by members of the Salvation Army. All the balance of time, the prisoners were confined to their cells, which, because of the darkness prevailing throughout the day, were veritable dungeons.
The prisoners were not permitted to see the daily newspapers, it being one of the strict rules that no literature whatever should be allowed in the place, except such as the members of the Salvation Army, or other religious denominations might care to leave with us. It was amusing, during the day, to note the faces of other prisoners pressed to similar openings across the way, in an effort to devour the contents of the religious tracts that had been given them. Personally, I was not in a mood to become converted at that particular time, nor can I understand how any one else could do so under such trying circumstances, as the light furnished us was hardly sufficient to permit a person to read the headlines, without considering the fine print. During the twelve days of my confinement in this jail, I never saw Sheriff Barnett nor did I see Jailer Pete White but twice, when I was delivered into his custody by the United States Marshal upon entering, and at the time of my leaving the place.
The head "trusty," who had charge of the cells attached to all corridors, there being four corridors in all, was, in my opinion, the most contemptible piece of humanity with whom I had ever come in contact, and it is beyond me to understand how a jailer, who is supposed to be a man of some intelligence, if not education, could permit or tolerate such conditions as existed under this man's brutal and domineering management of the affairs of that bastile. To think that, in a civilized country, such as we feel proud to term our own, a jailer would turn over the management of affairs to a petty larceny thief of this trusty's caliber; a thing devoid of all feeling, a degenerate in appearance, with a look of villainous treachery in his eye and the mark of depravity and morbidness engraved in every feature. If ever a man bore the mark of Cain, it was this sullen beast that strutted to and fro, showering abuse and profanity upon those whom he was pleased to call his charges, and whom he treated as one lost to all reason might be expected to regard a mongrel cur upon the street.
One of the so-called conveniences for the accommodation of this prison's inmates, is what was known as the "screen room," to which the prisoners were Page 287
