Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/243

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“and send them in one by one.” And Mickey began to sort his witnesses. As the Judge left the room, he heard Mickey say, with a shove, “You get back there, Skinny, you’ve only been in five or six times. Fatty Felix has been in twenty-three times and ——”

Mickey led in his witnesses, one by one, Fatty Felix, Teddy Healy, Teddy Mack, and the rest, till the Governor and the ministers cried “enough!”

Those boys told what was what. They told of lessons in crime by older criminals; stories they had heard there of injustices by judges and of cruelties by the police. They showed up the world as the criminals see it and as those criminals showed it to the boys. And they also related scenes of vice and foulness too revolting to repeat. And those boys made that company of grown-ups believe them, too. Once or twice the police representative interrupted, but, as the Judge says, “Teddy Healy’s answer, direct, awful, and yet innocently delivered, made the matter ten times worse.” The officials dropped all thought of cross-examination. Once a minis- ter asked Mickey about the visits of the clergy to the jail.

“Never saw one,” said Mickey. Then he remembered. Oh, yes, seen the Salvation Army