So—in telling of my life, as I see it—my narrative must break up into fragments. Unartistic as such a form may be, it seems to me the only one possible for autobiography. Incidents must be given, which, however unrelated they appear, seem to me to have been caught by the great lens and to have formed an integral part of the focal point, which sits here—trying to describe itself. *II* For some years I have been continually writing on the subject of criminology. I could not give, here in this narrative, a complete picture of the Tombs and its people, nor show in orderly sequence how one incident after another forced me into a definite attitude towards our penal system, without repeating what I have published elsewhere. But the atmosphere in which I have spent my working life has so definitely influenced me, has been so important a force in my experiment in ethics, that I must give it some space. I must try, at least, to give some illuminating examples of the sort of thing which did influence me and a brief statement of the attitude which has resulted from my work, for without this background the rest of my story would be meaningless. At first I found myself the object of universal hostility. The Tombs was a feudal domain of Tammany Hall. I was regarded as an enemy. The "spoils system" had given place to the evils of civil service. Municipal employees could not be displaced unless "charges" had been proven against them. The people of the Tombs did not worry much about the reform administration. They regarded it as an interruption in the even tenor of their ways, which happily would not last long. They were used to such moral spasms on the part of the electorate and knew how little they were worth. Some of the "Reform" officials tried earnestly to clean up their departments. Their efforts were defeated by unruly subordinates, men trained by and loyal to the machine. The way things went in the Tombs was typical. Brace had a conference with the new commissioner of correction and as a result some "Instructions for the guidance of prison keepers" were pasted up on the walls. But district attorneys change with every election, while the warden—protected by civil service—goes on forever. The sale of "dope" to the prisoners, forbidden by the "instructions" in capital letters, was not interrupted for a day. Within a week the screws had forgotten to make jokes about it.