having to have a position before they let you out some skeeming had to be done. but anyway I got out in 13 months and I was just as bad off as I went in but I was supplied with a lot of the knowledge of crooks. With the $5 they gave me I started for New York. I got stranded in a town called Portchester and the next day me and another Down and out started to walk to white plains and it was there I begged my first meal and it cost me 6 months in jail. White plains is a wealthy town and that night I asked to sleep in the police station and in the morning they had the man of the house where I asked for something to eat in the office and they brought me out to have him identify me and then the judge says 6 months, never give me a chance to say a word. why, because it was Graft, they shipped me through 2 other counties to the Kings County, Pen. and them having a Jail of their own in there County. I then thought it was as cheap to steal because I was just as poor when I come out, and so I started in on a life of crime. I committed a few small acts around new York and raised a little money on the proceed, and so I started back toward Boston but I fell in New London, and had to wait 3 months for trial and then on account of my youth and me pleading guilty (which they could never have proved if I have been an Old timer) they let me off with a year in Gail. When I come out they gave me 3 dollars and says start a new life, well I went to boston again and I got work around horses at the race track and in the fall I lost my position through the horses being sent home and so again I started to ramble this time towards the west, but I got as far as Buffalo and being broke one evning I made a raid on a wholesale grocey and got about 15$ and a wheel. I spent the 15$ around the Tenderloin in about as many hours and then I tried to sell the wheel but the jew would only give me 2 Dollars and I wanted 5$ and a policeman happened to come along and he settled the proceedings by taking me to the station, and after waiting about 2 months for a trial the judge says 9 months, the reason I got such a small sentence was because I turned the trick off right in front of station No. 1 in Broad-day-light. Why as I got through the window after breaking it I looked out into the street and saw a half Dozen big policemen sitting on the steps right across the street and it made me laugh every once in a while. While in the Buffalo pen I swore I would quit stealing for a living and to this day I kept that promise which is about 8 years ago because it aint right and jails made me a thief. I come west working on stock ranches, race tracks, rail-road camps, logging camps and all kinds of general work. But there is one question I would like to ask you before I end this letter. Every once in a while I find myself broke and out of a job and forced to beg on the streets to get the necessitys of life, and so I must conclude by cutting this letter short as I have no more