_Die Ferne_, everything in fact that I had ever really cared for, seemed irretrievably lost. Yet no tears came to my eyes, and I walked into the miserable "hall" of the jail, said "Hello!" to the other prisoners, as if such a place and companions were what I had always been accustomed to. This ability, if I may call it such, to get along with almost everybody, and for a reasonable amount of time to put up with practically any kind of accommodations has been of great service to me. I notice, however, that in later years "home comforts" are becoming more and more a necessity. My constitution seems to demand a _quid pro quo_--and wants fair treatment after patiently enduring so many hard knocks. This first _real_ imprisonment and the jail deserve a minute description. A number of years ago I contributed to _The Forum_ an article, entitled "The Criminal in the Open." The main thesis supported in this paper was that criminologists had previously been studying the criminal within too narrow bounds--the prison cell; and that to know their man well they must make his acquaintance when free and natural. In general, I still hold to this belief; but on looking back to that first jail experience of mine I am more than ever convinced that as a people, a practical people, too, we are woefully neglecting our duty in continuing the present county jail system with all its accompanying evils; and that it is most distinctly "up to" both criminologist and penalogist to work for radical changes in the present system. My own experience in that old jail to which I was committed, to wait for trial, is typical of what happens to the average prisoner in most of our jails. The jail building was uncommonly old, but the rules applying therein were about the same that one finds in all _country_ jails; in cities the rules are more severe and exacting.