Produced by MFR, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) SEVENTEEN YEARS IN THE UNDERWORLD BY WELLINGTON SCOTT INTRODUCTION BY LYNN HAROLD HOUGH [Illustration] THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1916, by WELLINGTON SCOTT CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION 5 I EARLY LIFE 11 II BEGINNING A CAREER 16 III PERSISTING IN MISDEEDS 21 IV EFFECTS OF GAMBLING 27 V THE REFORM SCHOOL 30 VI ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE 36 VII DISCIPLINE 41 VIII LIFE IN PRISON 47 IX PRISON EXPERIENCES 49 X CRIMINAL CLASSES 57 XI SOME TYPES OF CROOKS 61 XII MORALS IN THE UNDERWORLD 66 XIII SYSTEMATIC LAWLESSNESS 69 XIV BETRAYAL AND ARREST 74 XV PECULIARITIES OF “YEGGS” 79 XVI CONCERNING PRISON MANAGEMENT 83 XVII MISTAKES OF A CHAPLAIN 86 XVIII CONTRACT LABOR 89 XIX PARDONED 99 XX DIFFICULTIES OF THE EX-PRISONER 104 XXI REFORMATION 109 XXII COMPARISONS 112 XXIII A PLEA FOR DISCHARGED PRISONERS 117 INTRODUCTION The two of us were sitting in a large park in an Eastern city, one beautiful summer evening. As the rich afterglow of the sunset turned to twilight and then to dark, my friend began to talk about the old furtive days in the underworld. He told me how in many an American city he had stood before some house of an evening when the shades were not drawn. Within he would see the father and the mother, and the happy little children, and all the bright light of home. He would turn away abruptly and walk into the dark, trying to forget it. He could never have a home like that. Somehow there flashed upon me that night such an intimate sense of the tragic loneliness which a man can know in the underworld as I had never felt before.