Of the convictions obtained by the District Attorney in the Court of General Sessions, a small proportion of the convicted men have money to appeal to the higher courts, and the percentage of new trials granted is high. How much higher would it be if _all_ cases were appealed? In other words, think of the poor devils who are in State prison unjustly because of their lack of money. There is a remedy for this state of affairs. We have a legislature, a bar association, and a legal aid society. Among all these could not some arrangement be made for inspectors, to whom a man unjustly convicted could complain and receive assistance? Is there no relief or redress for the sufferers from the fourth degree, when even the third degree is forbidden by law? If the third degree is brutal, the fourth is hellish. Call the third illegal assault, and you must name the fourth murder illegally designed. By means of the fourth a gentleman can be hounded to death by his enemies. In the third degree a criminal has his ears boxed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _CHAPTER XIV_ _It’s Just Like Her (A Chronicle of the Tombs)_ The missionaries I have met! Mind, I am not speaking of the professional ones, those who are officially connected with the Tombs, or with Sing Sing prison; nor the chaplains. Years of experience have taught them their good work; they do it properly and without the aid of trumpets. Nor do I mean the ladies, who out of the goodness of their hearts, come and sing to us on Sundays. I am referring to those kind creatures who have made it their “life work” to come here _occasionally_ and bestow tracts and cheering words upon us; the kind that carry enormous Bibles, full of colored book marks, pressed against their flat chests, and who punctuate their sentences by rolling their eyes upward. These book marks, I am convinced, are what make them so round-shouldered. They do not come during all the year: with summer they receive calls, doubtless from a celestial source, to “green fields and pastures new”; while the real helpers stay and, with us, bear the heat and burden of the day. How I have been comforted by the visitations (on _clear_ days during the winter, and _how_ I have prayed for stormy ones) of these devoted and self-appointed examiners of my beliefs, and by a perusal of the literature they thrust upon me, “The Drunkard’s Home” (this to me, who have never tasted liquor in my life); “The Path to Hell” (when I am there already); “A Life of Sin” (I have always lived at home with my parents). Still another piece of literature informs me that I may possibly be a Christian, but _not_ a _clean one_—if I smoke. Oh, the irony of life! with all this abundant and excellent supply, I am not allowed, while in the Tombs, to shave myself!