“Chi Jimmy, eh? Pickpocket, eh? The rock crusher for you,” said the captain. “Maybe you’ll be ‘Chi’ a few fingers before you get out.” Which he probably would be. This was Murphy’s idea of a joke. The third chap got about the same deal, and was waved away. “To the crusher with him, too.” At that time prisoners were allowed, for economy, to keep the coats, vests, and hats they brought in with them, but were made to wear striped pants and shirts. As the last man turned away, Murphy saw he had a good hat. Calling him back he took it and threw it to his runner. “Here’s a hat for you, Shorty. If you can’t wear it give it to somebody else; it’s too good for the rock crusher.” He knew all about us before we were brought to his office, and had us out there only to “throw the fear” into us and get a line on us by the way we answered his questions. He made three enemies right there. He received all prisoners that way and if they got insolent under his badgering he had them thrown into the dungeon for thirty days “to cool off.” The dungeon was an empty cell with a solid door to darken it and contained nothing but a thin blanket, and a bucket strong with chloride of lime. In cases of this kind the captain signed the punishment order which included bread and water. Every third day the prisoner got a pan of beans. Most of them were so hungry they bolted the beans without stopping to chew them and a few dungeon sentences brought on stomach troubles that added to their misery. My eight-year sentence was considered a short one at Folsom. I found nine hundred prisoners there whose sentences averaged twelve years. They were all hopeless. The parole law was a dead letter, inoperative. Only at Christmas or on the Fourth of July did any one get a parole. The place was a seething volcano of hatred and suspicion. Dirty Dick had in the twenty years he was there developed a perfect stool-pigeon system. A visiting warden, surprised because there was no wall around Folsom, asked Murphy how he managed to keep the “cons” there. “That’s simple,” he said. “I’ve got one half of them watching the other half.” His system caused many murders and assaults and at last it climaxed in the bloodiest prison break in the history of California.