Cella! You, Sweitzer! You, O. K. Bill! You, Tenny!" and "You!" to a score more of dependable men he cried, as they came along in double file, ordering them out of line to assist the inmate fire-department of twenty-three men, who themselves, as they reached the bottom of the stairs, bolted for the fire apparatus, although not one of them had ever fought a fire. The men thus suddenly called upon were serving sentences ranging from a few years to life, and included second- and even third-term prisoners, who, according to all theories of the old penology, should have taken advantage of the confusion a serious fire in a prison has always hitherto brought about to strike down their guards and escape. Less than four years ago, indeed, some of these same men were probably among the inmates of Sing Sing who set fire to the buildings in the prison yard.

The Mutual Welfare League of 1916, under command of their sergeant-at-arms, determinedly fought flame and smoke for a solid hour and a half, despite the fact that they were without previous experience in fires and were unprovided with helmets, masks, or any other defense equipment such as professional firemen consider indispensable to the performance of their duties. The fire fed upon manufactured goods from the prison shops awaiting shipment, such as knitted goods, clothing, and fiber mats, that not only produced intense heat, but dense smoke, and into which no man ventured far except at the risk of his life. It was finally brought under control and extinguished by relays of men who lay prostrate on the floor of the cellar in two or three inches of water, directing streams from their hose upon the flames, while their companions directed other streams over them to lessen the effect of the heat. The Sing Sing siren, which summons all guards off duty to the prison, was blown just after the fire was discovered, but if any others than prisoners ventured within the danger-zone until the flames were subdued the fact is not recorded. The guards, as they arrived, were put on duty about the grounds to prevent escapes, but not one attempt was

reported. Had the amateur fire-fighters. been less daring not only might the hospital and the dormitory in the building where the fire originated have been consumed, imperiling the lives of two hundred and fifty men, but the flames would have spread to the other prison buildings and destroyed the warden's house and the shops. It is no slight tribute to league discipline that the men in the hospital and dormitory over the flames. kept their places without a protest.

The conduct of the inmates of Sing Sing at this fire, according to Dr. O. F. Lewis, general secretary of the Prison Association of New York, a penologist of standing, marks the fourth of a series of episodes of vital significance in the history of penology, all occurring since the organization by Thomas Mott Osborne of the Mutual Welfare League in Auburn Prison in 1913 and in Sing Sing the following year. The first episode was the field games played in the prison inclosure at Auburn on the Fourth of July, when for the first time in the history of prisons the inmates were allowed to gather in the yard without the presence of keepers.

Hitherto the belief had been general among wardens and keepers that inmates of penal institutions, if removed from the direct surveillance of armed guards, would immediately revolt, and either turn and rend one another or attempt to escape at any cost of life or property. The theory of the old penologists being that a man convicted of crime became thereby a mere animal and generally a ferocious one, it was considered that Warden Rattigan ran a tremendous risk on that Fourth of July at Auburn. But the fourteen hundred unguarded prisoners conducted themselves just exactly as would any other fourteen hundred men in the same circumstances. Not the slightest disorder occurred. "History was made at Auburn Prison on Independence Day," wrote Dr. Lewis at the time.

The second episode was in Sing Sing on December 6, 1914, the first Sunday after Mr. Osborne took charge there as warden. Then, again for the first time in prison

history, the inmates of a penal institution met in convention, without their guards, and discussed with the warden changes suggested by themselves in the prison rules. This was considered by those familiar with the prisons of the State to be an even greater risk than the experiment at Auburn, since Sing Sing was the most turbulent of these institutions, partly because physical conditions make it impossible to keep the inmates decently comfortable a large part of the time, thus generating bad humor among them, and partly because it is the prison for a class of offenders who are more unruly and more easily incited to violence than men who have become accustomed to obey their keepers. Any intelligent penologist of the old school could have told Mr. Osborne that to permit a prisoner to have any say about the rules of his prison would not only produce comic-opera conditions within the walls, but would render discipline an impossibility. Yet the sixteen hundred inmates took over the government of the prison to themselves that afternoon with. every bit of the dignity and sense of responsibility that might have been manifested by any other body of men. For the first time in the history of Sing Sing not one infraction of the prison rules was reported for the twenty-four hours ending on the Monday morning following the assemblage of the inmates without their guards. Since that Sunday in 1914 the discipline in Sing Sing, under four different wardens, has been nearer perfect than during the previous eighty-five years of its existence.

The third episode of extraordinary significance in the series of four occurred in Sing Sing last summer, when on Sunday, July 16, also for the first time in the annals of penology, the inmates of a prison publicly celebrated a joyous occasion of their own. The event was the triumphant return as warden of Mr. Osborne, after a six-months' period of suspension from duty. On this occasion Warden Osborne was met by a procession of prisoners outside the prison grounds, and escorted through the gates to the interior yard, where he and

Professor George W. Kirchwey, who had acted as warden ad interim, were beneficiaries of the degree of doctor of humanity, conferred upon them by the University of Sing Sing, represented by a prisoner in scholar's garb. Warden Osborne's escort was headed by the prison band, and in his train there followed other prisoners in costume: the Mutual Welfare League judiciary, in wigs and gowns; prisoners in stripes of the last century marching in the old lockstep; prisoners carrying banners bearing jubilant legends; prisoners posed on flats emblematic of long-ago phases of prison life. Everything was conceived and carried out by the inmates. To this celebration came forty former prisoners, like college alumni to a commencement, and there were visitors of prominence, men and women from all over the State. There were two hours of speech-making by prisoners, officials, and visitors. More than two hundred prisoners, unattended by keepers, were outside the prison grounds on this particular Sunday, and there were almost as many visitors inside the yard as there were inmates of the institution, enough easily to have overpowered the guards and brought about a wholesale prison-delivery. Not an attempt at escape was made, however, nor an untoward act reported.

Another unique prison incident constitutes one of Mr. Osborne's most daring experiments to prove a sense of honor among the men of the prisons. One night in the spring of 1915 the delegates of the Mutual Welfare League had held an election in the prison court-room in Sing Sing, and the count was not finished until after one o'clock in the morning. Warden Osborne then invited the fifty-four delegates to his house, sent for his cook and butler, both convicts, and served sandwiches and coffee. The warden's house, which has no bars on windows or doors, is outside the prison walls; there was no guard within a hundred feet of it. The New York Central Railroad tracks are just under the windows on one side, and the public highway on the other. After their repast the prisoners, some of them

under life-sentences, went quietly to their cells. Had any of the men escaped or made the attempt to escape, Warden Osborne would have been an object of derision and the future of the Mutual Welfare League imperiled. He was as confident that they would not take advantage of his hospitality as he would have been in the instance of any others of his friends.

Two other incidents unprecedented in prison history that have occurred in Sing Sing under the Mutual Welfare League régime are matters of individual interest, and have nothing to do with the psychology of men in the mass. Twice during the first four months of last year the honor system of the league proved its strength under a supreme test-the voluntary return of an escaped prisoner, actuated solely by conscientious motives, each man believing that he was coming back to increased punishment. And in each instance the prisoner was one whom the old school of penologists would have declared to be hopelessly incorrigible. Peter Cullen, thirty years of age, who shook the dust of Sing Sing from his feet on April 20 and resumed it three weeks later, had been in durance two thirds of his life, following the prescribed course of the wayward boy of the New York slums, from the correctional institution in childhood through the House of Refuge and the Elmira Reformatory to a state prison, the five-year term he was serving for grand larceny being the second in the same institution. "Tough Tony" Mareno, aged thirty-two, who left Sing Sing in haste on January 1 and returned at leisure one day later, had pursued a similar course, and at the time of his escape was working out an indeterminate sentence of from twelve and one half to sixteen and one half years for highway robbery, having served more than eight years of his term in three prisons of the State, Auburn, Sing Sing, and Clinton.

It was because he believed that if he remained in prison he might never see Mr. Osborne again when that gentleman took leave of absence to fight the charges against him in December, 1915, being succeeded

temporarily by Professor George W. Kirchwey, that "Tough Tony" made his escape from Sing Sing, which was easy enough for him, as a trusty, to do. Tony was suffering from tuberculosis, and could not live long in the insalubrious atmosphere of the stone pile on the Hudson; and as Superintendent. of Prisons Riley had declared that Mr. Osborne would not be allowed to set foot in Sing Sing again, Tony decided to go forth into the world, trusting that before he died an opportunity might be afforded him once more to grasp the hand of his benefactor. How Tony's hiding-place among professional criminals in the underworld was found by his friends of the Mutual Welfare League; how they told him that they would not reveal his whereabouts to the police or make any effort to force him to return to Sing Sing, but that his escape had been a blow to Mr. Osborne, who wished him to give himself up, though he would in all probability be transferred for punishment to Clinton Prison, which the fugitive knew to be conducted on the brutal lines of the old penology and with the horrors of which he was acquainted; how his friends among the criminals who had taken him in and provided him with money for his escape, who knew of the league and Mr. Osborne only by hearsay, listened to the league's agents in silence, none interfering to prevent Tony's making good his obligation to the organization and its founder; how he went back alone to Sing Sing that night and turned himself over to Warden Kirchwey; how the warden received him like a lost son, and refused to send him to the punishment-cells-all this is matter of penal history, and has been published in penological journals of all civilized languages.

Cullen's offense in leaving Sing Sing before his time was up was aggravated by the fact that he was the Mutual Welfare League's sergeant-at-arms at the time. He was one of Warden Osborne's most ardent supporters, and he had seemed to be no less loyal to Warden Kirchwey. The prison officials have a suspicion that Cullen's escape may have been encouraged from the

outside, and that it is possible that an alcoholic beverage was smuggled into the prison, under the effect of which he forgot his oath of allegiance to the league. In any event, he took advantage of the privileges of his position as sergeant-atarms to go out from durance under cover of darkness and return to his old companions of the New York under-world. And now the marvel happened. Among his friends of other days Cullen was depressed and gloomy. When they congratulated him on the joyousness of freedom regained, he gave no sign of pleasure. His thoughts were continually on the league he had betrayed, and his conscience allowed him no peace of mind. Unlike Mareno, who during his two days' absence from Sing Sing was visited by fellowmembers of the league who urged his return, Cullen's associates knew of the honor system only by repute. More significant than anything else is the fact that, professional criminals though they were, they did not laugh when the escaped prisoner told them the reasons of his unrest. On the contrary, when he talked of giving himself up, these men encouraged the idea. And so it was that on a Sunday evening in May Cullen called upon Mr. Osborne, who during his temporary absence from Sing Sing was living at a hotel in New York, and poured out his remorseful soul to his friend. Of course Mr. Osborne's sympathetic advice to the fugitive was to go back to prison and "take his medicine," which was exactly what he was prepared to do, and did do.

An incident of "Tough Tony" Mareno's return to Sing Sing is related by Professor Kirchwey. When he had told. the warden why he had violated his pledge to the Mutual Welfare League and had recited his experiences during his twentyfour hours of liberty, Tony said:

"And now I go down to the punishment-cells."

"No, go to your bed in the dormitory," said Professor Kirchwey, for Tony, being a sick man, had been sleeping before his escape in the comparatively comfortable. dormitory instead of a cell.

"I am your dog friend for life," sobbed poor Tony, breaking down, for he had been dreading the night in one of Sing Sing's cold stone tombs for live men.

"No, no, Tony," expostulated the warden; "you are my man friend."

"Dog friend is an Italian word," Tony explained tearfully. "It means that no matter what you might ever do to injure me, I shall never harm you. I am dog friend to you all of my life, and of course to the boss."

"The boss" was Mr. Osborne.

Tony was pardoned soon after his runaway escapade because of increasing ill health. Peter Cullen is still serving out his sentence, with one or two years added thereto as punishment for his escape, which is what he knew would happen when of his own accord he went back to Sing Sing. Mr. Osborne considers the Cullen incident even more significant than the return of Mareno, in that Cullen fought the battle with his conscience and made his decision alone, whereas Tony was guided by his friends of the Mutual Welfare League in reaching his determination to do the right thing. And of more significance still, in the view of the apostle to the derelicts, was the action and sentiment of the criminal element by whom Cullen was surrounded during his absence illustrative of the changed attitude of the underworld to the man who wants to "go straight." Also indicative of a changed attitude of the powers of evil toward the powers of good is the declaration of a professional criminal to the Mutual Welfare Leaguers in search of Tony Mareno, that "there is not a crook in the United States that would not be glad of the chance to do a good turn for Thomas Mott Osborne."

In "The Outlook" of December 20, 1913, just at the time that the original league was being established in Auburn Prison, there appeared an article on Sing Sing by the present writer that contained the following paragraph:

The fact is that the prison edifice on the Hudson at Ossining is so many square feet of hell on earth. I am not exaggerating an

iota when I assert that a person who kept a dog in some of the cells occupied by human beings in Sing Sing would be punished for cruelty by any police magistrate, and that the man who would voluntarily endure the moral atmosphere of the prison is a more degraded beast than we have any record of in history or fiction. Here are cleanly prisoners contracting deadly and loathsome. diseases from unspeakable outcasts; here, known to keepers and guards, who are unable to interfere under existing conditions, men are committing unnatural crimes that, proved against them outside the prison, would send them there. There are scores of drug victims in the prison, the sale of morphine and cocaine being a traffic thus far impossible to prevent, with the result that the bestialities of half-demented inmates add to the horrors of this inferno. Last year one man in each 95 in Sing Sing went mad.

Exactly the same conditions existed one year later when Thomas Mott Osborne introduced the Mutual Welfare League into Sing Sing, abolished most of the old prison rules, including all that savored of the cruelty and brutality of the old penology, and began to make history. Results may be said to have been instantaneous. Although it was impossible to change physical conditions in the prison, the moral atmosphere began to improve with the advent of the new warden. Once the league elected officers, it was a comparatively simple thing to rid Sing Sing of whisky and drugs, because the saner men among the inmates were able to control the addicts. Dealing themselves with the trouble-makers in their own courts, the league found that deprivation of privileges among the delinquents among them proved effective in conserving discipline. The introduction of scholastic and industrial night classes, the establishment of the prison bank and the store where groceries and clothing might be had at cost, combined to wake the men up and keep them alive to actual conditions. Despite the continuous hostility, under two superintendents, of the state prison department,

which hampered and harassed Mr. Osborne at every point where official routine or other business brought him in contact with it; despite intrigue and treachery by foes without and foes within, there was uninterrupted progress toward a moral, mental, and material betterment of the prisoners of Sing Sing under the OsborneKirchwey-Derrick régime, and economic conditions were never better in the history of the institution.

The test of Mr. Osborne's success as warden of Sing Sing should lie with his conduct of the prison during his first administration, from the first of December, 1914, until the first of January, 1916, since his last administration, from the middle of July until the middle of October, 1916, did not last long enough to secure figures for purposes of comparison. Moreover, during this period escapes from Sing Sing were being promoted by Mr. Osborne's enemies outside the institution. The moral rehabilitation of a prison's inmates, the transformation of men who prey upon society into useful members of society, the changing of human liabilities. into human assets, being the chief end of the new penology, what Mr. Osborne accomplished in Sing Sing during his wardenship would be an invaluable service even if it had been effected at the expense of the State. In reality, the new warden brought about these results with economic gain to the State.

Before the introduction of the Mutual Welfare League into Sing Sing, fights among prisoners and attacks upon officers by prisoners were of so frequent occurrence that no record was kept of them except when a wound was severe enough to be treated in the hospital. Measuring the prevalence of fighting by the number of wounds treated by the prison physicians, the discipline under Warden Osborne was better by sixty-four per cent. than during the two years previous to his administration, which in their turn were the best two years in the history of Sing Sing. During the Osborne régime there was only one assault by a prisoner upon a keeper. The general betterment of conditions under