The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-05

| UdCh dSdllI to Liic NIirbiSolpPl' IL iSJ
 were bound to get good way south oi
 Greenville, whefe the State convict camp was located, for unless they did il
 was a hundred to one chance they
 would be picked up by the police and
 sent out to the convict camp, perhaps Iifor years. Few professional trampS
 were, as matter of fact, caught in this way, for the freemasonry which exists among the brotherhood of the road kept
 them always posted and the most hard
 ened old bum never ventured near the
 forbidden territory.
 But it was the first time "Pennsyl-
 vania Dutch" and I had ever been
 South, and we had not happened tc
 meet any hobo who could put us wise z
 Therefore, we kept right on to the south
 in a box car, and at Water Valley, a
 big "bull' poked his head into the car
 dor and ordered us out. We came and
 he carried us off to the town lookup
 where we were put into cell With
 three other men, One of those men had
 just been recaptured after escaping
 from the convict camp. and he told us what was in store for us. After our ex- periences in West Virginia we had no
 wish to get into the clutches of any
 more human hyenas, but there seemed
 to be nothing to do about it.
 | Next mornig Dutch" and were talk en before the justice of the peace. We were charged with being vagrants and without wasting time the magistrate sentenced us to pay fine of s75 each.
 As we wereb oth broke, it made no diff ference what figure he fixed, we were equally helpless.
 If you haven't the money he said,
 "I'll send you down to the convict farm at Greenvile. You can work out the fine there at 50 cents a day"
 I was only boy then, is years old,
 and thin and small for my age Dutch"
 was not much larger or older. I had
 been on the road long enough to know how to put up good game of talk,
 and I proceeded to do 1t. I started in by saying that my father was rich
 man in Philadelphia, and would be glad
 to pay all the expenses if they would let him know, and that it would break my mothers heart to have her little
 Willie locked up in jail or sent out to the convict camps. That I and my lit | tie playmate Dutch had run away from home, and were going down to spend the winter with my aunt and un
 cle in New Orleans, and that I was suf- fering from consumption, and was so weak Dutch had to carry me most of the way. Finally I broke down and wept In those days I could give any
 emotional actress on the stage run
 ming start and beat her to death onNthe weeping game. I wept the treble, and Dutch" came in with a few bass sobs at appropriate intervals. The justice of the peace looked at us as if he didn't know what to make of it. Beside hirn stood a big man with long black mus tache and a pair of mean black eyes, who seemed to be experimenting the whole job He and the justice held a little consultation togette CT, and then the judge cleared his throat and spoke.
 "If you boys will agree to clear out of town within fifteen minutes and stay out I'll let you go"
 We fled. Afterward we learned that the big man with the black mustache was the manager of the convict camp on the lookout for new slaves and we learned also how it happened that
 butCI anu llbu tScd Dto Wldt Wets III store for us It may have been that the fact that we were both thin and weak had something to do with our getting away, because we didn't look as though we could have done much work, but that was not the main reason.
 We had happened along just after one of the most sensational events which ever disturbed the convict camp, and to that accident our safety was chiefly due.
 The convict camp at Greenville was at that time managed on somewhat the same plan as the lumber camp from which we had recently escaped. Only | it was much worse. Instead of pre- tending to pay dollar a day as they did in West Virginia, the rate fixed was but 50 cents. And most of the men were either convicts leased from the State or casual vagrants picked up at l Greenville or the neighboring towns | and sent over to the camp to work out | their fines.
 The police and the magistrate in that | neck of the woods were by no means | careful at that time about the identity !, of the men they arrested as vagrants. | It was common talk that hundreds of | workmen who were actually looking for l work were picked up as they passed | through that section of Mississippi and f sent to the convict camp. As I have said, experienced tramps are the whole wide berth
 At the convict camp there was a store where almost everything was sold | at prices thousand per cent. over their value in the market. Worse than that, there was a saloon, where all kinds of | drinks could be bought, and which the men in the convict camp were encour- aged to patronize, evry drink being charged up to them at tremendous fig- Ire.
 Men who were sent out to the camp with asentence of a, hundred or more lays ahead of them were almost certain 0 grow desperate and attempt to lrown their sorrows at the ealoon That. )f course, kept them at the camp until hey had worked out their drink bill. md, as a result, it was common talk hat many men, originally sent out for ;ix months, were kept in the camp for years, with never hope of getting way.
 rl~. ,1,v, 1J1.