The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-08-11
SINCLAIR ON
HIS DAY IN JAIL
He Didn't Eat, Sleep or Drink
For Eighteen Hours.
WORKED ON THE STONE PILE.
Author Was Imprisoned For Playing
Tennis on Sunday, Thereby Break
ing the Delaware Laws-Experience
Suggested a Poem--His Comments,

Upton Sinclair, the author, who serv-
ed a Jail sentence of eighteen hours
ware by playing a game of tennis on
Sunday, did not eat or drink during
his incarceration. During the day he
worked on the prison stone pile along
with forty other prisoners, white and
black, and at night lay on the stone
floor of the steel cell without a blan-
ket. He declared the food was too vile
to touch and that he was afraid of the
water.
He did not close his eyes throughout
the night. Instead the surroundings
of the place and the meanings of many
Of the 337 convicts inspired him to
compose a poem. This he did mental
ly. Subsequently between loads of
stone that he dumped from a wheel
barrow into a stone crusher he wrote
it out line at time. The lines are ap-
propriate to the night in Jail and are
entitled "The Menagerie" The pres
ence of unwelcome visitors in the cell
that Sinclair occupied suggested the
circus-like name. The poem reads:
THE MENAGERIE.
Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the
realm;
Come from your couches soft, your per-
fumed halls;
Come watch with me throughout tho
weary hours.
Here are there sounds to fill your jaded
nerves,
Such as the cave men, your forefathers,
heard
Crouching in forests OF primeval night.
Here, tier on tier. in steel barred cages
pent,
The beasts ye breed and hunt throughout
the world.
Hark to that snore-some beast that slum-
bers deep.
Hark to that roar-some beast that dreams
of blood.
Hark to that moan-some beast that
wakes and weeps
And there in sudden stiffness bark the
sound
Some beast that rasps his vermin haunted
hide.
Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the
realm
Come. keep the watch with me; the show
is yours.
Behold the source of all our Joy and
pride,
These beasts ye harness fast and set to
draw
The chariots of your pageantry and pomp.
Called 1t a Lark.
at was nothing more than a lark"
Sinclair said. ''The experience was
one of the most interesting / have
ever had. 1 will write about it." The
author laughed when he narrated his
work in the prison quarry. 81 wheel
ed 100 wheelbarrows of stone to the
crusher, worked seven hours, wore the
regulation Jail garb and had two
baths"
Sinclair lost three pounds while in
Jail. 'This," he explained, twas due
to the fasting"
A number of times while talking
with newspaper men he declared:
"And this for playing tennis on Sun
day. 1t makes me feel like blowing
up some one with a bomb" He did
not say who that 'some one" might
be.
The principal comment that the au-
thor had to make was on conditions
at the workhouse. He continued: ''Oh,
those bestial faces! / never saw such
parade in my life. We were forced
to march to the eating room with our
hands folded and to eat in silence. l
did not eat. The workhouse has a
sweatshop that beats any in New
York a mile. The convicts never get
out of doors, never see the sky. Their
faces are covered with boils, and there
are all kinds of evidences of tubercu-
losis. 1t makes a man realize what
the world really is.
81 am the picture of health, but l do
not think 1 could live in that Jail two
months. 1t is absolutely impossible
to ventilate the cells, and the convicts
suffer as a result"