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HELPING A CONVICT

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 3.

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HELPING A CONVICT.

The Domestic Journal tells a story which shows that one convict, who doubtless represents many others in the aggregate, is anxious to reform, and would lead a respectable life if helped in the beginning. Humanity is suspicious, and man in general will not trust or employ the one who has served a sentence for crime, and as a result they soon fall back into crime to make a living. The late Henry Raymond, so long editor of the New York Times, once helped a convict on the way to respectability by loaning him ten dollars.
One day, while busy in his office, there appeared to him a man, saying, “Is this Mr. Raymond?” Being assured of this, he continued:—
“Can I speak to you a few minutes, sir?” The MSS. were shoved aside.
“I have just come from Sing Sing,” hesitated the man.
“Not from the prison, I hope,” said the editor, by way of putting the caller at ease with a joke.
“Yes, sir,” said the visitor. “I got my discharge a few days ago.”
“Well, my man, I hope you were innocent.”
“No, sir,” replied the convict, “I was guilty. You see, sir, I am an engineer and machinist by trade; I want to lead an honest life, and when I got a place to work all went well, until some kind friend came along and told my boss that I was a prison bird, and I had to be out of that. Then I got another place and got well to work, and the same thing happened. Now I am looking for another job, and I am going to begin by telling what I am, and when I get anything to do, I shan’t lose it in the same way.”
“How much is it, my man?” said Mr. Raymond.
“Well, sir,” replied the man, “I haven’t got the price of one dinner with me now, and I don’t know where I am to sleep to-night. I think if I had ten dollars I could get along until I found somebody to take me for what I am worth, and give me some honest work to do. I don’t want to go down-hill, sir.”
The ten dollars closed the conversation on the instant. Perhaps a year afterwards, Mr. Raymond was at a fair of the American Institute, and while looking at some machinery on exhibition, a decent man in charge of it approached him and said, “Is this Mr. Raymond?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I don’t remember you.”
“Don’t you remember the man from Sing Sing?”
“No,” said Mr. Raymond, “I don’t remember any man from Sing Sing.”
“Why,” said the man from Sing Sing, “don’t you recollect?” and then he rehearsed the story recorded here.
He had subsisted on Mr. Raymond’s loan until he found employment in his own line with a good man who knew his story and was well pleased with him, giving him good wages and steady work in a place of honorable trust and responsibility.
Taking a bank-note from his pocket, the engineer repaid the borrowed money, saying he had carried it for some months without finding an opportunity to leave his work and come to town for the purpose.
“It’s a good ten dollars, Mr. Raymond, for it’s the cost of saving me from ruin.”
When he told the story afterwards, Mr. Raymond said it was cheap, and he said he had charged all his other loans to the account of the engineer and balanced it.