* * * * *
I collected from the living voices of my fellow prisoners innumerable
jail and cocaine songs, and rhymes of the criminal world. I wrote them
down on pieces of wrapping paper that the jailer occasionally covered
the food-basket with in lieu of newspaper.
"Oh, coco-Marie, and coco-Marai,
I'se gon' ta whiff cocaine 'twill I die.
Ho! (sniff) Ho! (sniff) baby, take a whiff of me!"
(The sniffing sound indicating the snuffing up into the nostril of the
"snow," or "happy dust," as it is called in the underworld.)
Then there was the song about lice:
"There's a lice in jail
As big as a rail;
When you lie down
They'll tickle your tail--
Hard times in jail, poor boy!..."
And another, more general:
"Along come the jailer
About 'leven o'clock,
Bunch o' keys in his right hand,
The jailhouse do'h was locked....
'Cheer up, you pris'ners,'
I heard that jailer say,
'You got to go to the cane-brakes
Foh ninety yeahs to stay!'"
As you can guess, most of these jail songs and ballads of the underworld
could only be printed in asterisks. I was hoping, in the interests of
folklore, to preserve them for some learned society's private printing
press.
* * * * *
A fresher green came to the stray branches of the trees that crossed our
barred windows.
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