men spirit-broken by the jacket! I have seen them. And I have seen men
crippled for life by the jacket. I have seen men, strong men, men so
strong that their physical stamina resisted all attacks of prison
tuberculosis, after a prolonged bout with the jacket, their resistance
broken down, fade away, and die of tuberculosis within six months. There
was Slant-Eyed Wilson, with an unguessed weak heart of fear, who died in
the jacket within the first hour while the unconvinced inefficient of a
prison doctor looked on and smiled. And I have seen a man confess, after
half an hour in the jacket, truths and fictions that cost him years of
credits.

I had had my own experiences. At the present moment half a thousand
scars mark my body. They go to the scaffold with me. Did I live a
hundred years to come those same scars in the end would go to the grave
with me.

Perhaps, dear citizen who permits and pays his hang-dogs to lace the
jacket for you--perhaps you are unacquainted with the jacket. Let me
describe, it, so that you will understand the method by which I achieved
death in life, became a temporary master of time and space, and vaulted
the prison walls to rove among the stars.

Have you ever seen canvas tarpaulins or rubber blankets with brass
eyelets set in along the edges? Then imagine a piece of stout canvas,
some four and one-half feet in length, with large and heavy brass eyelets
running down both edges. The width of this canvas is never the full
girth of the human body it is to surround. The width is also
irregular--broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and
narrowest at the waist.