this is my first post here, so I apologize for anything in advance.

I am working on the translation of this story by Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", and in the very beginning he describes a fight which everyone around stops to watch. This is the full paragraph:

From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river's bank.

The problem is I simply cannot fathom what "a worm of yellow convicts" mean. Could anybody help me please?

I am working on the translation of this story by Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", and in the very beginning he describes a fight which everyone around stops to watch. This is the full paragraph:

From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river's bank.

The problem is I simply cannot fathom what "a worm of yellow convicts" mean. Could anybody help me please?

this is my first post here, so I apologize for anything in advance.

I am working on the translation of this story by Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", and in the very beginning he describes a fight which everyone around stops to watch. This is the full paragraph:

"From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river's bank."

The problem is I simply cannot fathom what "a worm of yellow convicts" mean. Could anybody help me please?

Thanks a lot,

Daniel

this is my first post here, so I apologize for anything in advance.

I am working on the translation of this story by Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", and in the very beginning he describes a fight which everyone around stops to watch. This is the full paragraph:

From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river's bank.

The problem is I simply cannot fathom what "a worm of yellow convicts" mean. Could anybody help me please?