New York City's Tombs Prison

“ The streets swarm with the children of the tenements, which line them with towering piles of unclean brick and mortar; and the pedestrians who navigate them, and who hang about the outside of the prison, as if held there by a spell and only awaiting their turn to pass within its walls, are for the most part of that skulking, evil class which knows the interior of the jail quite as well as its outer barriers, and the ways which lead to its frowning gate. For many years the passenger traffic of the New York Central Railroad was embarked at a depot occupying the block above the Tombs. ”

“ In answer to a question addressed to him concerning the character of those under his charge, the overseer remarked in a tone of much self-complacency:
'I have now in this shop a convict who is the most diabolical villain that ever was confined in this prison. He is called the Dead Man, from the fact that his countenance resembles that of a dead person. He was sentenced here for life, for a murder, but contrived to escape about a year ago. ”

“ This man's eyes alone were visible, and they glared with a fiend-like malignity upon the young gentleman; turning away, he muttered a deep curse, and a momentary disarrangement of the cloak which hid his face, revealed the horrible lineaments of the DEAD MAN!
CHAPTER XII Showing how the Dead Man escaped from the State Prison at Sing Sing.
The New York State Prison is situated at Sing Sing, a village on the banks of the Hudson river, a few miles above the city. Being built in the strongest manner, it is deemed almost an impossibility for a prisoner to effect his escape from its massive walls. ”

“ When an old building that had been used as a prison near the City Hall was torn down a few years ago to make way for the Subway Station of the Brooklyn Bridge, a great number of skeletons were found in its cellars. That these men starved to death or came to their end by violence cannot be doubted. New York, at the time of the Revolution, extended to about three-quarters of a mile from the Battery, its suburbs lying around what is now Fulton Street. ”

“ No metropolitan city of the United States has yet succeeded in constructing a satisfactory jail for the detention of prisoners awaiting trial. The New York City “Tombs” is a gloomy pile, properly described by its name. The ancient Charles Street Jail of Boston has recently been reconstructed at a very large expense, but does not meet the needs of the present day.
The county jail ought to be the most reformatory institution in the land. It receives offenders at the beginning of their careers, before they have become hardened and confirmed criminals. ”

“ It is a unique place, a Devil's Antechamber, where almost anything except what is decent and orderly may happen. It is not so much a prison or penitentiary as a human pound, where every variety of waif and stray turns up and sojourns for a while; murderers, pickpockets, political scapegoats, confidence men, old professionals, first-time offenders, even suspects afterwards to be proved innocent. There is nothing that I know of to prevent thorough-going convicts from getting in here permanently; the Tombs is of catholic hospitality. ”

“ But I will not question the divine justice of the Almighty; the guilty may elude the punishment due their crimes, in this world, but vengeance will overtake them in the next. It shall, however, henceforth be the great object of my life, to bring one stupendous miscreant to the bar of human justice—the Dead Man whose escape from the State Prison was followed by his outrage upon Clinton Romaine, by which the poor boy was forever deprived of the faculty of speech; and 'tis my firm belief that 'twas by his accursed hand my aunt was murdered ”

“ The further extremity of the place was involved in a profound darkness which could not be dissipated by feeble rays of the lamp.
'Here,' said the Dead Man, addressing his prisoner—'you will be kept in confinement for the rest of your life—a confinement varied only by different modes of torture which I shall apply to you, from time to time. This dungeon is called the Chamber of Death—for what reason you will ere long find out. It is built directly under the sewers of the city, which accounts for the liquid filth that oozes through the ceiling. ”

“ But oh, horrible! unconscious that there was a man in the box, they stood it upon one end, and the Dead Man was left standing upon his head. The next moment the cart was driven rapidly over the rough pavement, towards the warehouse.
There were but two alternatives left for him—either to endure the torments of that unnatural position until the box was taken from the cart, or to cry out for some one to rescue him, in which case, clothed as he was in the garb of the prison, he would be immediately recognized as an escaped convict, and sent back to his old quarters. ”

“ During the Revolutionary War, New-York became literally a city of prisons. The pews of the North Dutch Church in William street were used for fuel, and eight hundred American prisoners were incarcerated within its old walls, without fuel or bedding, and here many died from cold and starvation. The 'Brick Meeting,' in Beekman street, was also used at first for a prison, and afterward changed into an hospital. The Rose-street Friends' Meeting-house and the Wall-street Presbyterian church became hospitals also, and Du Saint-Esprit was made a dépôt for military stores. ”

“ Think of me in the halls of mirth and pleasure, for I shall be at your elbow. In the lonely forest, on the boundless sea, in far distant lands, I shall be ever near you, to tempt, to torture, and to drive you mad! From this hour you are blasted by my eternal curse!'
Half an hour afterwards, the Dead Man and Davis the butler were inmates of the 'Egyptian Tombs.' [Pg 44]
CHAPTER VIII The Subterranean Cellar—Capture and Imprisonment of the Black—the Outcast Wife—The Villain Husband—the Murder and Arrest. ”

“ There had been a suburban cemetery outside the old wall, which was brought within city limits by the new wall, and served as the burial-ground of the prisoners who died in the Bastille. It did not so serve, as is commonly asserted, for the skeletons found in chains in the cells, when the prison was opened by righteous violence, because no such skeletons were found. "The Man in the Iron Mask" was buried in this ground, close alongside the grave of Rabelais, dug exactly one hundred and fifty years earlier. Pass through the two courts that lie in the rear of No. ”

“ Few are they who leave this place free, who do not return hither to be more severely punished, or to die. The Old Brewery furnishes unceasing food for the Tombs.
Before the door of the prison, in the interior court, sat a fine gentleman in a comfortable arm-chair, as keeper or orderly of the prison, with diamond rings on his fingers and a diamond breast-pin in his shirt. Whether they were genuine I cannot say, they looked, however, as though they were; but that the man himself was not of genuine human worth was not difficult to see, neither that he was out of his place here. ”

“ Twelve thousand suffered death by their inhuman, cruel, savage, and barbarous usage on board the filthy and malignant prison ships—adding those who died and were poisoned in the infected prisons in the city a much larger number would be necessary to include all those who suffered by command of British Generals in New York. The scenes enacted in these prisons almost exceed belief. * * * Cunningham, the like of whom, for unpitying, relentless cruelty, the world has not produced, * * * thirsted for blood, and took an eager delight in murder. ”

“ Most offenders can be restored to a normal life and good citizenship after they have finished a term under proper treatment, and criminal judges in New York city tell us that fewer men come before them for a second time since we have adopted the present methods.
“It is the aim of the prison to turn the men into citizens with an understanding. They are allowed many liberties, and are made to take an active part in community life in prison. They have their own social organization, a system of self-government, including even a charitable society. ”

“ Keepers and inmates alike lose half their humanity by confinement in these grim and forbidding structures. No reforming influence however humane and generous, can long survive in their atmosphere.
Public opinion is at last moving away from this antiquated type of prison architecture to the newer type represented in the honor prison at New Hampton Farms in New York and in our Commonwealth in the cottage colonies at Sleighton Farms, Glen Mills, Morganza, and Muncy. ”

“ The tendency is to treat a body of transients with a stricter set of regulations. Just how far the principles of “The New Penology” have entered the precincts of Philadelphia County Prison, we are not prepared to discuss. There is a medium ground in all things and in prison management, probably the safest plan is to take the middle course. Compared with the “Tombs,” the New York County prison for those detained for trial, the prison at Moyamensing compares very favorably. ”

“ It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when I entered the dark cell. During the next three hours, as I sat on the floor close to the door of my iron cage, our talk covered a wide range of topics from grave to gay. We touched upon almost every subject, from prison fare and the ethics of the jail to the comparative merits of various trans-Atlantic liners. We discussed politics—New York City, state and national; Prison Reform, from various angles; the character and conduct of celebrities we had seen or known—both in and out of prison ”

“ The disparity between England and this city, is yearly becoming greater. While crime is increasing there slightly, it is here increasing with fearful rapidity. The whole number of convictions for murder in England in 1846, was 13; the whole number of arrests in New York for murder for the nine months preceding May 1, 1846, was 10. ”

“ Her guide led the way and ushered her into an elevator, which, at a signal, started slowly upwards.
The cells in the Tombs are arranged in rows in the form of an ellipse in the centre of each of the six floors. There is room to accommodate nine hundred prisoners of both sexes. The men are confined in the new prison; the women, fewer in number, in what remains of the old building. Only the centre of each floor being taken up with the rows of narrow cells, there remains a broad corridor, running all the way round and flanked on the right by high walls with small barred windows. ”

“ New York City has established a reformatory farm of 630 acres at New Hampton, N. Y., to which boys and men from sixteen to thirty years of age are committed. They have no bars, no wall, no restraining thing, except supervision. They have no cell for punishment. From the farm they secure most of their provisions. In handling 2000 prisoners, they have lost only five. The health of the inmates is greatly improved. It is estimated that 45 per cent. ”

“ Each gallery is guarded by two keepers. The cells are narrow, and each is lighted by a small iron-barred window at the farther end. Light and air are also admitted by the barred door of iron opening upon the corridor. There are eleven cells of especial strength, in which convicts condemned to death or to the State Prison are confined. There are six other cells, which are used for the confinement of persons charged with offences less grave, and six more, which are used for sick prisoners. The cells are generally full of criminals. ”

“ Formerly the cells in which the unfortunate prisoners were confined while awaiting trial were situated deep under ground and had neither light nor ventilation. A man might be guiltless of the offense with which he was charged, yet while awaiting an opportunity to prove his innocence he was condemned to spend days, sometimes months, in what was little better than a grave. Literally, he was buried alive. A party of foreigners visiting the prison one day were startled at seeing human beings confined in such holes. "They look like tombs!" ”

“ If the latter execution takes place, it will make seven in this city within the last year! In all England and Wales the whole number of executions during the year 1852, as appears by a Parliamentary report, was only nine! The population of this city is six hundred thousand; the population of England and Wales is eighteen millions. In other words, New York, with a population of only one-thirtieth as large as England and Wales, hangs seven-ninths as many in the same space of time!
The little we fail in point of number, however, is more than made up in the atrocity of the offences. ”

“ A movement was made. The torches shone. The wapentake reappeared, holding high his weapon, under the reopened gate of the cemetery; then the chaplain with his book, and the gravedigger with his spade. The cortège reappeared without the coffin.
The files of men crossed over in the same order, with the same taciturnity, and in the opposite direction. The gate of the cemetery closed. That of the prison opened. Its sepulchral architecture stood out against the light. The obscurity of the passage became vaguely visible. The solid and deep night of the jail was revealed to sight ”

“ Go hence—go hence! thou shalt not unfold the awful mysteries of this charnel-house!—Ye must not behold the murdered man who lies rotting in the cellar, nor open the dark dungeon of the deformed child of crime!—'tis the hideous offspring of hideous parents—my child and the Dead Man's! 'Twas a judgement from Heaven, that monstrous being; we dare not kill it, so we shut it up from the light of day. Go hence—go hence, or I will fly at thee and tear thine eyes out!'
Frank left the room, and ascended to the chamber, hoping to find a key which would enable him to unlock the front door ”