Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/425

Rh great prison of the city of New York is called the Tombs, from the massive, monumental style of building employed in it. The prison itself is of granite, and in the Egyptian style, heavy but magnificent. A massive lofty granite wall, like the wall of a fortress, surrounds the court, in which stands the prison-house like a vast regular, massive block of hewn granite. When one stands within the magnificent portals of this wall, one seems to stand within a gigantic tomb. And so it is. It gives admittance to the offscouring of the criminals of the great city. One portion condemned and executed here, another portion conveyed hence to Blackwell's Island, where is situated the house of correction proper for New York. 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. He was in a high degree haughty and self-sufficient, and did not even raise his hat to the noble, beautiful lady who addressed him; much less raise himself. She showed her card of introduction, and we were allowed to pass in, first into a room in which many of the officials of the prison were assembled. The person who was evidently the principal here, a fat man with a large face, sat with his hat on his head and one of his feet placed high against the wall, and one newspaper hanging over his leg, whilst he was busy reading another which he held in his hands. On Mrs. G. mildly and politely addressing him, he turned his head towards us slightly, but neither raised his hat nor removed his upraised