A Real Prison Reformer
One of the best of our modern prison reformers is Mr. Cornelius V. Collins, of Troy, N. Y. Since 1898 he has been Superintendent of State Prisons, and has given excellent satisfaction, not only to many of our leading reformers, but to the men in prison. He is a man of energy and ability and knows how a prison should be conducted, and is intensely practical in everything he does. Since he has had charge of our State prisons, he has inaugurated many valuable reforms which have been a blessing to the inmates, which easily leaves him in the front rank of prison reformers. It was through Mr. Collins’ enterprising efforts and practical foresight that the Star of Hope was first started soon after he became Superintendent of Prisons. He saw the great need of such an educational helper, as well as the importance of utilizing the intellectual strength of the men and women behind the bars, and having a splendid printing plant then lying idle at Sing Sing, he felt the success of his new enterprise was assured.
Since then many of the other prisons outside of the State have monthly publications, but none of them can be compared to the Star of Hope for enterprise, dash and intellectual vigor.
Mr. Collins has made so many successful reforms in the penal institutions of this State since he became Superintendent of Prisons, as to commend him favorably everywhere. Many of our prison wardens and reformatory superintendents are good practical men, but they have not been able to carry out the reforms which were necessary even in their own institutions. Mr. Collins having had the courage of his convictions and the support of the State Prison Commission behind him, saw to it that his own reforms were strictly carried out.
In regard to the Parole Law, if Mr. Collins is not the author of it in its entirety he certainly suggested most of it, and worked harder for its passage than any man living, and it would have been vastly more comprehensive, if it had not been for some men who objected to it being applied to first offenders charged with more serious offences. If Mr. Collins had done nothing but champion this one law he would have deserved the lasting gratitude of good men everywhere.
Before we can rightly understand the advances in prison reform that have taken place the past hundred years, we ought to be familiar with the treatment accorded prisoners in the early centuries of the Christian era and for hundreds of years afterwards. The prisons we read of in the ancient world were places of pestilential horror. They were dark, damp, and unsanitary dungeons, from which the sunlight was entirely excluded, where the chains rusted on the arms and feet of the prisoners, and where they were frequently left to die of starvation.
The ancient method of dealing with criminals was threefold, namely, death, exile and physical punishment or torture. Some of these methods prevail in some parts of Europe to the present time. But the Christian ideal of prison management is several steps higher. It has not yet reached it, but it has been forcing itself upon the world for many years. We believe a prison ought to be a place where the offender against human law is to be reformed or Christianized, and afterwards restored to society an industrious and useful man.
The prevailing idea in some of our criminal courts is that the average prisoner is not only a dangerous character, but also a hopeless moral and social defective and must be restrained and punished permanently. After the criminal has been sent to a penal institution, the authorities there, as a rule, seem not to care whether he is reformed or not. Indeed, the prisons of to-day, with few exceptions, cannot reform the unfortunates therein, as they are not conducted on Christian principles nor by Christian men. Our legislators have not yet learned that the only positive reclaiming force in the world for criminals is the religion of the Lord Jesus. Not only is this true, but many of the persons who manage our prisons do not believe in religion themselves and certainly have little faith in it for others.
There is so much indefiniteness of idea as to what prison reform is, that it would be well at the outset to say what we mean by it. We would define prison reform not only as the reformation of the prisoner, but the more efficient management of our prisons by men of fitness and experience in the interest of humanity and economy.
Among the other reforms inaugurated by Mr. Collins since he took charge of our prisons of this State was the abolition of the lock-step. All men that are now sent to our prisons are drilled by a regular military instructor and march no longer to the mess hall or the shops in the lock-step, but as soldiers. This gives them a manly bearing and helps their general health.
Some of Mr. Collins’ other reforms consist of the abolition of the convict striped suit for first offenders, and no longer cutting the convict’s hair short, except for sanitary reasons. Abolition of tin plates and tin cups used at meals and crockery substituted. The numbering of each one’s laundry and permission given to first offenders to wear “honor bars” on their sleeves for good conduct, which gives them special privileges. Mr. Collins has raised the moral tone of our prisons in other ways, all of which shows him to be a man of energy and of a practical turn of mind.
There is one other place where reform can be carried out to good effect. In nearly all of our State prisons and penitentiaries there are suppressed murmurings over the prison food. Coarse food that is not eaten is dearer in the end than palatable food that is consumed with a relish. For the purpose of having good discipline in our large prisons I would suggest the following: Put every inmate on his good behavior and give the men a chance to earn three good meals a day.
If they are well behaved, let them eat at the Warden’s table. This plan is no longer an experiment, for it has been tried, it is said, in some of our Pacific prisons, and works like a charm. The old saying that the best way to reach a man’s heart is by his stomach has been found true.
Let there be three tables in each prison.
1. The first table is for men against whom there is no mark for rudeness or breaking the rules for one whole month and who do their work well. The board is first class at this table and each convict is entitled to a napkin. They are allowed to converse with each other and have waiters. Call it the Warden’s table.
2. The second table contains the regular prison fare. It is for those who rebel against doing their work or wilfully disregard some of the rules of the institution. The table is made of plain pine boards. Here they eat their food in silence, without table cloth or napkin.
3. The third table is called “Bread and Water.” For their meals three times a day they receive plenty of dry bread and an unlimited quantity of water. When they are confined to their cells for bad conduct the bread and water is brought to them.
When this course was first tried on the Pacific Coast, it was found that at the end of three months, one-half of the men were able by their good conduct marks to secure a seat at the best table. At the end of six months two-thirds of the men sat at the first table. After a year’s experience nine men out of every ten were able to keep the law and behave like gentlemen, so as to sit at the best table. This change has wrought wonders in some of the prisons of California.
I do not believe the criminal is the victim of an unavoidable destiny, or that there is any inexorable necessity for his continuing the life which makes him a social anarchist, or that he is beyond the reach of reform. I believe if you treat him kindly his better nature will respond to it and he will show himself a man. That crime is a moral disease that is transmitted, the same as depravity, I believe to be true. I believe further that early training, environments and cross-grained individuality will account for nearly all of our present day criminality.
Some one has said: “The soul of all reformation is the reformation of the soul.” If such were the aim of the prison authorities, the prisoner’s transformation would only be a question of time. But this is not the case, and such an object is far from their mind. Yet the religion of Jesus Christ is the only thing that gives permanency to character. At the present moment the reformation of the criminal and his return to freedom again as a man among men, never enters the mind of the majority of our prison officials. All they care for is simply to hold their charges in safety until their term expires, then turn them loose again no better than they were before. The one great reason for this is that the heads of departments are politicians and are given office simply because they are a controlling power in their ward or county. They well know when they take office that their tenure is exceedingly brief, and they must make hay while the sun shines, by disappointing their enemies and rewarding their friends.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE INFLICTION OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE TOMBS
Friday has always been known as hanging day at the Tombs. It was the day set apart from time immemorial and the New World continued it in deference to Old World customs. Friday with few exceptions had been adhered to in New York County for over fifty years, and the spectacle brought together a large concourse of people, largely of the noisy class. In the early history of New York criminals were executed in vacant lots north of Canal Street and also on Blackwells Island.
After the opening of the Tombs in 1838 it was ordered by the authorities that all hangings should take place within the prison enclosure. As the walls of the prison were from ten to twelve feet high, the people that owned property around the Tombs took advantage of the occasion and charged from one to five dollars for seats on the roof of the houses for people who cared to see the hangings.
As we have intimated, the city on such occasions presented a holiday appearance and brought together a large number of people from the surrounding villages. They remained within sight of the building from early morning till they saw the black flag hoisted, which announced that the victim had been launched into eternity.
But the whole scene was such a gruesome spectacle that no refined person cared to see it, and a large number of people considered it a godsend when the hangman’s job was given to the State Electrician and the work transferred to the death house at Sing Sing.
The first and earliest Tombs homicide that attracted much attention and excited the people of this city, was that of John C. Colt, charged with the murder of Samuel Adams. Colt was a professional penman and teacher of bookkeeping; he had an office on the second floor of a building on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. Samuel Adams, a printer, was in the same building. Colt had written a work on bookkeeping and Adams had printed it.
On September 17th, 1841, Adams came into Colt’s office, where the two men had a heated discussion over the printing bill which Adams was trying to collect. Several hard words passed between the men, such as liar, cheat and so forth. Then Colt up with a hammer which lay on the table and rained several blows on Adams’ head. There was a brief struggle after which the printer lay on the floor in a pool of blood.
In the next room a man named Wheeler was busy at work. He had heard the loud words between the two men and the struggle; he was curious to know what it all meant. In a few minutes he went to Colt’s door in the hall, peeped through the key hole, and was startled with what he saw; he returned to his room, but said nothing to any one. After a few days Wheeler reported what he saw to the authorities and became an important witness for the State. Next day Colt put Adams’ body in a box and shipped it to New Orleans.
The vessel was delayed for a week by storms. Before the ship reached its destination, passengers and crew were overcome by a terrible stench that came from the hold of the vessel. After a thorough investigation, Adams’ body was found in a box among the freight. The authorities were notified and the box traced back to where it came from. As a result Colt was arrested and indicted for murder in the first degree. Colt, after he had been in the Tombs for a few weeks, made a confession, saying the crime was done in self defence. The trial lasted ten days. The jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, and Colt was sentenced to be hanged November 18th, 1842.
On the day of his execution, when the Sheriff went to Colt’s cell to prepare him for the last struggle, he was startled to find him dead. Just then the cry of fire was raised, which caused intense excitement among the officials and prisoners in their cells.
The lurid glare which came from the burning cupola and which cast a shadow on all sides, attracted wide attention and a great crowd of people. After the fire was extinguished and order once more restored, Colt was found in his cell in a pool of blood. Many persons in the city believed that the burning of the cupola was a well designed scheme to save Colt from the gallows, and in the midst of the excitement Colt escaped through one of the side doors by the aid of powerful friends and a dead body from one of the hospitals was substituted in his place. A few years ago Charles Wesley Smith, a resident of New York, informed the writer that he was present at the burning of the Tombs cupola, November 18th, 1842. A great crowd came to witness the raising of the black flag which was to be the final act in the hanging of Colt and which announced to those on the outside that the sentence of the law had been carried out, but it failed and the general opinion was that Colt escaped.
Mr. Smith says that he stood in front of a blacksmith’s shop, opposite the prison, in Centre Street, with many others, when he saw dense smoke coming from the Tombs cupola. In a few minutes there was great excitement in and outside of the building. In the prison yard it is said pandemonium reigned supreme, the shrieks and yells of the prisoners begging to be taken out of the building could be heard a block away. Soon after the firemen reached the prison they played a small stream of water on the fire, which quickly extinguished the flames, and it was all over in half an hour. The general prevailing opinion among the people of the city at the time was that a scheme had been carried out successfully which permitted Colt to go scot free. And that the cupola fire, which was a put-up job, aided him greatly in his flight.
During all of these years the regular hangings took place in the Tombs yard, and usually occurred between six a. m. and twelve noon. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people waited on the street, or squatted on the roofs of buildings to see the sights, which were accompanied by drunkenness and disorderly conduct. On the site of the present Criminal Court Building, on Centre Street, was the Freight House of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, on the roof of which were often gathered a hundred persons waiting to see the black flag rise as soon as one was executed.
On August 21st, 1888, Dannie Lyons was executed. He had been a member of the “Whyo Gang,” who hung out around Leonard and Centre Streets. They had put up a strong fight to save their comrade, Dannie, but it failed. The gang numbered about thirty or forty persons and was made up of some of the worst desperadoes in the city. And when all their efforts failed they had threatened to make trouble in the “Bloody Sixth Ward.” On the night of August 20th, they spent the time in a low dive on Mulberry Street near the Bend. They were in front of the Tombs early on the morning of August 21st. Most of them had booze and were in a sullen frame of mind and were ready for trouble. The presence of the Elizabeth Street Police overawed them and everything passed off quietly. Dannie Lyons’ father was at the prison and appealed to the Warden for the privilege of seeing his son executed, but his appeal was denied.
On August 23rd, 1889, four men paid the death penalty, the largest number ever hanged on one occasion. They were executed one after the other in rapid succession. Their names were Ferdinand Caroline, Patrick Packingham, James Nolan and Jack Lewis. Hangman Atkinson was on hand, and it is said performed his duties with neatness and dispatch!
These Tombs hangings furnished a favorite pastime for the rougher element of the lower East Side, including Mulberry Bend and Chinatown. “How did the bloke take it?” was a common expression from one who had not the pleasure of being a spectator. The reply usually given was, “It was tame,” or “He was game,” or “I could do much better myself.”
The execution of these men was the talk of the city for weeks beforehand. And although desperate efforts were made to save them, they failed, as the Governor refused to interfere with the sentence of the law.
The four men after being taken from their cells on “Murderer’s Row,” were lined up in the Prison yard beside their spiritual advisers. The first toward the gallows was Ferd. Caroline. As he was pinioned by the sheriff’s men one could hear from the adjacent building crumbs of comfort for poor Ferd, who was rather sad that morning. As he stood on the scaffold some one cried, “Brace up Ferd, be a man.” After him came Patrick Packingham, who was of a rather melancholy disposition and who had to be helped on the scaffold. “Paddy,” said one of his companions, “Cheer up, we’re coming after you.” Then came “Jimmie” Nolan and Jack Lewis, jollying each other in the course of their preparation for death.
The last man who had the “honor” of being hanged in the yard of the Tombs Prison was Harry Carlton, better known as “Handsome Harry,” which took place December 5th, 1889. Carlton was said to be a daring criminal, and had an exceedingly unsavory and nervy record for fifteen years previous to his death. He was convicted of the murder of Policeman James Brennan, whom he shot on the night of October 26th, 1888, in Fifty-ninth Street near Second Avenue. On the morning of his execution, when they awoke him out of a sound sleep, he asked the time of day. When they informed him it was five o’clock, he replied, “Great Scott, my time is getting short.”
Carlton’s father came to the Tombs that morning and begged Warden Osborne to permit him to see his son pay the penalty of the law, but the Warden denied his request. Shortly after seven, Carlton heard the Death Warrant read. Soon after he was led to the scaffold, where Hangman Atkinson adjusted the rope and put the black cape over his face, and at seven twenty-nine a. m. the drop fell and he was launched into eternity. In five minutes afterwards his lifeless body dangled on the scaffold. At nine-thirty a hearse drove into the yard and his body was put in a casket and taken to the cemetery, followed by another carriage, in which were Carlton’s wife and child.
Up till last hanging in 1889, murder, riot and rowdyism were never more common, showing clearly that the Tombs’ execution had no deterrent effect whatever on the criminal classes of the city, but the opposite. Murder went on just the same. From the time when Colt killed Adams in August, 1841, till the present, the Tombs has not been without a score of homicidal inmates and many of them of good standing in the comunity. Carlyle Harris, Dr. Buchanan, Dr. Kennedy, Dr. Meyer, Albert T. Patrick, Harry K. Thaw and many others came from good families.
The following list of criminals executed from 1838 to 1889 is taken from the official records of the Tombs:
| Patrick Russell | December 8th, 1841 |
| James Eger | May 9th, 1845 |
| Charles Thomas | November 20th, 1846 |
| Matthew Wood | June 2nd, 1849 |
| Benson & Douglass | July 25th, 1851 |
| Aaron Stokey | September 19th, 1851 |
| Otto Grunsig | February 27th, 1852 |
| Patrick Fitzgerald | April 19th, 1853 |
| William Saul | January 28th, 1853 |
| Nicholas Howlett | January 28th, 1853 |
| Joseph Clark | February 11th, 1853 |
| James L. Hoarr | January 27th, 1854 |
| John Dorsey | July 17th, 1857 |
| James Rodgers | November 12th, 1858 |
| James Stevens | February 6th, 1860 |
| John Crimmens | March 30th, 1860 |
| Albert Hicks, alias Johnson | July 30th, 1860 |
| Nathan Gordon | February 21st, 1862 |
| William Hawkins | June 27th, 1862 |
| Bernard Friery | August 17th, 1866 |
| Frank Ferris | October 19th, 1866 |
| George Wagner | March 1st, 1867 |
| Jerry O’Brien | August 2nd, 1867 |
| John Reynolds | April 8th, 1870 |
| John Real | August 5th, 1870 |
| John Thomas | March 10th, 1871 |
| William Foster | March 21st, 1873 |
| Michael Nixon | May 16th, 1873 |
| William Thompson | December 17th, 1875 |
| William Ellis | December 17th, 1875 |
| Charles Weston | December 17th, 1875 |
| John R. Dolan | April 21st, 1876 |
| Chastian Cox | July 16th, 1880 |
| Pietro Balbo | August 6th, 1880 |
| William Sindrain | April 21st, 1882 |
| August D. Leighton | May 19th, 1882 |
| Michael McGloin | March 9th, 1883 |
| Pasquale Majone | March 9th, 1883 |
| Edward Hovey | October 19th, 1883 |
| Miguiel Chacon | July 9th, 1886 |
| Peter Smith | May 5th, 1887 |
| Daniel Driscoll | January 23rd, 1888 |
| Daniel Lyons | August 21st, 1888 |
| Ferdinand Caroline | August 23rd, 1889 |
| Patrick Packingham | August 23rd, 1889 |
| James Nolan | August 23rd, 1889 |
| Jack Lewis | August 23rd, 1889 |
| Harry Carlton | December 5th, 1889 |
The front entrance to Sing Sing Prison.
The Protestant chapel. Sing Sing prison.
The electric chair in Sing Sing prison.
CHAPTER XXXV
A VISIT TO THE DEATH HOUSE AT SING SING
One of the never-to-be-forgotten visits of my life was the one I paid to the Death Chamber at Sing Sing on October 11th, 1900.
The visit in question was at the request of an inmate in whom I was deeply interested, and who was finally awarded a new trial by the Court of Appeals.
The edifice known as the Death House is built of solid stone and is oblong in shape. Its dimensions are 66×30. It has no windows on the sides. The only place the light comes in is through the skylight. At night the electric glare fills every part of it. The door is approached through a long corridor, which is locked at night so as to make the place doubly safe. When the Death House was first built, it contained eight cells of solid stone and steel. Since then two more have been added, making ten cells altogether.
Armed with an order from a Supreme Court Judge, which I presented to Warden Johnson, I was led along corridors and passageways till I came to the office of the principal keeper, who then took me in charge. After a brief delay we came to the inner door which is made of steel. A dull heavy thud from my guide, the principal keeper, brought the inside guard to the bull’s eye. He then saw who were at the entrance without opening the door. In a few seconds I was inside the death chamber and the steel door was closed on me. I was then in a place the law calls a living tomb. It was as still as the grave. Not a word was spoken in the room above a whisper. As the shoes worn by the condemned men and keepers are made of felt, no sound came from their movements. These felt shoes are called “sneakers.” The law says that all persons sent to the electric chair must be kept in solitary confinement and in silence till the sentence of the Court is carried out.
Perhaps I ought to say that the mode of changing the death penalty from hanging to electricity went into effect in the three State prisons of New York in January, 1890. The electric chair was set up in Sing Sing in the latter part of 1889, so as to be all ready the following year. On account of the uncertainty of the law, no electrocution took place in this prison until July 7th, 1891; then four men were electrocuted on the same day, one after the other. The names of these men are as follows: James J. Slocum, Harris A. Smiler, Joseph Wood and Schihiok Jugigo.
Nearly two years after the first electrocution, when the death house had five inmates awaiting the death sentence, Osmond, George Megan, Carlyle Harris, Thomas Pallister and Frederick W. Roche, the two latter prisoners made good their escape from the death chambers on the night of April 20th, 1893, and have never been seen or heard of since. These escapes caused a great sensation at the time, as they were the most daring that ever took place, and they seemed to be so well planned and successfully carried out that the general belief was that a dozen of people must have had a hand in it.
The manner of their escape from the doomed quarters was as follows: It had always been customary since the death house was first opened for the inmates to have food warmed at night on one of the stoves. Nor was it uncommon for the keeper in charge to let the prisoners come out of their cell and brew tea or coffee at midnight on a stove which stood in the centre of the room. On the night in question, Frederick W. Roche, one of the condemned men, requested Keeper Hulse to permit him to leave his cell so that he might warm some tea, as he had eaten no supper. The keeper readily acceded to his request as he had done so many times before, not thinking that anything was wrong. Just then Roche threw a handful of pepper into the keeper’s eyes, which almost blinded him. Then Roche took away the keeper’s pistol and keys, and locked him in the cell which he had just vacated and threatened to kill him if he made the slightest disturbance.
After he had opened Pallister’s cell, he invited the other prisoners in the chamber to accompany him, but they all declined. When he requested Carlyle W. Harris to come with him, he politely refused, saying that as he was innocent, he preferred to wait till the Courts gave him a vindication. But the vindication never came, as Harris was afterwards electrocuted, the highest Court having denied his appeal. Pallister and Roche left the death house by way of the skylight window, then dropped into the yard, a distance of fifteen feet. Strange to say, the yard keeper could not be found—where was he? And stealing a boat, which was afterwards found, they made for the river and disappeared. This looks like a put up job!
Strange to say, these jail breakers were gone nine hours before the authorities knew what had taken place. As soon as Warden Brown took in the situation, he dispatched searching parties on both sides of the river, but without the least success. He also suspended Keepers Hulse and Murphy, and Yard Watchman Maher, and then started a searching investigation to find out how it was possible for these criminals to get away as they did. After the investigation, the Warden exonerated the keepers and restored them to their positions.
Where they went to after leaving the prison, no one has ever been able to learn. A common opinion is that they may have been drowned in the river, as two bodies were afterwards found, but this is not sure. Most people seem to think that a schooner was awaiting them in the middle of the river and took them to South America, and the graft in the job amounted to $5,000.
On the day of our visit to Sing Sing there were nine men in this doomed building, all under sentence of death. A week before the Court of Appeals had decided that one of the inmates, a Greek, should have a new trial, which left a vacancy. The persons then present in the death chamber were all well known to me except the two men from Brooklyn, who were Italians.
The whole scene presented to my mind a grewsome spectacle. I was then in the place for the first time, which Mr. Roland B. Molineux describes in his book as “The Room with the Little Door.”
The eight original cells are ranged in a row side by side against the south wall. The thick horizontal steel bars make you think of a cage of wild beasts. In front of each cell,—perhaps a foot from the steel bars, there is a closely woven steel wire netting which prevents a visitor from passing anything to the condemned man, or even shaking hands with him. All conversations must be carried on in whispers. A few doors away there is a little room which contains the death chair. All around it there are straps, belts and wires, which are used for fastening around the body and legs of the condemned man when the sentence of law is about to be carried into effect. As you again look over the audience in the death chamber, unconsciously your blood chills and the cold sweat drops in beads from your brow. It is a dreadful place. Human beings waiting for the slaughter!
Here are the names of the inmates I saw that day: Roland Burham Molineux, Dr. Kennedy, Eddie Wise, Jim Mullen, Fritz Meyer, William Newfeldt and Druggist Priora.
The two condemned men from Brooklyn, Ferraro and Zigwers, I did not know and had no particular interest in them except one of pity.
I came that day to see Mr. Molineux, whom I had known in the Tombs as a courteous gentleman and one that everybody liked. It seems almost unnecessary to say that he received me with his usual blandness. As I came up to the steel woven screen he smiled at me. I remember he looked pale and worried! And his eyes were dull and heavy. I tried to give him a little comfort as best I could under the circumstances.
I knew that in time Mr. Molineux would secure another trial and it came, thank God, and I was one of the first to congratulate him after the jury had filed into Court and said, “Not guilty.”
While I was speaking to Roland, Dr. Kennedy was having a visit from his wife. I saw her on the train coming up but I reached the prison some time before her as I came by way of the railroad track.
I had only a few words with Dr. Kennedy. I could see that he was in a state of great nervous excitement bordering on collapse, and no wonder, for his case was that day before the Court of Appeals. It was in the balance. The judges were then considering the circumference of the lead pipe which was the one thing in his case that led to a new trial. A sixteenth part of an inch decided his fate! I looked at Kennedy again and again; he was a study! His eyes were like balls of fire, his hair stood upright, his hands held on to the steel bars of his cage and braced him while he spoke to his wife. The strain was telling on him! His face was pallid and he looked as if he had not slept in a month. Not only did he look dejected and worried on account of the ordeal through which he was then passing, but he looked like a man almost beside himself. The Court of Appeals gave him a chance for his life, and after three trials failed to convict him, he was liberated. Since then the old indictment against him has been quashed.
There was another young man in the death house that morning. He was a New Englander—only a few feet away! It was Eddie Wise—an intelligent, wide-awake and bright young man. For several years he had led a wild life as the companion of criminals. What brought him here? Under the influence of cursed rum he took part in a “highway” in which the victim was killed in defending his watch and money. The other two “crooks” got away, and have never been found. This young man who simply looked on was held as a principal and convicted of murder in the first degree.
There is another man present who killed a companion at a game of cards on a Sunday afternoon. They had all been drinking; after a quarrel he went for a gun and shot his friend to death. He has a wife and five small children. Poor Priora!
The others in the cells are Jim Mullen, an ex-English soldier, Newfeldt, the Jew, and Fritz Meyer—all of them passed through the little iron door and paid the penalty of the law for their crime!
Some of the inmates call the death house a “Modern Inferno,” but I could not read Dante’s inscription, written over the portals, “None return that enter here.” Indeed, some who had spent from one to two years in those chambers of death have afterwards gone forth to liberty, and are now living in freedom. I have often thought that the awful monotony, the solitary silence, the deprivations of papers, letters and friends were enough to drive men in such a place crazy. But when one of the inmates came back to the Tombs to stand a new trial, I asked him regarding these things, and he informed me that they can only stand that awful silence and suspense a few days, when they break out and for hours make the place hideous with their yells.
An Italian named Raeffello Casconea returned to New York for another trial in July, 1906, after having spent thirty-one months and twenty-three days in the death house. During this time he saw twelve men go into the “Room with the Little Door,” who never returned again. Casconea occupied cell No. 1, and as the men passed into the death chamber he was permitted to shake them by the hand and wish them good cheer. At the second trial in this city, Casconea was liberated and since has kept a coffee house on Mulberry street. On August 10th, 1909, he was shot by the seventeen year old brother of the man that he was alleged to have killed. Casconea has since died.
The whole number of persons electrocuted in Sing Sing from January 1st, 1890, till July 1st, 1909, according to the prison records, was between fifty and sixty.
CHAPTER XXXVI
A TRAMP COLONY
Every year our City Magistrates send to the Workhouse on Blackwell’s Island no less than twenty thousand persons. This is entirely independent of the number sent from Kings County by the Magistrates of Brooklyn, Richmond and Queens.
By far the largest number of this contingent are the residuum of dregs of society. As soon as they have their liberty they prey upon society. And when they are in the toils again the ubiquitous gin-mill will account for it. But there are other reasons, and some of the responsibility will have to be laid at the door of our present social conditions, which need considerable re-adjusting.
It is needless to conceal the fact that a large percentage of this class is made up of thieves, drunkards, incorrigibles and homeless tramps. As they cannot find employment readily, they eke out a precarious living for a time as panhandlers and deadbeats and then return to prison, only to continue the same experience several times a year. As their imprisonment does them no good and as they are a great expense to the city and county, it becomes a serious problem what shall be done with them. At the present time the cost of crime in Greater New York is no less than twenty-five per cent. of the entire taxation.
We must therefore consider this subject intelligently with a view to its solution. But whether these social conditions can be explained fully to one’s satisfaction matters very little. We question the right of the authorities to maintain any longer this army of idlers without making them work to pay the cost of their own living.
For some years past we have observed that hundreds—possibly thousands of unskilled laborers, many of whom are in the building trades, reach the dead-line about forty years of age. If they have lived intemperate lives and happen to be single or widowers, when winter sets in and they find themselves out of employment the only thing they can do is to apply to the Magistrate and ask to be committed to the workhouse as vagrants for three or six months. And many of them, after they have finished their time and secured their liberty are no better off, and painfully return to the Police Court for the twentieth time perhaps, to be the city’s ward in the workhouse. What else can they do, or die on the street from sheer starvation?
This raises the question, what shall be done with our army of “tramp rounders” and incorrigibles? To continue to send them back to prison or workhouse for a few months is simply to prolong the evil and their own misery. Criminals are jailed and released in this county every year by the thousand, only to oscillate between prison and a brief season of liberty. When they leave the place of their confinement they seldom bid their keepers good-bye, only “au revoir.” When they come among their fellow men again they are not better. They have spent months or years in prison in idleness, and surrounded by vile companions, and they are no better. But why should they be allowed to endanger the life and liberty of society any longer after the experiences of the past? How long we can maintain such a system it is difficult to say. At any rate, the cost of maintaining our prisons is becoming enormous and the problem of what shall be done with “rounders” and hardened criminals, that prey upon society as soon as they get out of prison should be solved from a business and moral standpoint.
We believe the time has come for this whole matter to be thoroughly sifted and a remedy found that will be commensurate with the present needs. The aim should be the moral reformation of the criminal; nor do we think any remedy will be adequate that falls short of this object. But in working for this end we must not exalt criminals into objects of popular pity.
A few years ago a committee of the National Prison Association examined this whole subject and reported that every habitual criminal at large cost the State by robbery and spoilation no less than sixteen hundred dollars annually, and if in this State alone the taxpayers could be relieved of this burden it would be a saving of six million dollars a year.
Unfortunately New York and vicinity have a large army of unemployed at all seasons of the year—even when we are blessed with what is called “good times.” This is especially true of multitudes who are employed in the building trades. As a rule, contractors who are excavating and blasting for new buildings can always find twenty times as many laborers as they usually need.
But the wealth of the country is so great and the opportunities for employment so vast that the hustler can always find employment in some part of the country. Often large numbers of men and women are unable to find employment at any occupation, even when we have prosperous times. Nor are they to blame entirely for this. Many large corporations, such as railroads, will only give employment to the young and vigorous who are able to produce the largest amount of work, which means that the weak and infirm are soon driven to the wall, and at the first opportunity dropped from the pay roll and after a certain age are unable to find employment at anything.
At an expenditure of say $100,000, several cheap plants could be erected on Riker’s Island, on Long Island Sound, where domestic articles could be manufactured at merely the cost of the raw material, and this army of tramps that infest the boroughs of Greater New York summer and winter could be made to pay the cost of their own living expenses. For example, ten or a dozen small shops could be erected that would give employment to 2,000 men and women who would produce things that would in no wise compete with the great labor industries of the country.
The following are some of the industries that could be carried on by the wards of the city of New York:
Broom making,
Brush making,
Chair caning,
Laundry work,
Shoe making,
Tailoring,
And in summer Agriculture and Horticulture.
The city could rent a thousand acres of land in Westchester County on which garden produce could be raised and sold to the poor at low figures, which would give employment to from 500 to 1,000 persons. From the middle of April till the middle of October they could live in tents, which in many cases would greatly improve their health.
The cultivation of the soil under proper restrictions is a most healthful labor and cannot fail to show good results if properly carried out. French penologists and reformers speak of the system in the highest terms and recommend its adoption all over the world. If necessary these convicts could be used in works of irrigation or canals for the Federal Government, or indeed, the carrying on of public works in any part of the country.
M. Demetz, a French philosopher and founder of the Mettray Reformatory in France, has, for many years, advocated the cultivation of large tracts of land by criminals. His motto has been, “Reclaim the land by the man, and the man by the land.” Since 1850 France has had agricultural colonies for young offenders in crime, where they are compelled to stay from six months to two years. They cultivate the soil on a paying basis, and the success and management of the farm colonies has been eminently successful, as only seven per cent. of their numbers return again to crime.
French economists think that money has never been more wisely spent than for such institutions, as the returns show that ninety-three per cent. of the inmates after their liberation become useful members of society.
It seems to us that no country in the world would carry out penal colonization schemes with greater advantage and better results than the United States.
The peaceful conquest of large tracts of lands in this State, means the acquisition of more domain within our own borders, in which there may be homes and farms for hundreds of our surplus population.
There are several thousand criminal and vagrant idlers who at the beginning of winter go before Justices of the Peace in the country towns and are committed to the county jails for several months, where they live in idleness on the fat of the land. Such people ought to be in some colony and kept there till cured of their delusions.
Section 690 of the Penal Code lays down the statute very clearly on this subject: “Where a person is hereafter convicted of a felony, who has been before that conviction, convicted in this State, of any other crime, or where a person is hereafter convicted of a misdemeanor, who has been already five times convicted in this State of a misdemeanor, he may be adjudged by the Court, in addition to any other punishment that may be inflicted upon him, to be an habitual criminal.”
Section 691 says, “The person of an habitual criminal shall be at all times subject to the supervision of every judicial magistrate of the county, and of the Supervisors and Overseers of the Poor of the town where the criminal may be found, to the same extent that a minor is subject to the control of his parent or guardian.”
Another large class of persons who are totally unfit to be at large are kleptomaniacs, dipsomaniacs, pyromaniacs, epileptics and incendiaries. They should be placed permanently in an asylum. If necessary they could be deported to some island, where many of them could be put to work to cultivate the soil.
What we shall do with our unemployed criminals who roam the country in search of plunder is becoming a very serious problem. It is said that New York has from forty to fifty thousand ex-criminals. This is a low estimate. Whether it is true or not I am not prepared to say. At any rate, there are enough to keep over ten thousand policemen busy watching for this fraternity night and day.
It is safe to say that New York alone has a floating population of twenty thousand habitual criminals, who are ready at any moment to commit crime, without a moment’s warning, and then sail under a new name or leave for parts unknown.
There are also at least forty thousand men and women habitual misdemeanants in New York, who have been in prison for small offences, such as drunkenness, disorderly conduct, assault and petit larceny, from one to fifty times, and even more. What is going to be done with these?
The only remedy for the twentieth century tramp and habitual criminal is either to cure them, exile them or kill them. What shall it be? Perhaps the better and more humane method would be to colonize them until permanently reformed and cured. But while locked up they should be compelled to work for their living.
The obstinate criminal is a dangerous character. He lives on crime; his hand is against every man, and naturally in the interest of self protection every man is against him. It can be said of the unreformed criminal what the frontier man says of the Indian—”dead Injun, good Injun.”
Nor should petty thieves, paupers or tramps be allowed to go at large under any circumstances. They are social parasites and the State and city authorities should place them where they can be cured of their insane, lazy notions and made to work for a living or be permanently locked up. They have no more right to be at large than lepers or yellow fever patients, as they defile all with whom they come in contact.
A well known prison authority told me a short time ago that hundreds of men and women in this city go and return from prison like the swinging of a pendulum, and they are hardly out of prison before they are back in the toils again. What shall be done with them? That is the question which our authorities are called upon to answer.
The cost of crime in this city is enormous and, sad to say, is on the increase, and nothing is done to make our prison population share the expenses of their own keep; although it is well known that in deference to our Labor Leaders more than half the prisoners in the country are idle most of the time.
We would suggest that the inmates of this colony be classified in the following manner.
1. The diseased. Segregate them by themselves in a charity hospital until cured.
2. The aged and infirm. Send them to the Almshouse.
3. The able-bodied criminal rounder. Lock him up till cured. It is dangerous to keep him at large. But make him work for his living.
4. The chronic tramp and idler. Lock him up and make him work for his living.
5. The habitual drunkard. This man should be confined in a hospital till cured, and afterwards put to work.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE COST OF CRIME IN GREATER NEW YORK
The cost of crime in the city of New York is a question of such vast importance to the taxpayers as to seem bewildering. It is a most difficult thing to follow crime into its various ramifications. If this could be done satisfactorily, it would show that crime enters a larger area than we think it does. The figures given below do not include the building of a new prison on Riker’s Island, which is a needless waste of $4,000,000. This, with many other steals, can be laid to Tammany politics. Kings County Penitentiary, situated on Crown Street, Brooklyn, was sufficient for all the needs of Greater New York for many years to come, but schemers desired the land on which the prison was built, and after some time, had it condemned and the plant and the real estate sold for a song!
Next to the liquor traffic, crime is our greatest National waste for which there seems to be no adequate remedy. Crime burns the candle at both ends as it affects old and young of both sexes in its ceaseless undermining of human character, aiming at the moral and social demoralization of the human race.
If the police were to arrest the hundreds of criminals that remain at large every year in this city, the correction and suppression of crime would cost vastly more than at the present. In all likelihood the expense would not be less than one-fourth of the entire cost of carrying on the Government of Greater New York.
We have made a careful study of the cost of crime in Greater New York, and find that the amount of money appropriated by the civil authorities, according to the figures of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, since consolidation in 1898, has increased every year. Since the boroughs went into partnership, and took the name of Greater New York, crime has increased from fifty to seventy-five per cent. Last year the number of arrests in this city exceeded that of the previous year by more than forty thousand, not to speak of hundreds of the most atrocious crimes on record, such as murder, arson, assault, highway robbery, burglary and larceny, that have baffled the detective bureau to discover the perpetrators.
Crime shows a larger increase in New York than elsewhere, because of the large foreign population, although it is a well established fact that crime is not the result of our foreign-born people as much as of their children, who are classed as native Americans.
In the following table the sums mentioned were appropriated by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for 1909.
Perhaps I ought to say when we come to deal with the various departments of the city government that are only indirectly connected with crime, we find it more difficult to arrive at correct conclusions. Take for example the sheriff’s office. This official’s work is both civil and criminal. He has charge of the county jail and pays for the support of the inmates. He takes full charge of indicted prisoners for felonies, and after they are sentenced sees that they are safely landed in State prison or penitentiary. But he also deals with many civil processes besides. After making careful allowance, we set aside three-fourths of the sheriff’s entire appropriation for crime.
In the first statement below it will be seen that all the moneys appropriated to the various departments and institutions are spent on the correction and repression of crime alone. Here are the official figures:
| Department of Police of Greater New York | $15,195,331 00 |
| Department of Correction | 1,274,957 00 |
| District Attorney, New York | 371,860 00 |
| District Attorney, Kings | 106,000 00 |
| District Attorney, Queens | 35,500 00 |
| District Attorney, Richmond | 12,900 00 |
| City Magistrates, 1st Division | 355,800 00 |
| City Magistrates, 2nd Division | 328,000 00 |
| Special Sessions and Children’s Court, 1st Division | 134,420 00 |
| Special Sessions and Children’s Court, 2nd Division | 94,800 00 |
| General Sessions, New York | 291,500 00 |
| Juvenile Asylum | 55,005 00 |
| New York Catholic Protectory | 326,500 00 |
| Brooklyn Catholic Protectory | 17,500 00 |
| Jewish Protectory | 50,000 00 |
| Brooklyn Court Rents, etc. | 40,000 00 |
| Miscellaneous Criminal Expenses | 75,000 00 |
| ─────── | |
| $18,765,073 00 |
In the second table the various departments of the city government that are indirectly connected with the repression of crime are mentioned and only a certain percentage allowed for criminal matters.
| Sheriffs of Greater New York, 75 per cent. | $236,301 50 |
| Department of Health, 10 per cent. for Crime | 248,485 00 |
| Department of Charities, 25 per cent. for Crime | 275,696 21 |
| Fire Department, calls for an appropriation of $8,039,565.50. I find after careful inquiry that half of the fires in this city are caused either by wilful or criminal carelessness. Fifty per cent. of that appropriation is spent on crime | 4,019,782 75 |
| Twenty-five per cent. may safely be allowed for the Criminal Expense of the City Law Department, Appellate Division, Supreme Court and Miscellaneous Expenses | 600,000 00 |
| Commissioners of Jurors’ office, 50 per cent. for Crime | 53,550 00 |
| Coroners’ Office, 50 per cent. for Crime 79,850 00 | |
| Miscellaneous Criminal Expenses in the Courts of Greater New York | 220,000 00 |
| Private Penal Institutions that receive petty offenders | 250,000 00 |
| ─────── | |
| $24,748,738 46 | |
| The Cost of Crime to business men and corporations in Greater New York for Private Police, Detective Agencies and Watchmen | $6,000,000 00 | |
| Property stolen and not recovered | $5,000,000 00 | |
| Bank losses by fraud | 1,500,000 00 | |
| ─────── |
| $12,500,000 00 | |
| Loss in Wages to Families of Men Sent to Prison | 5,000,000 00 |
| ─────── | |
| Total Amount spent yearly on Correction and Repression of Crime | $42,248,738 46 |
The budget for the present year calls for the expenditure of $156,545,148.14 to carry on the city government. A little more than one sixth of the money appropriated by the city government for the year is spent on crime.
Admitting then that the expense of crime touches almost every avenue of domestic and civic life, the only question is how long our national, state and city governments can continue to pay such enormous sums for the maintenance of police, courts of justice and the costliest and most expensive kind of prisons and penal institutions that money can build and furnish, without landing the country in irretrievable bankruptcy.
With all the loopholes in the law which favor the murderer, it costs the city at least $10,000 on an average to send him to the electric chair, or even to State prison for life.
There are 200,000 criminals in the land to-day, who are a burden on the taxpayers to the extent of more than a billion dollars a year. But this loss to the country, as we have already intimated, is incomparable with the greater loss sustained by the kingdom of God. The work of reaching these brothers in stripes belongs to the Church, and she should prosecute it continually till she has brought them to Christ for healing and saving power.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE AGE OF GRAFT.
We have had our stone age, our iron age and our steel age, now we have our graft age. This is the age of the political highwayman who makes the city and her people pay him tribute. This graft comes in the nature of perquisites, commissions and assessments for the good of the machine and those that run it. The graft disease first attacked the men in Congress. The government paid good salaries to all of its servants and even their mileage. But the railroads wishing large slices of the public domain sent the members of both houses free passes. After this other big corporations desiring special privileges were compelled to graft the legislators or receive no favors. Then the disease attacked our State law-makers, which in turn made everybody pay tribute to them, especially rich corporations. To-day, graft is the bane of our Municipal Government. And Tammany Hall has become the horse leach that cries, “Give, Give,” and is never Satisfied! Nor is there any need of denying the fact that we are reaching a period in American history greatly to be deplored. Whatever may be said of our extravagance and high living, it cannot be denied that New York is drifting on the Rocks of Municipal bankruptcy. And the cause of it all is an insatiable desire for money, for which honest labor is not given.
With New York’s phenomenal increase in population and material prosperity, since the close of the Civil War, the temptations for money making have become so numerous, that a Tammany contractor can find more wealth in paving one of the streets of the city than in a Klondyke gold mine. As a result the city Government is now in the hands of a gang of political-grafters, who are able to systematize the business affairs in the interest of the House of Grafters on Fourteenth Street, and are able to cover their tracks and “hoodwink” the people.
The amount of money appropriated by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment as the running expense of the city for the year 1909 is $156,545,148.14, which is $13,722,089.91 more than was spent last year. It may be fairly estimated that one-half of this amount is used to pay salaries of all city employees and the other half the yearly supplies, such as coal, books, stationery, printing, wagons, fire engines, rents, etc., etc. From all of the supplies furnished to the various departments, a commission of from twenty per cent. to twenty-five per cent. reaches the men higher up, taking a circuitous route to do so, but it gets there beyond the shadow of a doubt. This money is never given as a commission, but as a gift to the organization, so as to keep within the law. In round numbers these commissions will amount to not less than $12,000,000 a year. No one will deny that nearly all the Tammany employees of the city government pay into the organization yearly not less than twenty per cent. of their salaries. Sometimes they are assessed from five dollars and five thousand dollars, and if they refuse to pay, they are black-listed and afterwards “bounced.” Twenty per cent. of graft from the wages of city employees would amount to not far from $12,000,000 a year.
Then there is enormous graft from the purchase of real estate, school houses and other buildings for the city, bridges, paving of streets, sewers, public improvements, etc, etc., $12,000,000 of which will eventually reach the house of grafters on Fourteenth Street.
We have said nothing about the police graft, which, to use the most conservative figures, will amount to at least $20,000,000 a year. The larger part of this reaches the house of grafters and is used for the purpose of buying elections and paying idle retainers who work for the organization around a November election. In the collection of this graft, brewers, malsters, saloon keepers, merchants, builders, contractors, the great shipping interests of the city, dives, pool-rooms and baudy-houses all pay tribute. Even bootblacks, cabmen and push cart men have all to contribute to save themselves from petty annoyances. Using the most careful figures, from sixty to seventy million dollars a year is spent in graft.
Gen. Bingham, in a newspaper article, estimates the city graft at a $100,000,000 a year. Our figures are less as we wish to keep on the safe side!
Everybody knows that street railroads, gas companies and big corporations of every name can tear up our streets and leave them in a dangerous condition for months, but that could not be done without paying “graft” to some persons!
Nearly forty years ago Boss Tweed got away with something like four million dollars from the city of New York. This startled the entire country. But when Mr. Croker went to Europe a few years ago, he is said by the “Boys” to have taken with him a fortune of fifteen millions cash! Tweed’s roll looks more like thirty cents alongside of Croker’s, and his successor, Charley Murphy, shows no signs of poverty thus far. If there is a bigger grafting institution in the country than this place on Fourteenth Street, we would like to know where it is.
There are many ways whereby money can be used to advantage in enriching and bribing city officials in return for favors that the temptations to use graft are very great. Ordinarily, when we speak of graft, we mean the payment of money or its equivalent, to some public official or even a member of his family who is willing in return to perform a dishonest act or wink at the violation of law. A considerable amount of graft is received in the form of gifts and tips for favors given indirectly in one way or another, that cannot be considered criminal. Still no business man is willing to tip an employee of the city government without expecting some favors in return.
What the average city official receives as gifts and gratuities are insignificant compared to what the “big grafters” receive who are the leaders of our political organizations, from rich corporations and railroads and for fat contracts, franchises and special privileges which are worth millions of dollars.
A few years ago the Lexow and Mazet investigators, who exposed this graft plague in the city government, showed that many persons in the police department, from the highest officials down to patrolmen, were in the business for “Graft” and all favors and promotions cost money. It also became known that a captaincy cost as high as $17,000 to $20,000, and sometimes much higher. But the bi-partisan political character of the Board was mainly responsible for this shameful corruption. Under Gen. Bingham all this was done away, and merit ruled the department.
For several years police officials have been involved in “Graft Scandals,” and after their retirement from the department were found to be immensely rich, besides having large real estate interests. This condition of affairs has gone on so many years that the rank and file of the force are not satisfied now with their regular salary, and demand graft for protecting the “gin mill,” the “immoral house,” the pool room and the “gambling hell,” all of which brings an enormous revenue. In some cases everybody in the block is called upon to pay tribute, and woe be to the one that refuses.
A man named G........, from Chicago, who was arrested in the lower part of the city for intoxication, told me, when he was in the station house, he could remember distinctly the cop going through his pockets; when he came to himself next morning he found he was minus a diamond ring and some bills. The police had relieved him of all his money. When he called for his money he had his face punched.
There have been times when by the free use of graft, inside information including secrets that are supposed to be carefully guarded by the officials in the controller’s office, tax office, corporation counsel’s office, board of education, office of the coroner and other departments, have been given away by grafters to men who reaped thousands of dollars thereby.
A grafting contractor can afford to pay a dishonest municipal employe a thousand dollars, or even five thousand dollars, for the information that will enable him to secure the job to build sewers or pave streets, erect a school house or build a bridge or a reservoir. Often “fake” bids are made so as to secure the work to a ring of speculators who in the end reap millions.
The new water works for this city will cost at least $250,000,000. Tammany Commissioners make fifty dollars a day. If they work twenty-four days in a month they get $1,200. That is big money to men who are only laborers in intellect!
- Transcriber’s Note:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.