The men in the tiers above us walk around, some one way, others the opposite, like restless animals in captivity. Some young prisoners hang on to the bars and make faces at us downstairs, reminding us of monkeys in a gigantic cage.
Side by side with tough "mugs" and countenances worthy of the gallows, we notice the apparently refined and well-mannered aristocrats of crime, dissipated looking boys, confidence men in pious demeanour, election repeaters, dandified "cadets" and "sissies." There are also sturdy looking laborers, a few black handers, a tramp or two, several negroes, two Chinamen.
A chauffeur with leggings, cap and automobile suit, tramps around with a dapper young pickpocket. They shout, laugh, talk, sing, whistle; and above all is heard the shuffling of several hundred feet walking, walking unceasingly.
A look upward to the superposed steel cages suggests their similarity to the circles in Dante's Inferno; the picture is completed by comparing my mentor to Virgil, but the sarcasm is lost on him, as he is only a very prosaic forger.
He informs me that the circle above contains the murderers, awaiting trial; higher up those on charges of grand larceny; and then follow the petty larceny men, and so on.
We who are on the ground floor have more walking space than those above us. The side walls have four rows of barred windows which give poor ventilation and poorer light. The air has a pungent, mouldy smell. The rumbling noise of the city traffic on the Centre Street side is heard plainly through the din in the prison.
My companion is a voluble and incessant gossip; his knowledge of jails, penitentiaries, and court procedure is amazing; he is a perfect walking prison encyclopedia. Nearly forty years old, he has passed twenty years behind the bars, either in Sing Sing, the Island Penitentiary or the Tombs. Very pale, clean shaven, rather plump, he speaks in a harsh whisper which gives a disagreeable impression of his uncanny knowledge; when he inquires or talks about the outside world he is like a child seeking knowledge about a strange, far-away land.
My next door neighbor is a southerner. He shot a man who cheated him out of all his money, and he spent several months in Sing Sing; now he has been brought back to the Tombs for retrial. Dark, with passionate eyes, black hair and sallow complexion, thin, calm, deliberate in manner and speech, he tells me of his case, and what led to his murderous assault, which he claims was done in self-defense. When I asked if he was resigned to return to Sing Sing, he answered with gleaming eyes: "I'll kill myself before I'll go back to that hell hole."