The New York Tombs Inside and Out! / Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.

by John Josiah Munro

The question as to the number of criminals in New York city is one of the most difficult to answer. The best that can be said is to offer an unofficial conjecture. We went to Police Headquarters and presented it to different men, but nearly all refused to volunteer an answer. One officer said: “If you mean by criminals those persons who have been in jail all the way from one to ten times, but who now enjoy their liberty, then there must be at least seventy-five thousand of such people in this city.” But then this is only a conjecture. We have no means of knowing to an absolute certainty the number of criminals in New York.

During the fall and winter, when there are great social gatherings in the city, thousands of crooks invade Manhattan, and live at the best hotels. When they leave, they usually take with them enough money and valuables to last for years.

The curiosities of crime which may be seen in the museum of the Rogues’ Gallery are worthy of careful inspection. These consist of dark lanterns, jimmies galore, sectional jimmies, and ancient and modern jimmies, knives, dirks, razors, pistols, guns, gold bricks, burglary tools, skeleton keys and several hundred other things used by criminals, all too numerous to mention. Many of these things are kept in glass cases, and cannot be touched, but they show the ingenuity of the criminal mind in trying to overcome the modern barriers for protecting banks, counting houses, stores and Fifth avenue homes.

The Third Degree

After a crook has been arrested and brought to Police Headquarters, and the authorities believe that he possesses evidence that will convict himself, or that he belongs to a “gang” of criminals that should be safely landed in prison without delay, he is forthwith put through the “third degree.” The men of the Detective Bureau make light of this star chamber inquisitorial proceeding for the discovery of crime, and say that it does not mean anything, but those who have passed through the experience have a different tale to tell.

When crooks conspire to defeat the ends of justice, all they have to do is simply to keep “mum.” If there are three persons in a burglary or safe-breaking job, as is often the case, and one gets caught, the other two pool their interests and secure him a lawyer.

As soon as the police have reason to believe that the man under arrest is concealing valuable information, he is taken to Police Headquarters on a short commitment. Perhaps they may put some wise “guy,” or “stool pigeon” in the cell with him to get him to make a damaging statement when he is off his guard. As near as can be learned from various sources, the “third degree” is in the nature of a rigid examination, perhaps like the torture which is still practised on “suspects” in China, Russia and Turkey, to draw out a confession of guilt, even where none exists. I asked several crooks to explain to me the nature of the third degree, all of whom claimed to have gone through the experience at different times. When I came to compare notes, I found they all told almost the identical story.

A man who spent more than two years in the Tombs on a murder charge was put through the “third degree” both in the Fifth Street Station House and at Police Headquarters. It is not customary to put a man through the third degree in the station house, but this man claims to have been an exception. The crook in question spent several nights in the cells in the Fifth Street House, and spoke from experience. On the morning of the day when he was taken to 300 Mulberry street, he said two plain clothes men took him from a cell in the basement, and forthwith boxed his ears and cuffed him unmercifully over the face for five minutes, or until he became greatly excited and almost insane! After this, he was taken upstairs to a room, a veritable sweat-box, where he was “piled” with questions, one after another, for an hour, for the purpose, if possible, of making him contradict himself. All the answers he gave during this star-chamber investigation were taken down, and he was then compelled to sign, or else have his face and ears boxed a second time. In reality the signing of this document made him the author of a crime. In other words, the “third degree” is simply giving to a crook a most unmerciful cuffing and abusing, till his eyes are all discolored, and his face is covered with blood, and he is more silly than sane. This is done that he may confess all the details of his crime, and become an informer on those who were in the job with him. This method is the torture of the Orient, the thumbscrews of the Middle Ages, and is cruel and diabolical.

Central Office men have said that the third degree was one of Inspector Byrnes’ “hobbies,” as he resorted to it on all occasions.

When it began to leak out in 1884 that Jake Sharp had bribed the Board of Aldermen to transfer to his company the Broadway franchise, it was found most difficult to secure any evidence to connect the guilty ones with the crime. Inspector Byrnes, who was in the Detective Department at the time, devised means whereby he was able with the aid of some of his men, to entice one of the “boodlers” to a Sixth avenue restaurant, where the flow of wine unloosed his tongue, and where he admitted that he had sold his vote to Jake Sharp for five thousand dollars. Inspector Byrnes, who was on the premises behind a screen, hidden from view, had all the admissions taken down, and they were used to convict the “boodler” and send him to State Prison.