Mrs. Brown took the quarter, looked at it, rang it on the step, and then handed the doll to Biddy, telling her that she might have it that night, but that she must pay extra every day for what she called the "craythur's boord an' lodgin'."
This idea seemed to please Mrs. Brown very much, for she called it a great joke, and put her hands on her hips and laughed. Then she looked savage again, and said, she would keep the doll herself on nights when Biddy could not pay extra. She went off to her fruit stand, with her hands on her hips, laughing and muttering by turns. Biddy sat down with her doll. Now and then she looked at Charley and smiled, and seemed to be thinking very hard about something.
[to be continued.]
NEW YORK PRISONS IN 1776-77.
JAIL IN CITY HALL PARK.—[From Miss Mary L. Booth's "History of the City of New York.">[
Those who tread the floor of what was recently the Post-office, once the great Middle Dutch Church, and now a Brokers' Exchange, at the corner of Nassau Street and Cedar, can scarcely believe that it was once a military prison, that its walls re-echoed the groans and cries of sick and dying patriots, that a large part of Washington's army was once confined on the very spot where now the broker is calling his stocks and the photographer fitting his lenses. The fine church in 1776 was converted at once into a royal prison. Its pews were torn out, its interior defaced, but the walls are the same that shut in the unfortunate Americans, and their only shelter was the lofty roof that still rises among the haunts of trade. The ancient building is one of the most touching of the historical remains of the early city. The number of persons shut up at once within its precincts is variously estimated; one account gives 800, another 3000, as the probable limit. It is certain that they were crowded in with no care for comfort, no regard for health or ease; that one aim of the royal captors was to "break their spirit" by ill usage, and win them back to their loyalty by no gentle means.
As the motley train of prisoners came down to the city after the capture of Fort Washington, they were met by the royal officers with every mark of contempt and hate. They were stripped of their arms and uniforms, robbed of their money, insulted with rude taunts and even blows. War had not yet been robbed of some of its brutality by the slow rise of knowledge, and the British officers had not yet learned the politeness of freemen. A savage Hessian made his way up to Graydon, the young American officer, and threatened to kill him. "Young man," said to him a Scotch officer of more humanity, "you should never rebel against your king." The prisoners were taken before the British provost-marshal to be examined. "What is your rank?" said the officer to a sturdy little fellow from Connecticut, ragged and dirty, who seemed scarcely twenty. "I am a keppen," said he, in a resolute tone; and the British officers, clad in scarlet and gold, broke into shouts of laughter. It was not long before they were flying before the "keppens" of New Jersey and New York, glad to escape from the rabble they despised.
When they had been examined, plundered, ridiculed, the unlucky prisoners were divided into companies, and marched away to the different prisons of New York, that were for so many weary months to be their homes or their graves. Those who were confined in the Middle Dutch Church were probably the most fortunate of all; they had air and light; but two of the prisons are covered with some of the saddest memories of the war for freedom. One of them was a common jail in the Park, now the Hall of Records, and the other was the old Sugar-House in Liberty Street, next to the Middle Dutch Church. The jail was so crowded with the captured Americans that they had scarcely room to lie on the bare floor. The air was stifling, the rooms pestilential, full of filth and fever.