our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some
wretched side in Politics? Will it be believed that the governor
of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed
perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable
weathercocks are blown this way or that? A hundred times in every
week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and
injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening
and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was
forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with
feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I
crossed the threshold of this madhouse.
At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms
House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York. This is a large
Institution also: lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a
thousand poor. It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not
too clean; – and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably.
But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of
commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts
of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large
pauper population to provide for; and labours, therefore, under
peculiar difficulties in this respect. Nor must it be forgotten
that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast
amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are
nursed and bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well
conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how
mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in
the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young children.
I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to
the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed
in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like
faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail
itself.
It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan
I have already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is
unquestionably a very indifferent one. The most is made, however,
of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a
place can be.
The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I
remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it
may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near
at hand. The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended,
and the prisoners were in their cells. Imagine these cells, some
two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man locked up;
this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the
grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and
this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head
against the bars, like a wild beast. Make the rain pour down,
outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot,
and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch’s cauldron. Add a
collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand
mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full
of half-washed linen – and there is the prison, as it was that day.
The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a
model jail. That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best
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Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
examples of the silent system.
In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an
Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and
female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful
trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them
worthy members of society. Its design, it will be seen, is similar
to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable