“America's Greatest Criminal Barracks”:The Tombs and the Experience of Criminal Justice in New York City, 1838-1897

Journal of Urban History

Volumn 29, Issue 5, 2003, Pages 525-554

  Gilfoyle, Timothy J ^a  

^a LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

criminal justice; penitentiaries; police; the Tombs; urban jails

Indexed keywords

CRIME; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; LAW ENFORCEMENT; NINETEENTH CENTURY; SOCIAL JUSTICE; URBAN HISTORY; LEGAL SYSTEM;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 4143107042     PISSN: 00961442     EISSN: 15526771     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0096144203029005002     Document Type: Article

References (516)

1. Prison Association of New York (hereafter, PANY), Thirtieth Annual Report for 1874, Senate Doc. 78 (Albany, 1875), 68 (Tousey, everybody).
2. John Josiah Munro, The New York Tombs, Inside and Out! (Brooklyn, 1909), 17 (criminal barracks).
3. Alfred Trumble [Richard K. Fox], The New York Tombs: Its History and Its Mysteries (New York, 1881), esp. 5 (most famous).
4. Augustine E. Costello, Our Police Protectors: History of the New York Police (New York, 1885), 507.
5. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, The Newsboy (New York, 1854), 90-2 (touch is death).
6. Charles Dickens, American Notes (London, 1842), 83-6.
7. George Foster, New York in Slices.
8. By an Experienced Carver (New York, 1849), 5 (palace), 19-22 (lazar-house).
9. Charles Sutton, The New York Tombs: Its Secrets and Its Mysteries (New York, 1874), 274 (O horror!).
10. Tribune, May 29, 1887 (sepulchre).
11. Herman Melville, “Bartleby, The Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street,” Putnam's Monthly Magazine, November/December 1853, pp. 546-57, 609-15.
12. Howard P. Vincent, ed., Bartleby the Scrivener (Kent, OH, 1966).
13. Herman Melville, Pierre, or, The Ambiguities (London, 1923), 502-5.
14. Wyn Kelley, Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York, 1996), 94-161.
15. Fredrika Bremer, The Homes of the New World; Impressions of America, vol. 2 (New York, 1853), 603-9.
16. Henri Browne, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford, NJ, 1869), 528-34.
17. J. H. Green, Twelve Days in the Tombs; or, A Sketch of the Last Eight Years of the Reformed Gambler's Life (New York, 1850), 70-80.
18. James D. MacCabe [Edward Winslow Martin], Secrets of the Great City (Philadelphia, 1868), 98-105.
19. Munro, New York Tombs.
20. Arthur Pember [A.P., the Amateur Vagabond], The Mysteries and Miseries of the Great Metropolis (New York, 1874), 159-79.
21. J. F. Richmond, New York and Its Institutions, 1609-1871 (New York, 1871), 514-8.
22. Joel Ross, What I Saw in New York (Auburn, NY, 1852), 78-81.
23. Matthew Hale Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York (Hartford, CT, 1868), 165-72.
24. Trumble, The New York Tombs, esp. 5.
25. George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York, 1887), 296, 390-8.
26. George Wilkes, The Mysteries of the Tombs: A Journal of Thirty Days Imprisonment in the New York City Prison for Libel (New York, 1844).
27. Sean McConville, “Local Justice: The Jail,” in Norval Morris and David J. Rothman, eds., The Oxford History of the Prison (New York, 1997), 296-327.
28. Lawrence M. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History (NewYork, 1993), 48-50, 166-8, 236-9, 469.
29. Lawrence M. Friedman and Robert V. Percival, The Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), 5.
30. Michael Willrich, City of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago (New York, 2003).
31. Allen Steinberg, The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989).
32. Michael Hindus, Crime, Justice, and Authority in Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1767-1878 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1980).
33. New York Evening Post, April 1, 1837 (Egyptian).
34. New-York As It Is (New York, 1839), 24 (Haviland).
35. Sutton, New York Tombs, 48.
36. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850 (New York, 1851), 4 (marshy).
37. Trumble, New York Tombs, 5-6 (proportions), 38.
38. Munro, New York Tombs, 31.
39. Sutton, New York Tombs, 20-49.
40. Sun clipping, February 19, 1897, vol. 162, District Attorney Scrapbooks, New York City Municipal Archives and Records Center (hereafter, DAS).
41. Dickens, American Notes.
42. John Stevens titled Stevens' Travels appears in National Union Catalogue: Pre-1956 Imprints, vol. 568 (Chicago, 1978), 454-66.
43. John Stevens, trans., A New Collection of Voyages and Travels, into Several Parts of the World, 2 vols. (London, 1711).
44. John Stevens, A New Collection of Voyages, Discoveries and Travels, 7 vols. (London, 1767).
45. New York State Assembly (hereafter, NYSA), Report of the Select Committee Appointed by the Assembly of 1875 to Investigate the Causes of the Increase of Crime in the City of New York (New York, 1876), 102-17.
46. Herald clipping, December 14, 1884, vol. 9.
47. unmarked clipping, August 7, 1887, vol. 38, both in DAS.
48. Costello, Our Police Protectors, 503-10.
49. Henry E. Howland, “The Practice of Law in New York,” Century 62 (1901): 803-25.
50. Morning Journal clippings, January 8, 9, 1894, vol. 123, DAS.
51. Times, June 4, 1890 (303 cells).
52. Tribune, June 16, 1895 (295 cells).
53. Morning Journal clippings, January 8, 9, 1894 (280 cells; 292 cells broken down as follows: old prison, 142; new male prison, 80; female prison, 45; young men's prison, 25), vol. 123.
54. unmarked clipping, August 31, 1895 (298 cells), vol. 145.
55. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896 (271 cells for 449 inmates), vol. 153, all in DAS.
56. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, October 16, 1896 (296 cells for 500 inmates).
57. Blake McKelvey, American Prisons: A Study in American Social History Prior to 1915 (Chicago, 1936), 11-2.
58. Howland, “Practice of the Law in New York,” 818.
59. Times, April 25, 1910.
60. Train, Prisoner at the Bar, 57-9, 81.
61. “To Reform Courts of Inferior Jurisdiction,” Survey 24 (April 30, 1910), 178.
62. Tribune, June 29, 1895.
63. Charles Gardner, “The Tombs Mint,” Morning Journal, August 12, 1894 (cells), vol. 130.
64. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896 (caves; 5'× 8'cells, windows), vol. 153, both in DAS.
65. New York State Senate (hereafter, NYSS), Proceedings Before the Special Committee of the New York State Senate (Albany, 1876), 72.
66. Sutton, Tombs, 50-1, 331-2.
67. Helen Campbell, Thomas W. Knox, and Thomas Byrnes, Darkness and Daylight: or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life (Hartford, CT, 1891), 339.
68. Trumble, New York Tombs, 6.
69. Walling, Recollections, 398.
70. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 1, 1873 (Murderer's Row).
71. National Police Gazette, December 31, 1881.
72. Herbert Asbury, All About the Town (New York, 1934), 184-5.
73. Wilkes, Mysteries of the Tombs, 10.
74. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850, 4 (small cells).
75. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896 (stairways, sewer gas, steerage, foul air), vol. 153.
76. unmarked clippings, February 8, 1887 (elluvia), vol. 30, all in DAS.
77. Times, February 9, 1887.
78. Sutton, Tombs, 51.
79. Browne, Metropolis, 529 (poisonous, nuisance).
80. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 103.
81. Trumble, New York Tombs, 7.
82. Walling, Recollections, 394.
83. Tribune, June 16, 1895.
84. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, March 29, 1873.
85. unmarked clipping, August 7, 1887, vol. 38.
86. Morning Advertiser clippings, July 27, 1895, vol. 144.
87. unmarked clipping, October 5, 1885, vol. 13.
88. unmarked clipping, December 21, 1895.
89. Morning Advertiser clipping, December 21, 1895 (“disgrace”), both in vol. 149, all in DAS.
90. Richmond, Institutions, 516.
91. Frank Moss, The American Metropolis, vol. 3 (New York, 1897), 68-9.
92. Harper's Weekly, June 8, 1867.
93. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (tear down).
94. National Police Gazette, March 22, 1879 (police court).
95. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, October 16, 1896.
96. Herald, April 10, 1860.
97. Tribune, May 29, 1887.
98. MacCabe, Secrets, 98.
99. Unmarked clipping, August 31, 1895 (428 in 298 cells), vol. 145.
100. Morning Journal clippings, January 8, 9, 1894 (581 in 280 cells), vol. 123, all in DAS.
101. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850, 4.
102. Bremer, Homes, vol. 2, p. 605.
103. Sutton, Tombs, 52 (517 prisoners on December 31, 1872).
104. Frank Leslies Illustrated Weekly, March 29, 1873.
105. Times, September 15, 1881.
106. Gardner, “Tombs Mint” (every cell).
107. Tribune, June 16, 1895 (295 cells), October 3, 1896.
108. PANY, Thirtieth Annual Report for 1874, 70 (499 prisoners per day).
109. Costello, Our Police Protectors, 507.
110. Walling, Recollections, 394.
111. Browne, Metropolis, 529 (400 prisoners).
112. Times clipping, January 7, 1894 (550 prisoners), vol. 123.
113. World clipping, June 5, 1895.
114. Herald clipping, June 10, 1895, both in vol. 142.
115. Morning Advertiser clipping, June 28, 1895.
116. Sun, Times (grand jury), Morning Journal, Tribune, Recorder, and Mercury clippings, June 29, 1895, all in vol. 143.
117. unmarked clipping, August 31, 1895, vol. 145.
118. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896, vol. 153.
119. Morning Telegraph clipping, April 21, 1900, vol. 190 (3-4 inmates/cell), all in DAS.
120. unmarked clipping, June 7, 1883, DAS.
121. Morning Journal clippings, January 8, 9, 1894, vol. 123, DAS.
122. MacCabe, Secrets, 98-9.
123. unmarked clippings, August 31, 1895, vol. 145.
124. unmarked clippings, December 3, 1895, vol. 148, both in DAS.
125. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896, vol. 153.
126. Gardner, “Tombs Mint” (fat men).
127. World clipping, October 3, 1896 (tripling; quotes), vol. 159.
128. Morning Journal clippings, January 8, 9, 1894 (4 and 5 per cell), vol. 123, all in DAS.
129. Tribune, June 29, 1895 (other man's face).
130. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 59 (envy; 3-4 per cell).
131. Morning Advertiser clipping, December 21, 1895, vol. 149, DAS.
132. Tribune, Morning Advertiser, Recorder, and other clippings, July 27, 1895, vol. 144.
133. clipping, February 29, 1896, vol. 152.
134. World clipping, October 9, 1896, vol. 158.
135. Journal clipping, December 19, 1896, vol. 160.
136. Times clipping, January 4, 1899, vol. 176, all in DAS.
137. Campbell et al., Darkness, 337.
138. Sutton, New York Tombs, 283 (“bummer's hall”), 329 (“ten day house”).
139. Tribune, June 29, 1895 (12 by 30 feet, stone floor).
140. Costello, Our Police Protectors, 508-9 (four stories, 200 feet by 40 feet).
141. PANY, Thirtieth Annual Report for 1874, 68 (“bummer's hall”).
142. MacCabe, Secrets, 99-100 (“bummer's cell”).
143. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 58 (5-10 day prisoners).
144. Munro, New York Tombs, 31-3 (Special Sessions).
145. Trumble, New York Tombs, 6.
146. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850, 47 (173 cells).
147. unmarked clipping, May 29, 1887, vol. 35.
148. Grand Jury Presentment, in Times clipping, June 29, 1895, vol. 143.
149. unmarked clipping, July 1, 1895 (295), vol. 143, all in DAS.
150. Tribune, June 16, 29, 1895 (143 and 295 cells).
151. unmarked clipping, August 7, 1887, vol. 38, DAS.
152. PANY, Thirty-first Annual Report for 1875, Senate Doc. 54 (Albany, 1876), 28.
153. Richmond, Institutions, 514-7.
154. Sutton, Tombs, 23-4, 51 (“bummers' hall”).
155. Smith, Sunshine and Shadow, 166 (200 in bummers' cell).
156. Campbell et al., Darkness, 339 (“bummers' hall”).
157. Grand Jury Presentment, in Times clipping, June 29, 1895, vol. 143, DAS.
158. Gardner, “Tombs Mint” (drinking water).
159. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 59 (permitted to bathe; sheets).
160. NYSA, Special Committee Appointed to Investigate Public Officers and Departments of the City of New York (Albany, 1900) (hereafter, Mazet Committee), May 31, 1899, p. 1313.
161. Times clipping, January 7, 1894, vol. 123.
162. World clipping, June 5, 1895.
163. Herald clipping, June 10, 1895, both in vol. 142.
164. Morning Advertiser clipping, December 21, 1895 (claimed one tub per floor), vol. 149.
165. Sun clipping, April 8, 1896 (claimed a dozen cells were converted to baths), vol. 153, all in DAS.
166. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 106.
167. PANY, Thirtieth Annual Report for 1874, 68.
168. unmarked clipping, April 12, 1885, vol. 11.
169. Morning Advertiser clipping, December 21, 1895, vol. 149, all in DAS.
170. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 58-9.
171. Richmond, Institutions, 516-7.
172. MacCabe, Secrets, 101.
173. Munro, Tombs, 206.
174. Foster, New York in Slices, 5.
175. unmarked clippings, May 13, 1883.
176. Daily Register clipping, January 16, 1886.
177. unmarked clipping, February 24, 1886, both in vol. 17, all in DAS.
178. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850, 4.
179. Wines, County Jail System, 13.
180. Mary Roberts Smith, “The Social Aspect of the NewYork Police Courts,” American Journal of Sociology 5 (1899): 152 (95 percent).
181. Friedman, Crime, 150-1.
182. Amy Dru Stanley, “Beggars can't Be Choosers: Compulsion and Contract in Postbellum America,” Journal of American History 78 (1992): 1265-93, esp. 1278-80.
183. Warren, Thirty Years, 174-87, 195-256.
184. Eugene Victor Debs, Walls and Bars (Chicago, 1927), 45.
185. U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office, The Statistics of the Population of the United States, vol. 1 (Washington, DC, 1872), 633.
186. U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on the Social Statistics of Cities, vol. 1 (Washington, DC, 1886), 533.
187. U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States: Population, Part I, vol. 1 (Washington, DC, 1901), 513 (for years 1880, 1890, 1900).
188. Michael Willrich, City of Courts.
189. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (“pay tribute”).
190. Wilkes, Mysteries of the Tombs, 13-4 (“pettifogers,” “fraud”).
191. NYSS, Investigation of the Police Department of New York City, vol. 3 (Albany, NY, 1895) (hereafter, Lexow Committee), 3310-2 (keepers favor certain lawyers).
192. World clipping, June 29, 1886(“bribing”), vol. 22.
193. World clipping, December 20, 1896, vol. 160 (“drummers”).
194. unmarked clipping, July 16, 1899, vol. 182 (“steerers”), all in DAS.
195. PANY, Twenty-fourth Annual Report for 1868, Senate Doc. 10 (Albany, 1869), 3 (stripped).
196. Tribune, June 26, 1886, July 8, 1886 (half the fee).
197. Times, July 17, 1880 (lookout, prize).
198. Tribune, August 6, 1877(“ring”).
199. World clipping, June 26, 1886.
200. Tribune and other clippings, July 9, 1886, all in vol. 22.
201. unmarked clippings, July 17, 1886, vol. 23.
202. Times and other clippings, January 11, 15, 1887, vol. 30.
203. Morning Advertiser clipping, May 18, 1896, vol. 154.
204. Herald clipping (shyster) and Morning Advertiser clipping, December 19, 1896.
205. World clipping (warden), December 20, 1896, all in vol. 160, all in DAS.
206. Frederick Howard Wines, The County Jail System: An Argument and Appeal for Its Abolition (Springfield, IL, 1877), 14 (little better).
207. Bremer, Homes, vol. 2, p. 605 (jailers).
208. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (rough set, money considerations).
209. Sutton, New York Tombs, 333-5 (drunk).
210. NYSS, Proceedings Before the Special Committee of the New York State Senate (Albany, 1876), 53 (14 keepers), 1093, 1095 (political influence).
211. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 59 (irresponsible keepers).
212. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (monarchs).
213. World clippings, June 26, 29, 1886 (perquisites), vol. 22.
214. Gardner, “Tombs Mint,” all in DAS.
215. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (like a gentleman).
216. Times, July 17, 1880 (list of privileges).
217. Smith, Sunshine and Shadow, 166 (in style).
218. Munro, Tombs, 20 (sex).
219. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 105 (empty cells; extorting).
220. MacCabe, Secrets, 99 (wealthier class).
221. Gardner, “Tombs Mint” (privileges; potent pull).
222. Foster, New York in Slices, 21.
223. Wilkes, Mysteries of the Tombs, 23-4.
224. Morning Advertiser, December 21, 1895 (separate cell, cleanly habits), vol. 149, all in DAS.
225. World, September 21, 1875 (best cells).
226. Morning Advertiser[?] clipping, April 4, 1890, vol. 72, DAS.
227. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (money governs).
228. New York State Laws and Statutes, Draft of the Political Code of the State of New York (Albany, 1859), 312-33.
229. Tribune, October 4, 1871.
230. World, April 15, 1874.
231. David Dudley Field, “Municipal Officers (1879),” in A. P. Sprague, ed. Speeches, Arguments, and Miscellaneous Papers of David Dudley Field, vol. 2 (New York, 1884), 178-9.
232. Roosevelt Committee in NYSA, Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Local Government of the City and County of New York, Assembly Doc. 125, in Assembly Documents, vol. 8 (Albany, 1884), 2-12.
233. McConville, “Local Justice,” 300-2.
234. Reginald Heber Smith, Justice and the Poor (New York, 1924), 21-2.
235. Sheriff Matthew Brennan, see Times, June 15, 1872.
236. Tyler Anbinder, Five Points (New York, 2001), 331-2.
237. Joseph F. Fishman, Crucibles of Crime: The Shocking Story of American Jails (Montclair, NJ, [1923] 1969), 69.
238. Times, December 22, 1872 (fancy), July 17, 1880 (list of privileges).
239. World clippings, March 24, 1886 (Jaehne), October 3, 1896 (stars), vol. 159, both in DAS.
240. Sun, October 14, 1882 (stars).
241. Sutton, Tombs, 94-6, 332-3 (Stokes), 491.
242. Tribune, August 6, 1877 (meals furnished).
243. Walling, Recollections, 397.
244. Green, Twelve Days in the Tombs, 70-80.
245. World clipping, February 5, 1888 (Brown and Versa), vol. 45, DAS.
246. World, November 3, 1894 (Hermann, special accommodations).
247. Lexow Committee, vol. 4, p. 4166 (Hermann).
248. Times, January 7, 1887 (300 visitors).
249. Tribune, May 29, 1887 (easy to get into).
250. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 1, 1873 (good-humor).
251. Costello, Police Protectors, 509 (few guards).
252. Tribune[?] clipping, May 29, 1887 (visitors in cells), vol. 35, DAS.
253. Tribune, December 15, 1879 (country people; indignant).
254. Munro, New York Tombs, 232 (heroes and martyrs).
255. Campbell, Darkness, 341.
256. Bremer, Homes, vol. 2, p. 605 (prisonerswalking about).
257. World, September 21, 1875 (no handcuffs).
258. unmarked clipping, May 2, 1896 (meet with wives), vol. 154, DAS.
259. Mazet Committee, May 31, 1899, p. 1310 (Hagan; women prisoners).
260. World clipping, January 21, 1888), vol. 44, DAS.
261. NYSS, Proceedings Before the Special Committee of the NYSS (Albany, 1876), 74, 80 (discretionary power).
262. Sutton, Tombs, 485-97.
263. Phil Farley, Criminals of America (New York, 1876), 411, 518-25.
264. Herald, November 20, 1873.
265. Times, November 25, 26, 1873.
266. Trumble, New York Tombs, 42-4.
267. NPG, July 5, 1879.
268. Walling, Recollections, 393-6.
269. Tribune, May 29, 1887, May 23, 1897.
270. Times, June 10, 1893.
271. Herbert Asbury, All Around the Town (New York, 1934), 180-9.
272. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 29, 1873.
273. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 59 (like dogs).
274. Tribune, June 29, 1895 (25 by 25).
275. Morning Advertiser, December 21, 1895 (“pans”), vol. 149.
276. Morning Advertiser, July 1, 1895 clipping (kitchen), vol. 143, both in DAS.
277. Mazet Committee, May 31, 1899, p. 1311-2, 1318 (Hagan).
278. World clippings, February 5, 6, 8, 1888, vol. 45.
279. World clipping, April 13, 1888 (“wretched”), vol. 47.
280. unmarked clipping, July 1, 1888, vol. 50, all in DAS.
281. Times, April 21, 1888.
282. Bremer, Homes, vol. 2, p. 605.
283. Trumble, New York Tombs, 9 (smoking permitted).
284. World clipping, February 5, 1888, vol. 45.
285. unmarked clippings, April 1, 1888, vol. 47.
286. unmarked clippings, July 1, 1888, vol. 50 (“Delmonico”), all in DAS.
287. Mazet Committee, May 31, 1899, pp. 1311-2, 1318 (Hagan).
288. Herald, April 10, 1860.
289. Trumble, New York Tombs, 9.
290. unmarked clipping, March 1, 1888, vol. 46, DAS.
291. Star clipping, April 3, 1888, vol. 47, DAS.
292. unmarked clipping, April 9, 1888, vol. 47, DAS.
293. Tribune, Times, World, and other clippings, April 13, 1888, vol. 47, DAS.
294. G. F. Britton to Abram Hewitt, January 11, 1888, Charities and Correction folder, Box 87-HAS-2, MP (dressing; flasks of whiskey).
295. unmarked clipping, May 22, 1896 (arranged with keepers), vol. 154.
296. unmarked clipping, January 26, 1895 (so much liquor), vol. 137, DAS.
297. Press clipping, June 3, 1899, vol. 181, DAS.
298. Trumble, New York Tombs, 49.
299. World clippings, February 5, 6, 8, 1888, vol. 45.
300. World clipping, April 13, 1888 (“wretched”), vol. 47.
301. unmarked clipping, July 1, 1888, vol. 50, all in DAS.
302. National Police Gazette, July 19, 1879 (seedy guerillas).
303. Wilkes, Mysteries, 13-4.
304. Campbell, Darkness, 341-2 (class).
305. Foster, New York in Slices, 20.
306. unmarked clipping, September 10, 1887 (quack), vol. 39.
307. Herald clipping, January 16, 1887 (Walsh), vol. 30, all in DAS.
308. Richard H. Rovere, Howe & Hummel: Their True and Scandalous History (New York, 1947), 10-1 (1840s).
309. unmarked clipping, August 25, 1894, vol. 131, DAS.
310. Ashley Cockrill, “The Shyster Lawyer,” Yale Law Journal 21 (1912): 383-90.
311. National Police Gazette, July 19, 1879.
312. World, July 11, 1899.
313. Eddie Guerin, I Was a Bandit (New York, 1929), 32.
314. Sun clipping, December 26, 1896, vol. 161, DAS.
315. David Dudley Field, “The Study and Practice of the Law,” Democratic Review 14 (1844): 345.
316. John R. Dos Passos, The American Lawyer: As He Was—As He Is—As He Can Be (New York, 1907), 33-4, 76-7.
317. Jerold S. Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (New York, 1976).
318. Lexow Committee, vol. 4, p. 4179.
319. Herald clipping, January 16, 1887 (Walsh), vol. 30, DAS.
320. Warden Hagan, see unmarked clippings, September 20, 1899.
321. Press, Herald, and other clippings, September 27, 1899, all in vol. 184, DAS.
322. Mail & Express clipping, September 9, 1884, vol. 9, DAS.
323. Times, July 17, 1886, December 21, 1891.
324. unmarked clipping, April 6, 1885, vol. 11.
325. Press clipping, November 26, 1894, vol. 134, both in DAS.
326. Times, January 9, 1909, January 28, 1909.
327. “To Reform Courts of Inferior Jurisdiction,” Survey 24 (30 April 1910): 178.
328. Kate Holladay Claghorn, The Immigrant's Day in Court (New York, 1923), 230-1.
329. Trumble, New York Tombs, 49 (quite common).
330. Times, January 31, 1873 (John Russell, Donohoe).
331. Tribune, June 14, 1893.
332. Walling, Recollections, 296.
333. Times, June 10, 1893.
334. Times, July 6, 1872.
335. Times, January 22, 1887.
336. Times, December 16, 17, 1892.
337. Times, June 10, 11, 1893.
338. Times, September 7, 8, 18, 19, 1888.
339. unmarked clipping, July 2, 1899, vol. 182, DAS.
340. Tribune, May 29, 1887.
341. Trumble, New York Tombs, 9 (ten-day prisoners).
342. Mazet Committee, May 31, 1899, pp. 1310-1.
343. Sutton, Tombs, 83-4, 333, 338 (Duffy).
344. Times, August 13, 14, 1879 (voluntary inmates;Valentine).
345. Governors of the Almshouse, Second Annual Report for 1850 (New York, 1851), 47-49.
346. Governors of the Almshouse, Fourth Annual Report for 1852 (New York, 1853), 44 (great evil).
347. PANY, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report for 1868, 2.
348. PANY, Thirtieth Annual Report for 1874, 69.
349. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 59.
350. Charles Gardner, “The Tombs Mint,” Morning Journal, August 12, 1894, vol. 130, DAS.
351. Inspectors of the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 56th Annual Report for the Year 1885 (Philadelphia, 1886), 100 (“first offenders”).
352. unmarked clipping, August 7, 1887, vol. 38.
353. Morning Journal clipping, November 4, 1894, vol. 133, both in DAS.
354. Wines, County Jail System, 9, 12-4.
355. Levi L. Barbour, “Jails: A Paper Read at the Convention of the County Agents of the State Board of Corrections and Charities of Michigan,” (1885), 4-5, in Prisons Box, Warshaw Collection, Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (common sense, enlightenment).
356. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 62 (qualification).
357. Tribune, June 16, 1895 (brigandage).
358. Raymond Moley, Our Criminal Courts (New York, 1930), 71.
359. Smith, “New York Police Courts,” 150 (Hewitt).
360. Smith, Justice and the Poor, 10 (“Poor Man's Court”).
361. Warner, “Politics and Crime,” 290-1.
362. Howland, “Practice of the Law in New York,” 818.
363. “To Reform Courts of Inferior Jurisdiction,” Survey, 24 (April 30, 1910), 177-8.
364. Times, April 4, 1910.
365. Times, June 28, 1910.
366. Times, July 15, 1910.
367. Claghorn, Immigrant's Day in Court, 220 (“rough manner” of police attendants).
368. Train, Prisoner at the Bar, 58-9.
369. Smith, “New York Police Courts,” 150-1.
370. Sutton, Tombs, 328 (drunk reporter).
371. Times, May 12, 1860 (ruffianism, blackguardism), March 20, 1881 (Gatling gun).
372. World, May 17, 1875 (Prisoner A).
373. Foster, New York in Slices, 20.
374. William McAdoo, Guarding a Great City (New York, 1906), 317.
375. Friedman and Percival, Roots of Justice, 120-5.
376. Maureen Mileski, “Courtroom Encounters: An Observation of a Lower Criminal Court,” Law and Society Review 5 (1971): 473, 479.
377. Times, January 14, 1911.
378. J. S. Cockburn, A History of English Assizes, 1558-1714 (Cambridge, 1972), 109.
379. J. H. Baker, “Criminal Courts and Procedure at Common Law, 1550-1800,” in Cockburn, History of English Assizes (Princeton, NJ, 1977), 38.
380. Times, October 23, 1909 (luck).
381. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 38-47, quote p. 44 (loading of responsibility).
382. Richmond, Institutions, 517 (vast majority).
383. Times, March 20, 1881 (Gatling gun), October 23, 1909 (luck).
384. Conkling, City Government in the United States, as quoted in Smith, “New York Police Courts,”, 149 (regulators), 150 (autocrat), 151 (79 percent).
385. Train, Prisoner at the Bar, 61, 57-9 (defendants guilty until proven innocent).
386. Munro, New York Tombs, 206 (redress).
387. “To Reform Courts of Inferior Jurisdiction,” Survey 24 (April 30, 1910): 178.
388. Smith, Sunshine and Shadow, 572-3.
389. Herald clipping, December 14, 1884, vol. 9.
390. World clipping, May 29, 1887, vol. 35, both in DAS.
391. Times, May 4, 1890.
392. Claghorn, Immigrant's Day in Court, 220-9.
393. Smith, “New York Police Courts,” 150 (Hewitt).
394. Smith, Justice and the Poor, 10 (“Poor Man's Court”).
395. Warner, “Politics and Crime,” 290-1.
396. Howland, “Practice of the Law in New York,” 818.
397. David Dudley Field, “Municipal Officers (1879),” in Sprague, Speeches, vol. 2, p. 177.
398. Howland, “Practice of the Law in New York,” 806.
399. Times, January 4, 1861 (quote).
400. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 41 (interference).
401. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 4 (New York, 1952), 241, 271 (1869).
402. Smith, “New York Police Courts,”, 146 (not attorneys).
403. Walling, Recollections, 599.
404. Tribune clipping, July 2, 1895, vol. 143.
405. Tribune clipping, April 24, 1890, vol. 73, both in DAS.
406. State of New York, The Political Code of the State of New York (Albany, 1860), 184.
407. Times, May 14, 1860.
408. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 44.
409. Times, February 16, 1880.
410. Edward T. O' Donnell, Henry George for Mayor! Irish Nationalism, Labor Radicalism, and Independent Politics in Gilded Age New York City (New York, forthcoming), esp. chap. 6.
411. Times, May 14, 1860.
412. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 52.
413. NYSS, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Inspectors of State Prisons [for 1872], Senate Doc. 30 (Albany, 1873), 236.
414. unmarked clipping, February 9, 1891 (Nicoll), vol. 82, DAS.
415. Seymour D. Thompson, “Bail in Criminal Cases,” Criminal Law Magazine 6 (January 1885): 6-7.
416. McConville, “Local Justice,” 311-3.
417. Thompson, “Bail in Criminal Cases,” 44-5.
418. Friedman and Percival, Roots of Justice, 161-3.
419. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 51.
420. Thompson, “Bail in Criminal Cases,” 10-37.
421. “Straw bail” was criticized by James Gordon Bennett as early as the 1840s.
422. Herald, January 21, 1843.
423. National Police Gazette, July 26, 1879 (owners of property).
424. Sun, August 30, 1885 (pocket the money).
425. PANY, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report for 1869, Senate Doc. 21 (Albany, 1870), 41 (sham).
426. “Politics and Crime,” American Journal of Sociology 1 (1895): 291-3.
427. Tribune, June 29, 1895.
428. Tribune, December 28, 1876 (Centre Street gang), December 30, 1876 (“flourishing”).
429. World, December 2, 1894 (organized band).
430. World, October 23, 1894 (“dog kennel”).
431. unmarked clipping, June 12, 1895, vol. 142, DAS.
432. World, Sun clippings, April 24, 25, 1895, vol. 140.
433. unmarked clipping, December 1, 1896, vol. 160, all in DAS.
434. World, December 2, 1894.
435. Morning Advertiser clipping, July 24, 1894, vol. 129.
436. Morning Advertiser clipping, July 26, 1894, vol. 130, both in DAS.
437. Herald clipping, September 25, 1894, vol. 132, DAS.
438. World, October 29, 1894 (lounging place).
439. Sun clippings, August 20, 1885 (has friends).
440. Sun clippings, September 2, 1885, both in vol. 13, DAS.
441. unmarked clipping, February 24, 1886, vol. 17.
442. Journal clipping, June 11, 1900, vol. 191, all in DAS.
443. Unmarked clipping, September 13, 1896, vol. 159, DAS.
444. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 49-50 (released).
445. Tribune, October 2, 1876 (bail equivalent to discharge).
446. Herald clipping, January 8, 1887 (Davis), vol. 30.
447. World clipping, December 20, 1896 (no apprehension of trial), vol. 160, all in DAS.
448. World, October 22, 1894 (rarest occurrence).
449. NYSS, Report of the Justices of the Special Sessions of New York City, Senate Doc. 26 (Albany, 1867), 2-3.
450. Herald clipping, January 6, 1887 (out), vol. 30.
451. Sunday Advertiser clipping, September 8, 1895, vol. 145, DAS.
452. World, October 22, 1894.
453. World clipping, October 26, 1894, vol. 133, DAS.
454. NYSS, Proceedings Before the Special Committee of the New York State Senate (Albany, 1876), 1034.
455. Sun clipping, September 5, 1886 (thousand to one), vol. 25.
456. Herald clipping, January 6, 1887 (dive cases), vol. 30.
457. unmarked clipping, February 9, 1891 (statute of limitations), vol. 82.
458. Sun clipping, September 5, 1886, vol. 25.
459. Sun, August 30, 1885.
460. unmarked clipping, January 22, 1900 (dive cases), vol. 187, all in DAS.
461. Walling, Recollections, 514 (20, 000), 572 (pigeonholes), 601-2.
462. NYSA, Increase of Crime, 43, for the same complaint a decade earlier.
463. World, November 4, 1894.
464. Tribune and other clippings, May 20, 1894, vol. 127, DAS.
465. Friedman, Crime, 389.
466. Walling, Recollections, 514 (20,000).
467. Sunday Advertiser clipping, September 8, 1895 (1, 500).
468. Recorder clipping, September 16, 1895 (names, Byrnes), both in vol. 145.
469. Telegram clipping, May 10, 1892 (6, 000 pigeonholed indictments), vol. 98.
470. unmarked clipping, February 9, 1891 (1, 800), vol. 82, all in DAS.
471. World, October 23, 1894 (can commit crime).
472. World clipping, June 9, 1895, vol. 142, DAS.
473. Tribune, August 24, 1894.
474. Moley, Our Criminal Courts, xi, 14.
475. Times, March 20, 1909.
476. PANY, Thirty-First Annual Report for 1875, 78-9.
477. Sun, August 30, 1885.
478. Sun clipping, September 2, 1885 (no index), vol. 13.
479. World clipping, December 20, 1896 (pursue), vol. 160.
480. unmarked clipping, January 22, 1900 (entertainment establishments), vol. 187, both in DAS.
481. Times, August 9, 1909.
482. Charles W. Culkin, Chief Clerk of the Court of Special Sessions, and William M. Fuller, Acting Chief Clerk, in Times, March 24, 25, 28, 31.
483. Charles W. Culkin, Chief Clerk of the Court of Special Sessions, and William M. Fuller, Acting Chief Clerk, in Times, May 6, 1909.
484. unmarked clipping, February 9, 1891, vol. 82, DAS.
485. Smith, “NewYork Police Courts,” 145 (dockets closed to public; overload).
486. World, October 22, 1894 (unable to verify).
487. Herald clipping, January 8, 1887 (lumping cases), vol. 30, DAS.
488. Times, August 9, 12, 1909.
489. Sun, August 30, 1885 (panic).
490. Franklin Matthews, “‘Wide-Open’ New York,” Harper's Weekly, October 22, 1898.
491. Garry Wills, Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (New York, 1994), 226.
492. Warner, “Politics and Crime,” 290-1.
493. “inferior courts” in New York requires a separate study. The best places to begin include New York State Commission to Inquire into Courts of Inferior Criminal Jurisdiction in Cities of the First Class (Page Commission), Proceedings, 5 vols. (Albany, 1909).
494. “To Reform Courts of Inferior Jurisdiction,” Survey 24 (April 30, 1910).
495. Times, January 14, 1911 (silence).
496. Moley, Our Criminal Courts.
497. Moley, Tribunes of the People (New York, 1932).
498. Tribune clipping, December 26, 1896, vol. 161, DAS.
499. Times, February 14, 1911.
500. Willrich, City of Courts.
501. David J. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston, 1971).
502. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, 1977).
503. Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain (New York, 1975).
504. Ignatieff, “State, Civil Society and Total Institutions: A Critique of Recent Social Histories of Punishment,” Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research 3 (1981): 153-91.
505. Stanley Cohen and Andrew Scull, eds., Social Control and the State (New York, 1983).
506. David W. Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796-1848 (Ithaca, NY, 1965).
507. Peter Spierenburg, “From Amsterdam to Auburn: An Explanation for the Rise of the Prison in Seventeenth-Century Holland and Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of Social History 20 (1987): 439-62.
508. Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression: From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience (New York, 1984).
509. Adam J. Hirsch, The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America (New Haven, CT, 1992).
510. Michael Meranze, Laboratories of Virtue: Punishment, Revolution, and Authority in Philadelphia, 1760-1835 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996).
511. Estelle B. Freedman, Their Sisters' Keepers: Women's Prison Reform in America, 1830-1930 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1981).
512. Edward L. Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th-Century American South (New York, 1984).
513. Larry Goldsmith, “History from the Inside Out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts,” Journal of Social History 31 (1997): 121-2.
514. Wilbur Miller, Cops and Bobbies: Police Authority in New York and London, 1830-1870 (Chicago, 1973).
515. Miller, “Police Authority in London and New York City,” Journal of Social History 8 (winter 1975): 81-101.
516. Timothy J. Gilfoyle is the author of City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 (New York: Norton, 1992)and a coeditor of the “Historical Studies in Urban America” series from the University of Chicago Press.