It is needless to say that some of these boys were the children of well-to-do parents who allowed them to be sent to the City Prison for the “scare” it would give them. But it had no apparent effect on most of them. Many times a mother in silks and satins with a full display of jewelry would visit the Prison. One day a mother went to one of the judges to ask clemency for her boy who was up for sentence. The judge was disposed to be lenient with the lad as he was not a thief. But the Court had made inquiry and learned that the parents were more to blame for his downfall than the boy. I was glad the judge spoke as he did, before he got through that mother’s face was crimson. “Woman,” said the judge, “why don’t you look after your boy? You are responsible for his disgrace. You go out at night to the theatre and other social functions, and while you are having a nice time your boy is going to the Devil! If you promise to stay at home and try and bring up your boy the proper way, I will suspend sentence.” She did. For several years after I went to the Tombs there was a man who acted as school teacher and probation officer, whose vile relations with the boys in his rooms on Chrystie street, was scandalous. Several had confessed to me as well as to Father Smith, the Catholic Priest. As soon as I learned that the shocking information was true, I sent the boys and their parents to Commissioner Hynes, and with the aid of Justice Meyers of Special Sessions he was “bounced.” The general opinion at the time was that the brute ought to have been sent to Sing Sing for twenty years. Warden Van De Carr deserved great credit for the help rendered on this occasion. These and similar abuses have been going on in our prisons for years, but no body is willing to stop them or expose them? The present missionary mollycoddles would not dare to speak against them, and as far as the Tombs abuses are concerned the Prison Association has been dumb on these and similar subjects. The courts find it hard to secure the right kind of Probation officers. This is especially true in regard to Boys. A loud mouthed, untruthful grafter should not be allowed to manage boys under any circumstances. There are two notable exceptions, one in Brooklyn and the other in New York—both reliable men, Messrs. Baccus and Kimball. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER I WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE TOMBS No prison on the American continent has had such an unsavory reputation as a corrupt grafting institution as the New York Tombs. This has been especially true when City politics had decreed it to be in charge of the House of Grafters on Fourteenth Street.