Perhaps in the whole world there is not a building where all the horror, the wild poetry of sin and grief is so forcibly written out in black shadows and hard stone, as in the city prison of New York. A stranger passing that massive pile would unconsciously feel saddened, though entirely ignorant of its painful uses, for the very atmosphere fills him with a vague sensation of alarm. The Egyptian architecture, so heavy and imposing; the thick walls which no sunshine can penetrate, and against which cries of anguish might, unheard, exhaust themselves forever, chill the very heart. The ponderous columns, lost in a perspective of black shadows in the front entrance—piles of granite sweeping toward Broadway, and interlocking with the black prison that rises up, like a solid wall, gloomy, windowless, and penetrated only with loop-holes, like a fort which has nothing but misery to protect—fills the imagination with gloom.

The moment you come in sight of the building, your breath draws heavily; the atmosphere seems humid with tears—oppressive with sighs—a storm of human suffering appears gathering around. The air seems eddying with curses which have exhausted their sound against those walls; you feel as if sin, shame, and grief were palpable spirits, walking behind and around you; and all this is the more terrible, because the waves of life gather close up to the building, swelling against its walls on every side.

The prison sits like a monster, crouching in the very heart of a great city; the veins and arteries of social evil weave and coil close around it, like serpents born in the same foul atmosphere with itself. Placed on foundations lower than the graded walks, nestled in a dried up swamp that has exchanged the miasma of decayed nature for the miasma of human guilt; the neighborhood close at hand sunk, like this building, deep in the grade of human existence; is there on earth another spot so eloquent of suffering, so populous with sin?

"The Tombs," this name was given to the prison years ago, when its foundations were first sunk in the swampy moisture of the soil. Then you could see the vast structure sinking, day by day, into its murky foundations, and enveloped in clouds of palpable miasma. There the poor wretches huddled within its walls, died like herds of poisoned cattle; pine coffins were constantly passing in and out of those ponderous doors. Pauper death-carts might be seen every day lumbering up Centre street, on their road to Potter's Field. The man, innocent or guilty, who entered those walls, breathed his death warrant as he passed in.

This only continued for a season; it was not long before the tramp of human feet, and the weight of that ponderous mass of stone crushed the poisonous moisture from the earth, but the name which death had left still remained—a name deeply and solemnly significant of the place to all who deem moral evil and moral death as mournful as the physical suffering which had baptized it.

The main building, which fronts on Centre street, opens to a dusky and pillared vestibule, that leads to various rooms, occupied by the courts and officials connected with the prison. At the right, as you enter, is the police court, a spacious apartment, with deep casements. A raised platform, railed in from the people, upon which the magistrates sit, contains a desk or two, and beyond are several smaller rooms, used for private examinations.

In one of these rooms, the smallest and most remote, sat a mournful group, early one morning, before the magistrates had taken their seats upon the bench. One was an old man, thin, haggard and care-worn, but with a placid and even exalted cast of countenance, such as a stricken man wears when he has learned "to suffer and be strong." He sat near a round table covered with worn baize, upon which one elbow rested rather heavily, for he had tasted little food for several days; and the languor of habitual privation, joined to strong nervous reaction, after a scene of horror, impressed his person even more than his face. That, as I have said, was pale and worn, but tranquil and composed to a degree that startled those who looked upon him, for the old man was waiting there to be examined on a charge of murder, and men shuddered to see the calmness upon his features. It seemed to them nothing but hardened indifference, the composure of guilt that had ceased to feel its own enormity.

Close by this man sat two females, an old woman and a girl, not weeping, they had no tears left, but they sat with heavy, mournful eyes gazing upon the floor. Marks of terrible suffering were visible in their faces, and in the dull, hopeless apathy of their motionless silence. Now and then a low sigh rose and died upon the pale lips of the girl, but it was faint as that which exhales from a flower which has been trodden to death, and the poor girl was only conscious that the pain at her heart was a little sharper that instant than it had been.

The woman, pale, still, and grief-stricken in every feature and limb, did not even sigh. It seemed as if the breath must have frozen upon her cold lips, she seemed so utterly chilled, body and soul.

An officer of the police stood just within the room, not one of those burly, white-coated characters we find always in English novels, but a tall, slender and gentlemanly person, who regarded the group it had been his duty to arrest with a grave and compassionate glance. True, he searched the old man's face as those who have studied the human lineaments strive to read the secrets of a soul in their expression—but there was nothing rude either in his look or manner.

After awhile the officer remembered that his prisoners had not tasted food since the day previous, and, with a pang of self-reproach, he addressed them.

"You are worn out for want of food—I should have remembered this!" he said, approaching the table; "I will order some coffee."

The old man raised his head, and turned his grateful eyes upon the officer.

"Yes," he said, with a gentle smile, "they are hungry; a little coffee will do them good."

The young female looked up and softly waved her head; but the other continued motionless, she had heard nothing.

The officer whispered to a person outside the door, and then began to pace up and down the room like a sentinel, but treading very lightly, as if subdued by the silent grief over which he kept guard.

Directly the coffee was brought in, with bread and fragments of cold meat.

"Come now," said the officer, cheerfully, "take something to give you strength. The examination may be a long one, and I have seen powerful men sink under a first examination—take something to keep you up, or you will get nervous, and admit more than a wise man should."

"Yes," said the old man, meekly, "you are right, they will want strength—so shall I." He took one of the tin-cups which had been brought half full of coffee, and reached it toward the woman.

"Wife!" he said, bending toward her.

The poor woman started, and looked at him through her wild, heavy eyes.

"What is it, Wilcox? What is it you want of me?"

"You observe she is almost beside herself," said the old man addressing the officer, and his face grew troubled—"what can I do?"

"Oh! these things are very common. She must be roused!" answered the man, kindly. "Speak to her again."

The old man stooped over his wife, and laid his hand gently upon hers. She did not move. He grasped her thin fingers, and tears stood in his eyes; still she did not move. He stood a moment gazing in her face, the tears running down his cheeks. He hesitated, looked at the officer half timidly, and bending down, kissed the old woman on the forehead.

That kiss broke up the ice in her heart. She stood up and began to weep.

"You spoke to me, Wilcox—what was it you wanted? I am better now—quite well. What is it you wanted me to do?"

"He only wishes you to eat and drink something," said the officer, deeply moved.

"Eat and drink—have we got anything to eat and drink? That is always his way when we are short, urging us, and hungry himself."

"But there is enough for all," said the old man. "See, I too will eat, and Julia!"

"Why, if there is enough we will all eat, why not," said the poor woman, with a dim smile.

She took the coffee, tasted it, and looked around the room with vague curiosity.

"What is all this?—where are we now, Wilcox?" she said, in a low, frightened voice.

The old man kept his eyes bent on hers, they were full of trouble, and this stimulated her to question him again.

"Where are we? I remember walking, wading, it seemed to me, neck deep through a crowd, trying to keep up with you. Some one said they were taking us to prison; that I had done nothing, and they would not keep me. That you and Julia would stay, but I must go into the street, because a wife could not bear witness against her husband, but a grandchild could. Have I been crazy, or walking in my sleep, Wilcox?"

"No, wife, you are worn out—frightened; drink some more of the coffee, by and bye all will be clear to you."

The old woman obeyed him, and drank eagerly from the cup in her hand. Then she looked on her husband, on Julia, and the officer, as if striving to make out why they were all together in that strange place. All at once she set down the cup and drew a heavy breath.

"I remember," she said, mournfully—"I remember now that dead man, with his open eyes and white clenched teeth; I know who he was—I knew it at first."

The officer drew a step nearer and listened, the spirit of his vocation was strong within him. There might be important evidence in her words, and for a moment the humane man was lost in the acute officer. The prisoner remarked this movement, and looked on the man with an expression of mild rebuke.

"Would you take advantage of her unsettled state, or of the words it might wring from me?" he said.

"No," answered the officer, stepping back, abashed. "No, I would not do anything of the kind, at least deliberately."

But this remonstrance had aroused distrust in the old woman, she drew close to her husband, and whispered to him—

"I cannot quite make it out, Wilcox. The people—the crowd said over and over again that they were taking us to prison. This is no prison! carpets on the floor, chairs, window blinds, all so pretty and snug, with us eating and drinking together. This is no prison, Wilcox, we have not had so nice a home these ten years."

"This is only a room in the prison, not the one they will give me by and bye!" answered the old man with a faint smile, "that will be smaller yet."

"You say me!" said the wife, holding tight to the hand that clasped hers. "Why do you not say that the room—let it be what it will—is large enough for us both, husband? I say you did not mean that it will not hold your wife too."

The old man turned away from those earnest eyes; he could not bear the look of mingled terror and entreaty that filled them.

"Remember, Wilcox, we have not spent one night apart in thirty years!"

"I know it," answered the old man with quivering lips.

"And now will you let me stay with you?"

"Ask him," said the old man, turning his face away, "ask him!"

She let go her hold of the prisoner's hand with great reluctance, and went up to the officer.

"You heard what he said, you must know what I want. We have lived together a great many years, more than your whole life. We have had trouble—great trouble, but always together. Tell me—can we stay together yet?"

"I do not know," said the man, deeply moved. "Your husband is charged with a crime that requires strict prison rules."

"I know, he is charged with murder! but you see how innocent he is," answered the wife, and all the holy faith, the pure, beautiful love born in her youth and strengthened in her age, kindled over those wrinkled features—"you see how innocent he is!"

The man checked a slight wave of the head, for he would not appear to doubt that old man's innocence, strong as the evidence was against him.

"You will not send me away!" said the old woman, still regarding him with great anxiety.

"I have no power—it is not for me to decide—such things have been done. In minor offences, I have known wives to remain in prison, but never in capital cases that I remember."

"But some one has the power. It is only for a little while—it cannot be for more than a week or two that they will keep him, you know."

"It may be—from my heart I hope so—but I can answer for nothing, I have no power."

"Who has the power?—what can we do?"

It was the young girl who spoke now. The entreaties of her grandmother—the tremulous voice of her grandsire, at length aroused her feelings from the icy stillness that had crept over them. The mist cleared away from her eyes, and though heavy with sleeplessness and grief, they began to kindle with aroused animation.

"No one at present, my poor girl—nothing can be done till after the examination."

Julia had drawn close to her grandmother, and grasped a fold of her faded dress with one hand. The officer could not turn his eyes from her face, so sad, so mournfully beautiful. He was about to utter some vague words of comfort, but while they were on his lips a door from the police-court opened, and a man looked through, saying in a careless, off-hand manner, "bring the old man in."

The court-room was crowded with witnesses ready to be examined, lawyers, eager for employment, and others actuated by curiosity alone, all crowded and jostled together outside the bar. As the prisoner entered, the throng grew denser, pouring in through the open door, and spreading out into the vestibule to the granite pillars, all pressing forward with strained eyes to obtain a view of one feeble old man.

They made a line for him to pass, crushing against each other with their heads thrown back, and staring in the old man's face as if he had been some wild animal, till his thin hand clutched the bar. There he stood as meek as a child, with all those bright, staring eyes bent upon him. A faint crimson flush broke through the wrinkles on his forehead; and his hand stirred upon the railing with a slight shiver, otherwise his gentle composure was unbroken.

The crowd closed up as he passed, but the two females clinging together, breathless and wild with fear, least they should be separated from him, pressed close upon his steps, forcing their way impetuously one moment, and looking helplessly around the next. Still resolutely following the prisoner, they won some little space at each step, not once losing sight of his grey head as it moved through the sea of faces, all turned, as they thought, menacingly upon him. At length they stood close behind the old man, and, unseen by the crowd, clung to his garments with their hands.

The judge bent forward in his leathern easy-chair, and looked in the prisoner's face, not harshly, not even with sternness. Had a lighter offence been charged upon the old man, his face might have borne either of these expressions, but the very magnitude of the charge under investigation gave dignity to the judge, and true dignity is always gentle.

He stooped forward, therefore, not smiling, but kindly in look and voice, informed the prisoner of his right, and cautioned him not to criminate himself ignorantly in any answer he might make to interrogations of the court.

The old man raised his eyes, thanked the judge in a low voice, and waited.

"Your name?"

"I am known in the city as Benjamin Warren, but it is not my real name."

"What is the real name then?"

"I would rather not answer."

The old man spoke mildly, but with great firmness. The judge bent his head. A dozen pens could be heard at the reporters' desk taking down the answer. A hush was on the crowd; every man leaned forward, breathless and listening. Those even in the vestibule kept still while the old man's reply ran among them in whispers.

"Did you know the man who was found dead in your house on the nineteenth of this month?"

"Yes, I knew the man well!"

"Where and when had you met before!"

"I do not wish to answer!"

"Did you see him on the evening of the eighteenth?"

"No!"

"Did evil feeling exist between you?"

The old man turned a shade paler, and his hand shook upon the railing; he hesitated as if at a loss for words which might convey an exact answer.

"I cannot say what his feelings were—but of my own I can speak, having asked this same question of my soul many times. William Leicester had wronged me and mine—but I forgave the wrong; I had no evil feeling against him."

"Were there not high words and angry defiance between you that morning?"

"He was angry—I was not; agitated, alarmed, I was—but not angry."

"Were you alone with him?"

"Yes!"

"How long?"

"Maybe ten minutes!"

"Once more," said the judge; "once more let me remind you that in another court these answers may be used to your prejudice. Now take time, you have no counsel, so take time for reflection before you reply. What business had Leicester with you?—what was the subject of conversation between you?"

The old man bent his forehead to the railing, and thus stood motionless without answering. His own honest sense told him that every question that he refused to answer gave rise to doubt, and kindled some new prejudice against him. His obvious course was silence, or a frank statement of the truth. He raised his head, and addressed the judge gently as he might have consulted with a friend.

"If I have a right to refuse answers to a part of what you ask me, may I not, by the same right, remain silent?"

"There is no law which forces you to answer where a reply will prejudice your cause."

"Will anything I can say help my cause?"

"No!"

"Then I will be silent. But I never lifted my hand against that man—never, so help me God!"

The judge felt this to be a wise conclusion, and a faint gleam of satisfaction came to his lips. The meek dignity of that old men, the beautiful pale face now and then peering out from behind his poverty-stricken garments—the feeble old woman crowding close to his side, all had aroused his sympathy. It was impossible to look on that group and believe any one of those feeble creatures guilty of the blood that had reddened their poverty-stricken hearth, and yet the evidence had been fearfully strong before the coroner's inquest.

Some commotion arose in the crowd after this. Men began to whisper opinions to each other—now and then a rude joke or laugh rose from the vestibule. People began to circulate in and out at the various doors, and during all this several witnesses were examined. These persons had seen a gentleman, well, nay, elegantly dressed, enter the miserable basement occupied by the prisoner and his family, very early on the morning of the nineteenth. One, a person who lived in the front basement, testified to high words, and a sound as if some one had stamped several times on the floor. Then he heard quick footsteps along the entry; saw the stranger an instant in the front area, and then heard him go back again. This excited considerable curiosity in the witness, who opened the door of his own room and looked out. He caught a glimpse of the stranger going, quickly, through the next door, and saw two females.

The old woman and girl now standing behind the prisoner were crouching in the back end of the entry, apparently much frightened, for both were pale; and the old woman wrung her hands while the girl wept bitterly. A little after, perhaps two minutes, this man heard a sound from the next room, as if of some heavy body falling; this was followed by a hush that made him shiver from head to foot. He went out and saw the two females clinging together, and creeping pale and terror-stricken up to the door, which the old woman tried to open, but could not, her hands shook so violently.

The witness himself turned the latch and looked in, leaning over the females, who, uttering a low cry, stood motionless, blocking up the entrance. He saw the stranger lying upon the floor, stretched back in the agony of a fierce death pang; his teeth were clenched; his eyes wide open; the chin protruded upward; and both hands were groping and clutching at the bare boards.

While the witness looked on, the limbs, half gathered up and strained against the floor, gave way, and settled down like ridges of withered grass. The room was badly lighted, but it seemed to the witness that there was some faint motion, after this a shudder, or it might be a fold of the dead man's clothes settling around him, but except this all signs of life went out from the body.

Then the witness had time to see the other objects in the room. The first thing that his eyes fell upon was the face of old Mr. Warren, the palest, the most deathly face he ever saw on a living man; he was stooping over the corpse, grasping what seemed a handful of snow, stained through and through with blood which he pressed down upon the dead man's side.

The witness grew wild with the terror of this scene. He pushed the two females forward and went in. The prisoner looked up, still pressing his hand upon the dead man; his lips moved, and he tried to speak, but could not. On stooping down, the witness saw that the stained mass clenched in the old man's fingers was one side of a white silk vest, clutched up with masses of fine linen, which the dead man had worn. He also saw a knife lying on the floor wet to the haft. After a minute or so, the prisoner spoke, apparently feeling the body grow stiff under his hand; he turned his head with a piteous look, and whispered—"What can we do?"

The witness stated that his answer was "Nothing—the man is dead!"

Then the old man got up, and went to a bed huddled on the floor in one corner of the room, where his wife and grand-daughter had dropped, when the witness pushed them with unconscious violence from the threshold. He said something in a low voice to the woman, and she answered—

"Oh, Wilcox, tell me that you did not do it!"

The prisoner looked at her—at first he seemed amazed as if some horrid thought had just struck him, then he looked grieved, wounded to the heart. The expression that came upon his face was enough to make one cry, but his voice, when he spoke, was even worse than the look; it seemed choked up with tears, that he could not shed.

"My wife!" he said nothing more, but that was enough to make the old woman cover her face with both hands and sob like a child. Julia, his grandchild, who had been sitting white and still as death till then, lifted her eyes to the old man's face, and you could see them deepen with sorrowful astonishment, as if she too had been suddenly wounded. The look of horror died on her features, leaving them full of tenderness. She arose with the look of an angel, and clasping her hands over the old man's arm, as he stood gazing mournfully upon his wife, pressed her head against his side.

"Grandfather, she did not think it. It was the terror that spoke, not her, not my grandmother!"

The old man would have laid his hand upon her head, but it was crimson and wet. He saw this, and dropped it again.

The dim light, the pale faces, the man stark and dead upon the floor, made the scene too painful even for a strong man. The witness went out and aroused the neighborhood. He did not go back; more courageous men would have shrunk from the scene as he did.

I have given this man's evidence, not in his own words. He was a German, and spoke rude English; but the scene he described was only the more graphic for that. It impressed the judges and the crowd; it gratified that intense love of the horrible that is becoming a passion in the masses, and yet softened it with touches of rude pathos, that also gratified the populace. Here and there you saw a wet eye in the crowd. Men who were strangers to each other, exchanged whispered wishes that the prisoner might be found innocent. The old woman and her grand-daughter became objects of unceasing curiosity. Men pressed forward to get a sight at them. The reporters paused to study their features, and to take an inventory of their poverty-stricken garments.

Other witnesses were called, all testifying to like facts, that served to fasten the appearances of guilt more closely upon that fallen old man. When all had been examined but the grand-daughter, the excitement became intense; the crowd pressed closer to the bar; those in the vestibule rushed in, filling every corner of the room.

The poor girl moved when her name was pronounced, and with difficulty mounted the step which lifted her white face to a level with the judge. The little hands grasped the railing till every drop of blood was driven from the strained fingers; but for this she must have fallen to the earth, for there was no strength in her limbs, no strength at her heart, save that which one fixed solemn thought gave. There was something deeper than the pallor of fear in those beautiful features—something more sublime than sorrow in the clear violet eyes which she lifted to the magistrate. He saw her lips move, and bent forward to catch the sound of words that she seemed to be uttering,—

"I cannot answer any questions; don't ask me, sir, please don't!"

He caught these words. He saw the look of meek courage that spoke even more forcibly than the tremulous lips. No one saw the look, or heard the voice, but himself, not even the prisoner; for age had somewhat dulled his ear. The face, the look, the gentle bearing of this poor girl, filled the judge with compassion. It is a horrible thing for any law to force evidence from one loving heart that may cast another into the grave. The magistrate had never felt the cruelty so much before. The questions that he should have propounded sunk back upon his heart. It seemed like torturing a lamb with all the flock looking on.

Still, the magistrates of our courts learn hard lessons even of juvenile depravity; not to be suspicious would, in them, be a living miracle. This girl might be prompted by advice, and thus artfully acting as the tool of some lawyer. You would not look in her eyes and believe it, but soft eyes sometimes brood over falsehood that would make you tremble. No one is better aware of this than the acute magistrate; still there is something in pure simplicity that convinces the heart long before the judgment has power to act.

"Who told you not to answer my questions?" he said, in a low voice.

"No one!"

"Then why refuse?"

"Because my grandfather never killed the man, but what I should say, might make it seem as if he did."

"But do you know that is contempt of court—a punishable offence."

"I did not know it!"

"That I have power to make you answer?"

A faint beautiful smile flitted across her face. You might fancy a youthful martyr smiling thus when threatened with death by fire. It disturbed in no degree the humility of her demeanor, but that one gleam of the strength within her satisfied the magistrate.

Not even the reporters had been able to catch a word of the conversation. His dignity was in no way committed. He resolved to waive the cruel power, which would have wrung accusation from that helpless creature unnecessarily; for the evidence that had gone before was quite sufficient to justify a commitment.

"We shall not require the evidence of this young girl," he said, addressing a fellow-magistrate, who had been writing quietly during the proceedings.

"No," answered the magistrate, without checking his pen or raising his head, "what is the use? The story of that German was enough. I should have committed him after that. The poor girl is frightened to death. Let her go!"

"But in the other court, there she will be wanted!"

"True, she must be kept safe. Anybody forthcoming with the bonds?"

"I fear not. It seems hard to keep the poor thing in prison!"

"Like caging a blackbird!" answered the man, racing over the paper with his gold-mounted pen. "Hard, but necessary; bad laws must be kept the same as good ones, my dear fellow! Disgrace to civilization, and all that, but the majesty of the law must be maintained, even though it does shut up nice little girls with the offscourings of the earth."

"It goes against my heart!" answered the sitting magistrate with a sigh. "It seems like casting newly fallen snow before a herd of wild animals. I never hated to sign my name so much!"

"Must be done though. You have stretched a point to save her. Just now, the reporters were eyeing you. Another step of leniency, and down comes the press!"

"I shall act rightly according to my own judgment, notwithstanding the press."

"A beautiful sentiment, only don't let those chaps hear it. Would not appreciate the thing at all!"

The sitting magistrate spoke the truth. Never in his life had he signed papers of commitment so reluctantly; but they were made out at length, and handed to the officer. The old man was conducted from the bar one way, and a strange officer took Julia by the hand, forcing her through the crowd in another direction. At first she supposed that they were going with her grandfather. When they were separated in the crowd, she began to struggle; a faint wail broke from her lips, and the officer was compelled to cast his arm around her waist, thus half carrying her through the crowd.

The woman had followed her husband and grandchild mechanically, but when they were separated, the cry that broke from Julia's lips made her turn and rush back; the crowd closed in around her; she cast one wild look after the prisoner, another toward the spot whence the wail came. They both were lost through a door in the dark vistas of the prison. She saw an arm flung wildly up as if beckoning her, and rushed forward, blindly struggling against the crowd. In the press of people, she was hurried forth into the vestibule, and there leaning, in dreary helplessness, against one of the massy stone pillars, she stood looking vaguely around for her husband and child. It was a heart-rending sight, but every day those ponderous walls witness scenes equally mournful.