The New York Tombs Inside and Out! / Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.

Many of our most recent sociological writers commenting on some of the causes of crime, omit all mention of poverty. They speak of heredity, environment, intemperance, and many other things, but of poverty they say nothing whatever. Even Henry George in his book on Progress and Poverty is silent on the latter subject as one of the great producing causes of crime. Any one who carefully studies the relation between poverty and crime will see that these two in many cases are vitally connected.

It is not necessary in this discussion to enter into all the ramifications of the subject. Indeed nothing would be gained by doing so. In the present instance we simply wish to present to our readers a few cases which will go to show that the question of “bread and butter” is one of paramount importance to the average man. And we shall endeavor to show that poverty is one of the most potent causes of crime in our day, especially in our large cities.

The London police authorities have always maintained, and are able to prove by statistics, that when the bakers raise the price of bread only one-half a cent, it means an increase of crime to the extent of ten per cent. And for the reason that so many of the poorer classes are so pinched by poverty, that when the price of food is raised it means to many of them starve or steal.

It is foolish any longer to stultify our minds and argue against believing that poverty and crime are vitally related. This is especially true in our large cities, rather than in the country. Not only do they belong to each other like cause and effect,—but poverty in many instances fosters crime.

It is a well known fact that when thousands of our laboring classes are out of employment only one week, they are, to use the language of the street, “dead broke.” In a few days the whole family become so affected for want of food that unless the father gets work at once whatever is of value in the house is either put in pawn or sold for what it can bring anywhere. When the house ceases to have anything more to sell, the children are sent out to steal. A large number of those who are arrested by the Children’s Society for various crimes and taken to their rooms before going to Court, eat ravenously of whatever food is set before them. When they are questioned as to why they stole, they usually say they were hungry.

Diminutive boys and even men with sunken cheeks and pale faces are taken to the Tombs almost daily charged with the crime. When you speak to them they freely admit that they lived for months by stealing. And in a great many cases they stole to get food for the family. The same is also true of boys and girls who work in stores and factories. When sorely tempted to steal they do so but only when hunger stares them in the face! In nearly all the places where young people work they pay such small salaries, that they are unable to save anything. After they pay their board what is left goes for clothing and carfare. But there is nothing for the proverbial rainy day.

But self preservation is said to be the first law of nature. “All that a man hath will he give for his life,” is as true to-day as it ever was. When men steal to preserve life they simply trample under foot a lower law to maintain a higher one. And it is the most natural thing in the world to fall back on the law of self-preservation when driven to the wall by hunger or other adverse circumstances.

The annals of crime in this city will show that the children of the poor at an early age are turned on the street, where they are left to steal or starve. I have found by careful observation that twenty-five per cent. of the boy criminals of New York started on their wayward careers when they were hungry. It was the old story, “Steal or starve.” And they stole and became criminals.

As long as you keep men and women busily employed crime is out of the question, but when they lose their job and feel the pangs of hunger, the criminal instinct comes to them with such force that they cannot resist it.

An ex-convict whom I have known for a number of years wrote me a letter of explanation after going back to the Penitentiary some months ago. “Sir,” said he, “there is no employment for an ex-convict. * * * * I was homeless and friendless * * * * * with me it was steal, starve or beg? I was too proud to beg. And I refused to starve in this land of plenty. When I could do nothing else I stole—when I suffered the pangs of hunger. What else could I do? And when placed in the same circumstances I will do it again.”

Not long since John Williams, sixty years of age, was arraigned in Centre Street Court, charged with larceny. He confessed his guilt. “I do not care what you do with me, Judge,” he said. “I was starving and it was either steal or die.” “Why don’t I work?” “Well, Judge, if you will get me a job, you’ll see how hard I’ll work. But nobody wants an old man like me.”

I knew a respectable man who resided in the vicinity of Tenth Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street; he was out of employment for about three weeks. By this time his family, which consisted of wife and five children, were in dire poverty. The fourth week he found employment at twelve dollars a week driving a truck. On Saturday the boss paid the man six dollars out of which he was to pay rent and feed his family for a whole week. The employer retained six dollars of his wages as security against loss while in his employ. In the middle of the week his funds were exhausted. When he came home Wednesday night his children were crying for food and he had none to give them. Then he remembered that he left a box of goods on the truck when he put his team in the barn. That night he broke the box open, took some of the goods out and pawned them and with the money bought food and fuel to make his family comfortable for several days. It is needless to say that before the week was out he was arrested charged with grand larceny.

A good Samaritan made an investigation of this man’s case the following week, found his family in great poverty and supplied their wants. Not only was it found that the man was no thief, but everything he said was true. He was driven to steal by his hard hearted employer who held back half his week’s pay when his family was in great need.

When all the facts became fully known the Court suspended sentence and sent him back to his family. The Monday following he went to work for an old employer who had always known him as an honest man.

When I spoke to this man about what he had done, he said, “I could not help it. My boss, who retained in his possession six dollars of my hard earned money, made me a thief. I did not want to steal but when I heard my children cry for bread it almost crazed me and I stole to satisfy their hunger.”

An old German, over fifty years of age, who some years ago was in business in Philadelphia, failed and lost all his property. He came to New York where he lived from hand to mouth for a month or two. He was often in the bread line on the Bowery to get enough to keep him from starvation. During that winter he went four days without eating anything. Then in his desperation he broke a window and stole an opera glass. For this he was arrested and sent to the Penitentiary for one year.

When he came out of prison he was determined not to commit another crime. He walked the streets for five days looking for employment, but nobody wanted him, he was too old. Walking along Second Avenue one evening he became exhausted, then desperate and broke a plate glass window that he might be sent to prison where he would get enough to eat. When he was discharged I met him at the prison door. I tried to get him employment but nobody wanted him, then I sent him to Newark on his way to Philadelphia among his friends who would save him from further imprisonment. In both cases poverty drove him to crime to get food. He was not a criminal from choice but only from circumstances.

This last case which I am about to relate was the most pitiful of all. The man lived with his wife and four children in the neighborhood of East Fortieth Street near First Avenue. He was a painter by trade and had been out of employment four weeks. On the first of March his wife gave birth to a child. On the third day afterwards his home was fireless and foodless. On the morning of the fourth day his children cried for food, then he became desperate. He tried to borrow money but nobody would loan him anything, not even a quarter of a dollar. That morning he stood at the Grand Central Depot ready to steal if he got the chance, but there were too many policemen there watching his movements. Then he walked down to Thirty-eighth Street and Park Avenue where he stood watching the people. In a few minutes he saw a lady come along dressed in furs. In her hand was a small wallet. He followed her down the steps into the tunnel, snatched the wallet and ran. But he could not run fast enough as he was weakened from lack of food and was soon captured. It was proved in Court that the man was not a thief; that he was driven to do the crime because of the dire poverty in his home. It was a social rather than a criminal question, but the judge thought he would make an example of this unfortunate and gave him ten years’ imprisonment. I asked him in prison why he had taken such chances; he replied, “I was cold and hungry and my family were in such desperate circumstances when the temptation appealed to me, I could not resist it. That’s all.”

In a large number of cases I have found that men and women were not thieves by choice. They were before the law guilty only technically for some crime, but were driven to it by social conditions and man’s inhumanity to man! When you come to judge all such “criminals” be charitable, and put yourself in their place and ask, What would you do under the same circumstances?

There is an organization in this city called the Charity Society. They receive a good deal of money during the year for charity! Mr. John S. Kennedy gives them free rent in his building. What charitable work they have ever done to aid the worthy poor we have never been able to learn. But some people have not a very high opinion of them. When I have urged people to seek relief from them (before I made an investigation for myself and learned what they are) they replied that they would prefer to jump into the river. Others in speaking of the society use red profanity which would not look well in print. Ask a policeman, priest, rabbi, minister of the gospel, mission worker. They may be able to tell what charity is given by this society to the poor of New York. I know the society for improving the conditions of the poor, the Children’s Aid Society and others that do a good work. Heaven bless them and fill their treasuries!