e _Tribune_, and is a rich man.
He is liberal and generous to those in need, and is a warm friend to
benevolent enterprises of all kinds.

The chief reason of his popularity is the general confidence of the
people in his personal integrity. Not even his political enemies
question his honesty--and surely in these days of corruption and crime in
public life, an honest man is one that can not well be spared.

XIII. THE TOMBS.

Turn out of Printing House Square, leaving the City Hall on your left,
and pass up Centre street for about a quarter of a mile, and you will
come to a massive granite edifice in the Egyptian style of architecture.
It occupies an entire square, and is bounded by Centre and Elm, and
Leonard and Franklin streets. The main entrance is on Centre street, and
is approached by a broad flight of granite steps, which lead to a portico
supported by massive Egyptian columns. The proper name of the edifice is
_The Halls of Justice_, but it is popularly known all over the Union as
_The Tombs_, which name was given to it in consequence of its gloomy
appearance. It occupies the site of the old Collect Pond which once
supplied the citizens of New York with drinking water, was begun in 1835
and completed in 1838.

The outer building occupies four sides of a hollow square, and is 253 by
200 feet in size. It was built at a time when New York contained
scarcely half its present population, and has long since ceased to be
equal to the necessities of the city. The site is low and damp, and the
building is badly ventilated. The warden does all in his power to
counteract these evils, and keeps the place remarkably neat, but it is
still a terribly sickly and dreary abode. It was designed to accommodate
about 200 prisoners, but for some years past the number of prisoners
confined here at one time has averaged 400, and has sometimes exceeded
that average. The Grand Jury of the County have recently condemned the
place as a nuisance, and it is believed that the city will ere long
possess a larger, cleaner, and more suitable prison.

[Picture: THE TOMBS.]

When the prison was built the Five Points, on the western verge of which
it lies, was a much worse section than it is now. It is bad enough at
present, but then the Tombs constituted a solitary island in a sea of
crime and suffering. A terrible island it was, too.

Entering through the gloomy portal upon which the sunlight nev