treet Jail by taking the Second avenue Elevated
train to Grand street, and then going east two blocks, or you can fire a
shotgun into a Sabbath-school.

You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad and get here, or you can
put some other man's nickel in your own slot and come here with an
attendant.

William Marcy Tweed was the contractor of Ludlow Street Jail, and here
also he died. He was the son of a poor chair-maker, and was born April
3, 1823. From the chair business in 1853 to congress was the first false
step. Exhilarated by the delirium of official life, and the false joys
of franking his linen home every week, and having cake and preserves
franked back to him at Washington, he resolved to still further taste
the delights of office, and in 1857 we find him as a school
commissioner.

In 1860 he became Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society, an association at
that time more purely political than politically pure. As president of
the board of supervisors, head of the department of public works, state
senator, and Grand Sachem of Tammany, Tweed had a large and seductive
influence over the city and state. The story of how he earned a scanty
livelihood by stealing a million of dollars at a pop, and thus, with the
most rigid economy, scraped together $20,000,000 in a few years by
patient industry and smoking plug tobacco, has been frequently told.

Tweed was once placed here in Ludlow Street Jail in default of
$3,000,000 bail. How few there are of us who could slap up that amount
of bail if rudely gobbled on the street by the hand of the law. While
riding out with the sheriff, in 1875, Tweed asked to see his wife, and
said he would be back in a minute.

He came back by way of Spain, in the fall of '76, looking much improved.
But the malaria and dissipation of Blackwell's Island afterward impaired
his health, and having done time there, and having been arrested
afterward and placed in Ludlow Street Jail, he died here April 12, 1878,
leaving behind him a large, vain world, and an equally vain judgment for
$6,537,117.38, to which he said he would give his attention as soon as
he could get a paving contract in the sweet ultimately.

From the exterior Ludlow Street Jail looks somewhat like a conservatory
of music, but as soon as one enters he readily discovers his mistake.
The structure has 100 feet frontage, and a court, which is sometimes
called the court of last resort. The guest can climb out of this court
by asc