ts time--two hundred feet in
length with big wings, and a stone-wall enclosure twenty feet in
height.

Strange to say the Greenwichers did not object to the prison. They
were quite proud of it, and seemed to consider it rather as an
acquisition than a plague spot. No other village had a State Prison
to show to visitors; Greenwich held its head haughtily in consequence.

A hotel keeper in 1811 put this "ad." in the _Columbia_:

"A few gentlemen may be accommodated with board and lodging
at this pleasant and healthy situation, a few doors from the
State Prison. The Greenwich stage passes from this to the
Federal Hall and returns five times a day."

Janvier says that the prison at Greenwich was a "highly volcanic
institution." They certainly seemed never out of trouble there. Behind
its walls battle, murder and sudden death seemed the milder
diversions. Mutiny was a habit, and they had a way of burning up parts
of the building when annoyed. On one occasion they shut up all their
keepers in one of the wings before setting fire to it, but according
to the _Chronicle_ "one more humane than the rest released them before
it was consumed."

Hugh Macatamney declares that these mutinies were caused by terrible
brutality toward the prisoners. It is true that no one was hanged in
the jail itself, the Potter's Field being more public and also more
convenient, all things considered, but the punishments in this New
York Bridewell were severe in the extreme. Those were the days of
whippings and the treadmill,--a viciously brutal invention,--of bread
and water and dark cells and the rest of the barbarities which society
hit upon with such singular perversity as a means of humanising its
derelicts. The prison record of Smith, the "revengeful desperado" who
spent half a year in solitary confinement, is probably of as mild a
punishment as was ever inflicted there.

In the grim history of the penitentiary there is one gleam of humour.
Mr. Macatamney tells it so well that we quote his own words:

"A story is told of an inmate of Greenwich Prison who had
been sentenced to die on the gallows, but at the last
moment, through the influence of the Society of Friends, had
his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and was placed
in charge of the shoe shop in the prison. The Quakers worked
for his release, and, having secured it, placed him in a
shoe shop of his own. His business flour