Читать книгу 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 онлайн

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I would like to lock some of these gentlemen in one of the cells for an hour or two. As is well known, many of these cells are “reeking” with vermin and filth. Not of the Tombs only, but some of the district prisons. I have seen men in the Tombs and in other prisons of the City, who had hardly become inmates before the vermin would literally be found crawling over them.

In summer time when the weather is warm and oppressive, the “Annex bug” (where the misdemeanants are kept) which is said to be an “Asiatic” brand of bug, comes out of the porous brick by thousands and for two or three months have their “fill” of human gore. I think the main trouble is with the bedding. It is sent to the Workhouse and washed about twice a year in ordinary water, instead of being boiled in a vat of carbolic acid or aqua fortis, and beaten for a few days with clubs. Not infrequently visitors and missionaries find vermin crawling over their clothing after they have returned to their homes.