201 
rior, to separate the paupers from the criminals. The offices and 
the rooms occupied by the officers, as well as those of the poor, 
are arranged in the building fronting on the river, the second 
house also contains rooms for the poor, and workshops, in which 
those who can yet work, are usefully employed. About twelve 
hundred helpless poor people and children, among which are 
many foundlings, are here supported. They inhabit large halls, 
which, however, have a bad smell, and I missed that cleanli¬ 
ness, which is indispensably necessary in such an establishment. 
A poor-house, is at best an unpleasant, and when it is not clean¬ 
ly. kept, a disgusting sight. Those who are confined, are cri¬ 
minals of a lower kind, the worst are not confined longer than 
three years. The men work during the day* either in the fields 
belonging to the city, or in the public streets. A chain is attached 
to their leg, and they are under the inspection of appointed sen¬ 
tinels. The women are employed in various manners. A tread- 
ing-mill was formerly in operation in a side building; but this 
has not been used for a year, as it was thought injurious to the 
health of the prisoners. A kind of typhus raged in the prison 
last year, which carried off numbers of the prisoners. These sleep 
in separate cells, each of which, is seven feet long, and three feet 
broad. Each prisoner has here, as in the house of refuge, a piece 
of sail cloth, spread out on four pegs, on which he sleeps. There 
is a small grate in each door, which admits the necessary light 
into the cell. There are sixty cells in one hall, all on one side, 
in five rows above each other; each row has a small gallery. 
The hall receives its light from above. A pulpit, opposite the 
cells, is erected in this hall for worship; the prisoners who are 
confined during the service, stand behind the grate in their doors, 
whence they may see the minister. The whole arrangement has, 
as remarked above, a handsome and open situation; there is a 
belvidere on the roof of the front house, whence a handsome and 
extensive prospect may be enjoyed. 
On the last day of my stay in New York and in America, I 
went with Mr. Zimmermann into some stores, and walked in 
some of the oldest parts of the city. In these parts the streets are 
crooked, narrow and gloomy, well adapted to retain the yellow^ 
fever. In the neighbourhood, however, of the alms-house there 
is a building three stories high, where the incurable lunatics, 
supported by the corporation of the city, are received; but the 
two upper stories are designed to receive, when the yellow fever 
appears, those who suffer with this dreadful evil, in order to re¬ 
move, as quickly as possible, the infection from the city. Some 
old Dutch houses stand in the narrow streets, built by the first 
settlers, consisting only of a lower story, with the gable-ends 
towards the street They are building in Wall street, a new ex- 
Vol, II. 26 
