The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-26 00:00:00

TEE PRINCE'S VISIT TO AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
MONTREAL, JULY 12.
I have penetrated thus far in my search far the
first landing-place of the Prince of Wales, crossing
in my tour at all points artists and correspondents
innumerable from the American newspapers, all
busy, in eager haste to strike upon the first tracks of
English Royalty. The Prince's visit, what he will
do, when he will come, and how long he will stay,
form just now the great topics of discussion. Not a
little diversity of opinion exists as to the spot he
will favour with his presence, and, according to
their own immediate location, people stoutly main-
tain all sorts of places, lying anywhere between New
Orleans and Hudson's Bay. In New York curiosity
is so strong that it has there quite overpowered even
the interest in the recent murders, and the fast-ap-
proaching execution of the pirate Hicks, whose last
diabolical• assassinations on board the oyster sloop,
some two months back, your readers may possibly
recollect. Long before these lines reach England
this ruffian will have gone to his great account. If
his confession is to be relied upon it is a heavy one,
for the circumstances he has detailed lave no doubt

that he has actually murdered between 50 and 60

persons, many of whom were women, whom he had

captured in ships off the coast of Cuba, and. to whom
death must have been a mercy, if his ghastly narra-

tive is to be depended on. It seems almost a kind
of wonder that in this age a man so bloody and so

remorseless could have pursued his career of mur-
der with such impunity, and still carry his lust for
blood to the very verge of eternity. I saw him be-
fore I left New York, and was told that even at
that dreadful time, when the very minutes of his
existence were numbered and fast passing away,
he seemed to derive a dreadful satisfaction in de-
tailing crimes from which the mind recoils in
amazement and horror. I had heard much of the
strict discipline of the American prisons, and was
anxious to see the chief one of New York, where,
amid the worst parts of the city, the great gaol,
known as the Tombs, now stands. With the ut-
most courtesy the chief warden at once granted my
request, and took the greatest pains to show all
that was to be seen inside the dreadful building.
The Tombs stand near the Five Points—a vile part
of the city, the St. Giles's of New York. The
building itself is in the Egyptian style, massive
and colossal in its proportions as those rock-hewn
temples which appeal 'with such silent grandeur to
the tourist who " does" the Nile. The very aspect
of the huge structure is mournful. Not a window
lightens the monotony of its huge granite walls,
which have a blind impressive appearance that well
becomes the name, and makes it seem like what it
is in truth—a great sarcophagus of crime. All its
terrors, however, are external, and in this unlike
our Penitentiary at Millbank, where everything is
gloomy and silent as the grave, and where when
the great gates clang behind the visitor he feels
it jar upon his heart as if hope and happiness were
shut out for ever, and knows at once, by the cau-
tious vigilance of the well-armed warders, that he
is within the walls of a prison where the worst and
most dangerous of London villains are crushed into
a temporary submission; The entrance to the
Tombs is nothing like this. The way is open
enough, and a turnkey merely sits at a door to
take checks from visitors or passes from those
who have leave to visit their friends, and which,
to judge from the numbers inside the prison,
seem rather liberally given. Passing across a stone
courtyard, in the midst of which a little fountain
plays, and where an American eagle, chained by
the leg (though less vicious than any other inmate
within the walls), sits and droops his rusty wings
all day, the visitor enters another yard spanned
above by the Bridge of Sighs—a light iron path so
named from the fact of murderers after trial being
led back over it to their condemned cells. Entering
a narrow doorway he at once finds himself in a
handsome lofty passage with rows of strongly grated
doors at either side, with two light galleries above
communicating with similar cells in the walls.
Little slates over the entrance to each cell mark the
prisoners' names, for there are sometimes two or
three inmates. " But are they prisoners, and is this
a prison ?" is the first thought of the visitor as he
looks through the bars into the carpeted cells, and
sees their occupants, in every style of dress or un-
dress, lounging on their beds, smoking their pipes
and reading the morning papers, or laughing
merrily through the grating with friends (just then
at liberty), who have brought them in whatever they
may want. It seems incredible, but it is a fact, that
these miscreants are supplied with the daily jour-
nals, with novels, or with prayer-books, as their
tastes may lead them ; are allowed to smoke ad
libitum at all hours, are even supplied with drink,
should their profligate lives have rendered such
stimulants necessary to their comfort. In a word
they are less felons than pensioners boarded by the
State. lam told that in the islands in the river,
where the prisoners for life (always pardoned after
a few years) undergo their sentences the rules and
discipline are more rigid. This may and should be
true. I have not yet visited these islands, and can
only speak of what I saw at the Tombs. On the
lowest floor of the passage which the visitor first
enters the cells are all occupied by those under
sentence of death, of whom there are generally
but too many. Over one of these was written
the name of Albert Hicks, alias William Jack-
son. Our conductor tapped at the bars, and,
sliding back an iron door beyond, in answer
to the summons a tall, thin, athletic man,
dressed in a loose blue suit, came grinning forward,
from whose appearance, prisoner as he was, I shrank
back almost in fear. In all my life I bad never seen
a human face on which the worst vices of our nature
were so terribly impressed. It seemed almost like
that of a baboon. The retreating forehead and pro-
jecting mouth, the restless, cruel, small black eyes,
the hard merciless grin upon the features, more dan-
gerous and fearful looking than any frown, were
awful to look upon. He seemed to enjoy the evi-
dent sensation of loathing and dismay which he ex-
cited, and as he stepped forward, with his hard
stony smile and rapid shifting look, hanging his
head on one side to get a better view through the
bars, his appearance was more that of a wild beast
than a human being. His long lean hands clutched
the bars eagerly, and, drawing himself up close, he
seemed suddenly to disregard us, and looked at the
bolts and fastenings with an eager kind of gaze that
was painful to watch, then, loosening his hold,
shrank back into the.cell and shut the door, almost
as one could fancy in despair at being so powerless
for evil. What he may do eventually Heaven alone
knows, but up to the day I saw him he gloried in
his crimes and dwelt boastfully upon them to any
one who had nerve enough to listen to the awful tale.
A few minutes afterwards his wife and child came
to visit him, but two Sisters of Mercy were then in
his cell, and it may be hoped he was attending to
their exhortations, as after a few hurried words
with the poor-little woman, and without casting a
glance on the child, who held to the bars and looked
up at him with a joyous smile, he shut his door
and retired again. The wife remained there, mute
and apparently absorbed, rocking her child to and
fro, and staring nnmeaningly with red swollen eyes
at her husband's name over the massive grating.
Beyond there were two or three others under
sentence of death, and many of whom deserved
death as well as Hicks, but they almost laughed at
the idea of being hanged. And they were right,
,' the mistaken leniency of the law of the New
ork state requires that 12 months shall elapse
between
interval the sent and execution. During this
spacious philanthropy is sure to be exerted
in behalf f the
u•ifurtunate wife and children of
the malefactor,
and subseque and
a commutation of the sentence
nt
pardo after two or three years
become almost certain.
Hicks will be-hung under
the Federal Law, and bu t for that and his being a
vagabond, without friends • or money, even his exe-
cution would be almost doubtful. The case of
Felix Sanchez, a half-neg To, who occupied a cell
near Hicks, was peculiar. He bad murdered a
man in New York, but esa riled, and went out west.
Here he made some lawless acquaintances, who
persuaded him to travel soi ath, and where, waking
up,one morning after a riot knts debauch, he found
that his companions had do, me a neat stroke of busi-
ness dazing his intoxication, ,avid sold him to a dealer
for 1,500 dole. ' He was a] okuly on his way to a