The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-26

ago, was as pure and untouched as the butter
cups and daisies of her native heath.
The TOmbs.
The most celebrated prison and police court
in New York the Tombs, of which Justice
Bowling is the notorious potentate This
gentleman is about forty years of age is
clean-shaven, has a moderately full brown
bristly moustache, rubicund countenance,
and bald head. With his hat off he looks
fully forty; with it on he looks only thirty
nine He was once a police officer himself,
has risen gradually from the ranks and is
acquainted with all the intricate sinuosities of
the police business. He makes laws of his
own, which are quite as good in his eyes as
the laws of the Commonwealth, and he 'shuts
down upon all who oppose him with most
tornado-like ierceness After o'clock in the
afternoon, he may generally be seen upon
Broadway, dressed in gentlemanly black,
but with an air of restrained
ruffianism about him which the hand
some clothes do not quite conceal. He is
noted for his quarrels with police captains,
his arbitrary habit of putting down" the
"shysters' of the Tombs, his cordiality with
reporters and newspaper people generally, and
the bullyism with which he asserts the SUI
premacy of his authority over that of Mr..
Bergh. Indeed, he and the President of the
S. p. G. A. quarrelled irretrievably long ago;
for the gentlemanly Bergh stood no chance at
all with the loquacious and brow-beating Dow
ling. Before no presence has Justice Dow
ling ever been known to quail. If General
Grant himself were brought before him on a
charge of disorderly conduct, Dowling would
''send him up for thirty days with the utmost
saRg .tloid, Indifferent to the silent eloquence
of the partially-smoked Presidential Havana.
Judge Bowling does some very kind acts.
The distressed newsboy the prosecuted
orange-vender, the beaten and outraged wife,
whose bandaged forehead bears witness to her
husbands brutality, find fast friend in him.
/ have seen him take money out of his own
pocket and give it to a bankrupt newsboy,
with the understanding that the latter should
make his reappearance at an appointed time
and give a faithful account of himself. Woe
to him if he fail to do this, for Justice Dow
ling never forgets a face, and never 'lets up
on any one whohas once ''gone back on him,
or who he imagines has done so. This was
the cause of quarrel between him and Bergh.
The Tombs is an Egyptian building, and,
being such, it is not wholly irrelevant to speak
of Dowling as the Sphinx. The exterior of
the prison is quite enough to create a success
sion of cold chills along the spine of the OBJ
server. There are no very peculiar features
in the internal arrangements, unless the
padded cells be one. These are for the recep-
ton of insane prisoners, or those suffering
with mania-d-p0tu A similar contrivance
obtains in the female department, which like
wise occasionally numbers one or two lunatics
among its inmates. Very particular pains are
taken to keep all these cells neat and clean.
They are scrubbed and whitewashed every
day; and if cleanliness is next to godliness, it
must be ''mean" between the two extremes
of vice and virtue, for certainly cleaner and
neater-looBing cells were never occupied by
more audacious and filthy criminals There
is not crime, recognizable by human law,
which can be named, that has not had its re-
preventative within these walls; for, after all,
what is any prison but mans grim monument
over violated decalogue?