2-981-861 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

American Sketches: Prison Life on Blackwell's Island - No. 1. returning from work, 1876. 'In the penitentiary...where the sketch was taken by our correspondent, the late M. Regamey, about 600 males and females are usually confined at one time. The men are kept at work in quarrying and cutting stone, building a seawall for the harbour, making roads, and gardening; but some of them work at their own skilled trades. Our Illustration shows the slavish appearance of a gang of these fellows under the eye of their armed keeper, as they come back from the daily task of hard labour...In the city of New York alone...there are five district prisons, besides reformatories and penitentiaries, in which about 50,000 persons are confined in the course of the year. 17,000 of these are native-born Americans...nearly 22,000 are stated to be Irish...and 6000 are Germans'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.