ment of evildoers, and a system of citizen-police
inaugurated for the preservation of the local peace.

It was not, however, until some years later, 1642, that the "Staat Huys"
was built, a municipal building, with a portion of it erected especially
for the housing of dangerous criminals. Thus it would seem that for
upwards of two centuries crime and criminals have had their haunts in
this city, and, it is safe to say, while the more ancient cities of
Europe have, unquestionably, originated more felons of every grade,
there are few places that can rival New York in the number of actual
crimes committed during its comparatively brief existence on the earth's
map.

During the earlier history of the embryo city, the nature of the
offenses perpetrated on the then small community, and the type of men
who boldly executed the crimes, were undoubtedly of the same pattern as
those which obtain among us to-day, but with this difference, that with
the onward march of Improvement, hand-in-hand with the progress of
Science and Civilization, have also grimly stalked fashionably-clothed
and modernly-equipped Crime and the scientifically-perfected
law-breaker, with his modern and improved methods. Man's villainies,
like his other passions, remain the same to-day as when the murderous
club of Cain crushed the skull of his brother Abel, and the maiden earth
was crimsoned with the first blood that appealed for vengeance. They
differ only in the manner of commission, and the commission would appear
to be assisted by modern invention and appliances.

To expect large civilized communities dwelling together to be free from
crime would be to imagine an elysium on earth, for where poverty exists
crime will assuredly be found, and poverty will never be divorced from
civilization. It would also appear that, in accordance with the growth
and expansion of the young city in other respects, vice and crime kept
pace, while youthful depravity early began to trouble the good people
then as it worries the same class of persons to-day, for in 1824 we find
that a House of Refuge, for the reformation of juvenile delinquents, was
built, ostensibly superseding the old "Society for the Prevention of
Pauperism." To follow in detail the history of crime in this city, from
so early a date, would be of very little service here, but a simple
chronicle, referring to the periods at which prisons were found to be
necessary, may be briefly touched upon as tending to