Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make

A four-story City Jail fills the center of the frame, but it cannot contain William Marcy "Boss" Tweed: his enormous head bursts through the right wall while his feet kick through the left, police scrambling helplessly at each end. The caption quotes the old lyric ironically—"Stone walls do not a prison make"—then adds Nast's editorial sting: "No prison is big enough to hold the Boss. In on one side, and out at the other." Tweed, head of New York's Tammany Hall machine, had looted the city treasury of tens of millions. Nast renders him as a bloated, bearded giant—a caricature of corrupt power that literally outgrows civic institutions meant to restrain it. The cartoon appeared as legal proceedings against Tweed were stalling, and Nast's ridicule kept public outrage alive long enough to secure a conviction.