Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: If ever prayer came from the depths of a broken heart,
it was that forlorn plea for the lost sister.]
TRAFFIC IN SOULS
_A Novel of Crime and Its Cure_
BY
EUSTACE HALE BALL
_ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SCENES
IN THE PHOTO-PLAY_
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS ---- NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
_Traffic in Souls_
_This novel is based in part upon the scenario of the photo-drama of
the same name written by Walter MacNamara and produced by the UNIVERSAL
FILM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, New York City. The incidents and
characterisations are founded upon stories of real life. Actual scenes
of the underworld haunts are faithfully reproduced. The criminal
methods of the traffickers are substantiated by the reports of the John
D. Rockefeller, Jr., Investigating Committee for the Suppression of
Vice, and District Attorney Whitman's White Slave Report._
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Co.
New York
TO
THAT FEARLESS AMERICAN CITIZEN
AND STERLING PUBLIC OFFICIAL,
CHARLES S. WHITMAN,
DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR THE BOROUGH
OF MANHATTAN, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
THIS BOOK IS ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED.
E. H. B.
"_What has man done here? How atone,
Great God, for this which man has done?
And for the body and soul which by
Man's pitiless doom must now comply
With lifelong hell, what lullaby
Of sweet forgetful second birth
Remains? All dark. No sign on earth
What measure of God's rest endows
The Many mansions of His house._
"_If but a woman's heart might see
Such erring heart unerringly
For once! But that can never be._
"_Like a rose shut in a book
In which pure women may not look,
For its base pages claim control
To crush the flower within the soul;
Where through each dead roseleaf that clings,
Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
To the vile text, are traced such things
As might make lady's cheek indeed
More than a living rose to read;
So nought save foolish foulness may
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
And so the lifeblood of this rose,
Puddled with shameful knowledge flows
Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose;
Yet still it keeps such faded show
Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
The sweetness of the sanguine stain,
Seen of a woman's eyes must make
Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
Love roses better for its sake:--
Only that this can never be:--
Even so unto her sex is she!_
"_Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
The woman almost fades from view.
A cipher of man's changeless sum
Of lust, past, present, and to come,
Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx._
"_Like a toad within a stone
Seated while Time crumbles on;
Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
For Man's transgression at the first;
Which, living through all centuries,
Not once has seen the sun arise;
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
Which always--whitherso the stone
Be flung--sits there, deaf, blind, alone;--
Aye, and shall not be driven out
'Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
And the dust thereof vanished as smoke,
And the seed of Man vanished as dust:--
Even so within this world is Lust!_"
--From "Jenny," by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. NIGHT COURT
II. WHEN LOVE COMES VISITING
III. THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT
IV. WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID
V. ROSES AND THORNS
VI. THE WORK OF THE GANGSTERS
VII. THE CLOSER BOND
VIII. THE PURITY LEAGUE AND ITS ANGEL
IX. THE BUSY MART OF TRADE
X. WHEN THE TRAIN COMES IN
XI. THE POISONED NEEDLE
XII. THE REVENGE OF JIMMIE THE MONK
XIII. LORNA'S QUEST FOR PLEASURE
XIV. CHARITY AND THE MULTITUDE OF SINS
XV. THE FINISH
ILLUSTRATIONS
If ever prayer came from the depths of a broken heart, it was that
forlorn plea for a lost sister . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"This is my friend, Sam Shepard, the theatrical manager, Miss Lorna.
He's the man who can get you on the stage"
"I'm going to shoot to kill. Every court in the state will sustain a
policeman who shoots a white-slaver"
The deep tones of the stranger's voice filled Mary with a thrill of
loathing
Father and daughter were frantic with grief
The pretended philanthropist was cornered at last
TRAFFIC IN SOULS
CHAPTER I
NIGHT COURT
Officer 4434 beat his freezing hands together as he stood with his back
to the snow-laden north-easter, which rattled the creaking signboards
of East Twelfth Street, and covered, with its merciful shroud of wet
flakes, the ash-barrels, dingy stoops, gaudy saloon porticos and other
architectural beauties of the Avenue corner.
Officer 4434 was on "fixed post."
This is an institution of the New York police department which makes it
possible for citizens to locate, in time of need, a representative of
the law. At certain street crossings throughout the boroughs bluecoats
are assigned to guard-duty during the night, where they can keep close
watch on the neighboring thoroughfares. The "fixed post" increases the
efficiency of the service, but it is a bitter ordeal on the men.
Officer 4434 shivered under his great coat. He pulled the storm hood
of his cap closer about his neck as he muttered an opinion, far from
being as cold as the biting blast, concerning the Commissioner who had
installed the system. He had been on duty over an hour, and even his
sturdy young physique was beginning to feel the strain of the Arctic
temperature.
"I wonder when Maguire is coming to relieve me?" muttered 4434, when
suddenly his mind left the subject, as his keen vision descried two
struggling figures a few yards down the dark side of Twelfth Street.
There was no outcry for help. But 4434 knew his precinct too well to
wait for that. He quietly walked to the left corner and down toward
the couple. As he neared them the mist of the eddying snowflakes
became less dense; he could discern a short man twisting the arm of a
tall woman, who seemed to be top heavy from an enormous black-plumed
hat. The faces of the twain were still indistinct. The man whirled
the woman about roughly. She uttered a subdued moan of pain, and 4434,
as he softly approached them, his footfalls muffled by the blanket of
white, could hear her pleading in a low tone with the man.
"Aw, kid, I ain't got none ... I swear I ain't... Oh, oh ... ye know I
wouldn't lie to ye, kid!"
"Nix, Annie. Out wid it, er I'll bust yer damn arm!"
"Jimmie, I ain't raised a nickel to-night ... dere ain't even a sailor
out a night like dis... Oh, oh, kid, don't treat me dis way..."
Her voice died down to a gasp of pain.
Officer 4434 was within ten feet of the couple by this time. He
recognized the type though not the features of the man, who had now
wrenched the woman's arm behind her so cruelly that she had fallen to
her knees, in the snow. The fellow was so intent upon his quest for
money that he did not observe the approach of the policeman.
But the woman caught a quick glimpse of the intruder into their
"domestic" affairs. She tried to warn her companion.
"Jimmie, dere's a..."
She did not finish, for her companion wished to end further argument
with his own particular repartee.
He swung viciously with his left arm and brought a hard fist across the
woman's pleading lips. She screamed and sank back limply.
As she did so, Officer 4434 reached forward with a vise-like grip and
closed his tense fingers about the back of Jimmie's muscular neck.
Holding his night stick in readiness for trouble, with that knack
peculiar to policemen, he yanked the tough backward and threw him to
his knees. Annie sprang to her feet.
"Lemme go!" gurgled the surprised Jimmie, as he wriggled to get free.
Without a word, the woman who had been suffering from his brutality,
now sprang upon the rescuing policeman with the fury of a lioness
robbed of her cub. She clawed at the bluecoat's face and cursed him
with volubility.
"I'll git you broke fer this!" groaned Jimmie, as 4434 held him to his
knees, while Annie tried to get her hold on the officer's neck. It was
a temptation to swing the night-stick, according to the laws of war,
and then protect himself against the fury of the frenzied woman. But,
this is an impulse which the policeman is trained to subdue--public
opinion on the subject to the contrary notwithstanding. Officer 4434
knew the influence of the gangsters with certain politicians, who had
influence with the magistrates, who in turn meted out summary
reprimands and penalties to policemen un-Spartanlike enough to defend
themselves with their legal weapons against the henchmen of the East
Side politicians!
Annie had managed by no mean pugilistic ability to criss-cross five
painful scratches with her nails, upon the policeman's face, despite
his attempt to guard himself.
Jimmie, with tactical resourcefulness, had twisted around in such a way
that he delivered a strong-jaw nip on the right leg of the policeman.
4434 suddenly released his hold on the man's neck, whipped out his
revolver and fired it in the air. He would have used the signal for
help generally available at such a time, striking the night stick upon
the pavement, but the thick snow would have muffled the resonant alarm.
"Beat it, Annie, and git de gang!" cried out Jimmie as he scrambled to
his feet. The woman sped away obediently, as Officer 4434 closed in
again upon his prisoner. The gangster covered the retreat of the woman
by grappling the policeman with arms and legs.
The two fell to the pavement, and writhed in their struggle on the snow.
Jimmie, like many of the gang men, was a local pugilist of no mean
ability. His short stature was equalized in fighting odds by a
tremendous bull strength. 4434, in his heavy overcoat, and with the
storm hood over his head and neck was somewhat handicapped. Even as
they struggled, the efforts of the nimble Annie bore fruit. In
surprisingly brief time a dozen men had rushed out from the neighboring
saloon, and were giving the doughty policeman more trouble than he
could handle.
Suddenly they ran, however, for down the street came two speeding
figures in the familiar blue coats. One of the officers was shrilly
blowing his whistle for reinforcements. He knew what to expect in a
gang battle and was taking no chances.
Maguire, who had just come on to relieve 4434, lived up to his duty
most practically by catching the leg of the battling Jimmie, and giving
it a wrestling twist which threw the tough with a thud on the pavement,
clear of his antagonist.
4434 rose to his feet stiffly, as his rescuers dragged Jimmie to a
standing position.
"Well, Burke, 'tis a pleasant little party you do be having,"
volunteered Maguire. "Sure, and you've been rassling with Jimmie the
Monk. Was he trying to pick yer pockets?"
"Naw, I wasn't doin' nawthin', an' I'm goin' ter git that rookie broke
fer assaultin' me. I'm goin' ter write a letter to the Mayor!" growled
Jimmie.
Officer Burke laughed a bit ruefully.
He mopped some blood off his face, from the nail scratches of Jimmie's
lady associate, and then turned toward the two officers.
"He didn't pick my pockets--it was just the old story, of beating up
his woman, trying to get the money she made on the street to-night.
When I tried to help her they both turned on me."
"Faith, Burke, I thought you had more horse sense," responded Maguire.
"That's a dangerous thing to do with married folks, or them as ought to
be married. They'll fight like Kilkenny cats until the good Samaritan
comes along and then they form a trust and beat up the Samaritan."
"I think most women these days need a little beating up anyway, to keep
'em from worrying about their troubles," volunteered Officer Dexter.
"I'd have been happier if I had learned that in time."
"Say, nix on dis blarney, youse!" interrupted the Monk, who was trying
to wriggle out of the arm hold of Burke and Maguire. "I ain't gonter
stand fer dis pinch wen I ain't done nawthin."
A police sergeant, who had heard the whistle as he made his rounds, now
came up.
"What's the row?" he gruffly exclaimed. Burke explained. The sergeant
shook his head.
"You're wasting time, Burke, on this sort of stuff. When you've been
on the force a while longer you'll learn that it's the easiest thing to
look the other way when you see these men fighting with their women.
The magistrates won't do a thing on a policeman's word alone. You just
see. Now you've got to go down to Night Court with this man, get a
call down because you haven't got a witness, and this rummie gets set
free. Why, you'd think these magistrates had to apologize for there
being a police force! The papers go on about the brutality of the
police, and the socialists howl about Cossack methods, and the
ministers preach about graft and vice, and the reformers sit in their
mahogany chairs in the skyscraper offices and dictate poems about sin,
and the cops have to walk around and get hell beat out of 'em by these
wops and kikes every time they tries to keep a little order!"
The sergeant turned to Maguire.
"You know these gangs around here, Mack. Who's this guy's girl?"
"He's got three or four, sergeant," responded the officer. "I guess
this one must be Dutch Annie. Was she all dolled up with about a
hundred dollars' worth of ostrich feathers, Burke?"
"Yes--tall, and some fighter."
"That's the one. Her hangout is over there on the corner, in
Shultberger's cabaret. We can get her now, maybe."
The sergeant beckoned to Dexter.
"Run this guy over to the station house, and put him down on the
blotter for disorderly conduct, and assaulting an officer. You get
onto your post, Maguire, or the Commish'll be shooting past here in a
machine on the way to some ball at the Ritz, and will have us all on
charges. You come with me, Burke, and we'll nab that woman as a
material witness."
Burke and his superior crossed the street and quickly entered the
ornate portal of Shultberger's cabaret, which was in reality the annex
to his corner barroom.
As they strode in a waiter stood by a tuneless piano, upon which a
bloated "professor" was beating a tattoo of cheap syncopation
accompaniment of the advantages of "Bobbin' Up An' Down," which was
warbled with that peculiarly raucous, nasal tenor so popular in
Tenderloin resorts. The musical waiter's jaw fell in the middle of a
bob, as he espied the blue uniforms.
He disappeared behind a swinging door with the professional skill of a
stage magician.
Sitting around the dilapidated wooden tables was a motley throng of
red-nosed women, loafers, heavy-jowled young aliens, and a scattering
of young girls attired in cheap finery; a prevailing color of chemical
yellow as to hair, and flaming red cheeks and lips.
Instinctively the gathering rose for escape, but the sergeant strode
forward to one particular table, where sat a girl nursing a bleeding
mouth.
Burke remained by the door to shut off that exit.
"Is this the one?" asked the sergeant, as he put his hands on the young
woman's shoulder.
Burke scrutinized her closely, responding quickly.
"Yes!"
"Come on, you," ordered the roundsman. "I want you. Quick!"
"Say, I ain't done a thing, what do ye want me fer?" whined the girl,
as the sergeant pulled at her sleeve. The officer did not reply, but
he looked menacingly about him at the evil company.
"If any of you guys starts anything I'm going to call out the reserves.
Come on, Annie."
The proprietor, Shultberger, now entered from the front, after a
warning from his waiter.
"Vot's dis, sergeant? Vot you buttin' in my place for? Ain't I in
right?" he cried.
"Shut up. This girl has been assaulting an officer, and I want her.
Come on, now, or I'll get the wagon here, and then there will be
trouble."
Annie began to pull back, and it looked as though some of the toughs
would interfere. But Shultberger understood his business.
"Now, Annie, don't start nottings here. Go on vid de officer. I'll
fix it up all right. But I don't vant my place down on de blotter.
Who vas it--Jimmie?"
The girl began to cry, and gulped the glass of whiskey on the table as
she finally yielded to the tug of the sergeant.
"Yes, it's Jimmie. An' he wasn't doin' a ting. Dese rookies is always
makin' trouble fer me."
She sobbed hysterically as the sergeant walked her out. Shultberger
patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.
"Dot's all right, Annie. I vouldn't let nodding happen to Jimmie.
I'll bail him out and you too. Go along; dot's a good girl." He
turned to his guests, and motioned to them to be silent.
The "professor," at the piano, used to such scenes, lulled the nerves
of the company with a rag-time variation of "Oh, You Beautiful Doll,"
and Burke, the sergeant and Annie went out into the night.
The girl was taken to the station. The lieutenant looked questioningly
at Officer 4434.
"Want to put her down for assault?" he asked.
Burke looked at the unhappy creature. Her hair was half-down her back,
and her lips swollen and bleeding from Jimmie's brutal blow. The cheap
rouge on her face; the heavy pencilling of her brows, the crudely
applied blue and black grease paint about her eyes, the tawdry paste
necklace around her powdered throat; the pitifully thin silk dress in
which she had braved the elements for a few miserable dollars: all
these brought tears to the eyes of the young officer.
He was sick at heart.
The girl shivered and sobbed in that hysterical manner which indicates
weakness, emptiness, lack of soul--rather than sorrow.
"Poor thing--I couldn't do it. I don't want to see her sent to
Blackwell's Island. She's getting enough punishment every day--and
every night."
"Well, she's made your face look like a railroad map. You're too soft,
young fellow. I'll put her down as a material witness. Go wash that
blood off, and we'll send 'em both down to Night Court. You've done
yourself out of your relief butting in this way. Take a tip from me,
and let these rummies fight it out among themselves after this as long
as they don't mix up with somebody worth while."
Burke wiped his eye with the back of his cold hand. It was not snow
which had melted there. He was young enough in the police service to
feel the pathos of even such common situations as this.
He turned quietly and went back to the washstand in the rear room of
the station. The reserves were sitting about, playing checkers and
cards. Some were reading.
Half a dozen of the men, fond of the young policeman, chatted with him,
and volunteered advice, to which Burke had no reply.
"Don't start in mixing up with the Gas Tank Gang over one of those
girls, Burke, for they're not worth it."
"You'll have enough to do in this precinct to look after your own skin,
and round up the street holdups, or get singed at a tenement fire."
And so it went.
The worldly wisdom of his fellows was far from encouraging. Yet,
despite their cynical expressions, Burke knew that warm hearts and
gallant chivalry were lodged beneath the brass buttons.
There is a current notion among the millions of Americans who do not
know, and who have fortunately for themselves not been in the position
where they needed to know, that the policemen of New York are an
organized body of tyrannical, lying grafters who maintain their power
by secret societies, official connivance and criminal brute force.
Taken by and large, there is no fighting organization in any army in
the world which can compare with the New York police force for physical
equipment, quick action under orders or upon the initiative required by
emergencies, gallantry or _esprit de corps_. For salaries barely equal
to those of poorly paid clerks or teamsters, these men risk their lives
daily, must face death at any moment, and are held under a discipline
no less rigorous than that of the regular army. Their problems are
more complex than those of any soldiery; they deal with fifty different
nationalities, and are forced by circumstances to act as judge and
jury, as firemen, as life savers, as directories, as arbiters of
neighborhood squabbles and domestic wrangles. Their greatest services
are rendered in the majority of cases which never call for arrest and
prosecution. That there are many instances of petty "graft," and that,
in some cases, the "middle men" prey on the underworld cannot be denied.
But it is the case against a certain policeman which receives the
attention of the newspapers and the condemnation of the public, while
almost unheeded are scores of heroic deeds which receive bare mention
in the daily press. For the misdeed of one bad policeman the gallantry
and self-sacrifice of a hundred pass without appreciation.
There have been but three recorded instances of cowardice in the annals
of the New York police force. The memory of them still rankles in the
bosom of every member. And yet the performance of duty at the cost of
life and limb is regarded by the uniformed men as merely being "all in
the day's work." The men are anxious to do their duty in every way,
but political, religious, social and commercial influences are
continually erecting stone walls across the path of that duty.
Superhuman in wisdom, thrice blest in luck is the bluecoat who
conscientiously can live up to his own ideals, carry out the law as
written by his superiors without being sent to "rusticate with the
goats," or being demoted for stepping upon the toes of some of those
same superiors!
Officer Bobbie Burke betook himself to the Night Court to lodge his
complaint against Jimmie the Monk. The woman, Dutch Annie, sniveling
and sobbing, was lodged in a cell near the gangster before being
brought before the rail to face the magistrate.
Burke saw that they could not communicate with each other, and so hoped
that he could have his own story accepted by the magistrate. He stood
by the door of the crowded detention room, which opened into a larger
courtroom, where the prisoners were led one by one to the prisoner's
dock--in this case, a hand-rail two feet in front of the long desk of
the judge, while that worthy was seated on a platform which enabled him
to look down at the faces of the arraigned.
It was an apparently endless procession.
The class of arrests was monotonous. Three of every four cases were
those of street women who had been arrested by "plain clothes" men or
detectives for solicitation on the street.
The accusing officer took a chair at the left of the magistrate. The
uniformed attendant handed the magistrate the affidavits of complaint.
The judge mechanically scrawled his name at the bottom of the papers,
glanced at the words of the arraignments, and then scowled over the
edge of his desk at the flashily dressed girls before him. They all
seemed slight variations on the same mould.
Perhaps one girl would simulate some hysterical sobs, and begin by
protesting her innocence. Another would be hard and indifferent. A
third, indignant.
"What about this, officer?" the judge would ask. "Where did you see
this woman, what did you say, what did she say, and what happened?"
The detective, in a voice and manner as mechanical as that of the
judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of
his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different
pedestrians and in her final approach to him.
"How many times before have you been arrested, girl?" the magistrate
would growl.
Sometimes the girls would admit the times; in most cases their memories
were defective, until the accusing officer would cite past history.
This girl had been arrested and paroled once before; that one had been
sent to "the Island" for thirty days; the next one was an habitual
offender. It was a tragic monotony. Sometimes the magistrate would
summon the sweet-faced matron to have a talk with some young girl,
evidently a "green one" for whom there might be hope. There was more
kindliness and effort to reform the prisoners behind those piercing
eyes of the judge than one might have supposed to hear him drone out
his judgment: "Thirty days, Molly"; "Ten dollars, Aggie--the Island
next time, sure"; "Five dollars for you, Sadie," and so on. There was
a weary, hopeless look in the magistrate's eyes, had you studied him
close at hand. He knew, better than the reformers, of the horrors of
the social evil, at the very bottom of the cup of sin. Better than
they could he understand the futility of garrulous legislation at the
State Capitol, to be offset by ignorance, avarice, weakness and disease
in the congestion of the big, unwieldy city. When he fined the girls
he knew that it meant only a hungry day, one less silk garment or
perhaps a beating from an angry and disappointed "lover." When he sent
them to the workhouse their activities were merely discontinued for a
while to learn more vileness from companions in their imprisonment; to
make for greater industry--busier vice and quicker disease upon their
return to the streets. The occasional cases in which there was some
chance for regeneration were more welcome to him, even, than to the
weak and sobbing girls, hopeless with the misery of their early
defeats. Yet, the magistrate knew only too well the miserable minimum
of cases which ever resulted in real rescue and removal from the sordid
existence.
Once as low as the rail of the Night Court--a girl seldom escaped from
the slime into which she had dragged herself. And yet _had_ she
dragged herself there? Was _she_ to blame? Was she to pay the
consequences in the last Reckoning of Accounts?
This thought came to Officer Bobbie Burke as he watched the horrible
drama drag monotonously through its brief succession of sordid scenes.
The expression of the magistrate, the same look of sympathetic misery
on the face of the matron, and even on many of the detectives,
automatons who had chanted this same official requiem of dead souls,
years of nights ... not a sombre tone of the gruesome picture was lost
to Burke's keen eyes.
"Some one has to pay; some one has to pay! I wonder who?" muttered
Officer 4434 under his breath.
There were cases of a different caliber. Yet Burke could see in them
what Balzac called "social coordination."
Now a middle-aged woman, with hair unkempt, and hat awry, maudlin tears
in her swollen eyes, and swaying as she held the rail, looked shiftily
up into the magistrate's immobile face.
"You've been drunk again, Mrs. Rafferty? This is twice during the last
fortnight that I've had you here."
"Yis, yer honor, an me wid two foine girls left home. Oh, Saint Mary
protect me, an' oi'm a (hic) bad woman. Yer honor, it's the fault of
me old man, Pat. (Hic) Oi'm _not_ a bad woman, yer honor."
The magistrate was kind as he spoke.
"And what does Pat do?"
"He beats me, yer honor (hic), until Oi sneak out to the family
intrance at the corner fer a quiet nip ter fergit it. An' the girls,
they've been supportin' me (hic), an' payin the rint, an' buyin' the
vittles, an' (hic) it's a dog's life they lead, wid all their work.
When they go out wid dacint young min (hic), Pat cusses the young min,
an' beats the girls whin they come home (hic)."
Here the woman broke down, sobbing, while the attendant kept her from
swaying and falling.
"There, there, Mrs. Rafferty. I'll suspend sentence this time. But
don't let it happen another time. You have Pat arrested and I'll teach
him something about treating you right."
"My God, yer honor (hic), the worst of it is it's me two girls--they
ain't got no home, but a drunken din, the next thing I knows they'll be
arristed (hic) and brought up before ye like these other poor divvels.
Yer honor, it's drunken Pats and min like him that's bringin' these
poor girls here--it ain't the cops an' the sports (hic), yer honor."
The woman staggered as the magistrate quietly signaled the attendant to
lead her through the gate, and up the aisle of the court to the outer
door.
As she passed by the spectators, two or three richly dressed young
women giggled and nudged the dapper youths with whom they were sitting.
"Silence!" cried the magistrate tersely. "This is not a cabaret show.
I don't want any seeing-New-York parties here. Sergeant, put those
people out of the court."
The officer walked up the aisle and ordered the society buds and their
escorts to leave.
"Why, we're studying sociology," murmured one girl. "It's a very
stupid thing, however, down here."
"So vulgar, my dear," acquiesced her friend. "There's nothing
interesting anyway. Just the same old story."
They noisily arose, and walked out, while Officer Burke could hear one
of the gilded youths exclaim in a loud voice as they reached the outer
corridor:
"Come on, let's go up to Rector's for a little tango, and see some real
life...."
The magistrate who had heard it tapped his pen on the desk, and looked
quizzically at the matron.
"They are doubtless preparing some reform legislation for the suffrage
platform, Mrs. Grey, and I have inadvertently delayed the millennium.
Ah, a pity!"
Burke was impatient for the calling of his own case. He was tired. He
would have been hungry had he not been so nauseated by the sickening
environment. He longed for the fresh air; even the snowstorm was
better than this.
But his turn had not come. The next to be called was another answer to
his mental question.
A young woman with a blackened eye and a bleeding cheek was brought in
by a fat, jolly officer, who led a burly, sodden man with him.
The charge was quarreling and destroying the furniture of a neighbor in
whose flat the fight had taken place.
"Who started it?" asked the magistrate.
"She did, your honor. She ain't never home when I wants my vittles
cooked, and she blows my money so there ain't nothing in the house to
eat for meself. She's always startin' things, and she did this time
when I tells her to come on home...."
"Just a minute," interrupted the magistrate. "What is the cause of
this, little woman? Who struck you on the eye?"
The woman's lips trembled, and she glanced at the big fellow beside
her. He glowered down at her with a threatening twist of his mouth.
"Why, your honor, you see, the baby was sick, and Joe, he went out with
the boys pay night, and we didn't have a cent in the flat, and I had
to..."
"Shut up, or I'll bust you when I get you alone!" muttered Joe, until
the judge pounded on the table with his gavel.
"You won't be where you can bust her!" sharply exclaimed the
magistrate. "Go on, little woman. When did he hit you?"
The wife trembled and hesitated. The magistrate nodded encouragingly.
"Why weren't you home?" he asked softly.
"My neighbor, Mrs. Goldberg, likes the baby, and she was showing me how
to make some syrup for its croup, your honor, sir. We haven't got any
light--it's a quarter gas meter, and there wasn't anything to cook
with, and I had the baby in her flat, and Joe he just got home--he
hadn't been there ... since ... Saturday night ... I didn't have
anything to eat--since then, myself."
Joe whirled about threateningly, but the officer caught his uplifted
arm.
"She lies. She ain't straight, that's what it is. Hanging around them
_Sheenies_, and sayin' it's the baby. She lies!"
The little woman's face paled, and she staggered back, her tremulous
fingers clutching at the empty air as her great eyes opened with horror
at his words.
"I'm not _straight_? Oh, oh, Joe! You're killing me!"
She moaned as though the man had beat her again.
"Six months!" rasped out the magistrate between his teeth. "And I'm
going to put you under a peace bond when you get out. Little woman,
you're dismissed."
Joe was roughly jostled out into the detention room again by the
rosy-cheeked policeman, whose face was neither so jolly nor rosy now.
The woman sobbed, and leaned across the rail, her outstretched arms
held pleadingly toward the magistrate.
"Oh, judge, sir ... don't send him up for six months. How can the baby
and I live? We have no one, not one soul to care for us, and I'm
expecting..."
Mercifully her nerves gave way, and she fainted. The gruff old court
attendant, now as gentle as a nurse, caught her, and with the gateman,
carried her at the judge's direction, toward his own private office,
whither hurried Mrs. Grey, the matron.
The magistrate blew his nose, rubbed his glasses, and irritably looked
at the next paper.
"Jimmie Olinski. Officer Burke. Hurry up, I want to call recess!" he
exclaimed.
Burke, in a daze of thoughts, pulled himself together, and then took
the arm of Jimmie the Monk, who advanced with manner docile and
obsequious. He was not a stranger to the path to the rail. Another
officer led Annie forward. Burke took the chair.
"Don't waste my time," snapped the magistrate. "What's this? Another
fight?"
Officer 4434 explained the situation.
"Do you want to complain, woman?" asked the magistrate.
"Complain, why yer honor, dis cop is lyin' like a house afire. Dis is
me gent' friend, an' I got me face hoit by dis cop hittin' me when he
butted into our conversation. Dis cop assaulted us both, yer honor."
"That'll do. Shut up. You know what this is, don't you, Burke? The
same old story. Why do you waste time on this sort of thing unless
you've got a witness? You know one of these women will never testify
against the man, no matter how much he beats and robs her."
"But, your honor, the man assaulted her and assaulted me," began Burke.
"She doesn't count. That's the pity of it, poor thing. I'll hold him
over to General Sessions for a criminal trial on assaulting you."
In the back of the room a stout man in a fur overcoat arose.
It was Shultberger. He came down the aisle.
As he did so, unnoticed by Officer 4434, three of Shultberger's
companions arose and quietly left the courtroom by the front entrance.
"Oxcuse me, Chudge, but may I offer bail for my friend, little Jimmie?"
He had some papers in his hand, for this was what might be called a
by-product of his saloon business; Shultberger was always ready for the
assistance of his clients.
The magistrate looked sharply at him. "Down here again, eh? I'd think
those deeds and that old brick house would be worn out by this time,
Shultberger, from the frequency with which you juggle it against the
liberty of your friends."
"It's a fine house, Chudge, and was assessed."
"Yes--go file your papers," snapped the magistrate. "You can report
back to your station house, officer. There is no charge against this
girl--she is merely held as material witness. She'll never testify.
She's discharged. Take my advice, Burke, and play safe with these
gun-men. You're in a neighborhood which needs good precaution as well
as good intentions. Good night."
The magistrate rose, declaring a recess for one hour, and Officer 4434
left the court through the police entrance.
As he turned the corner of the old Court building, he repeated to
himself the question which had forced itself so strongly upon him: "Who
is to blame? Who has to pay? The men or the women?"
Again he saw, mentally, the sobbing, drunken Irish woman with the two
daughters who had no home life. He saw the brutal Joe, and his
fainting wife as he cast the horrible words "not straight" into her
soul. He saw that the answer to his question, and the shallow society
youngsters, who had left the courtroom to see "real life" at Rector's,
were not disconnected from that answer.
But he did not see a dark form behind a stone buttress at the corner of
the old building. He did not see a brick which came hurtling through
the air from behind him.
He merely fell forward, mutely--with a fractured skull!