These stories are true in name and time and place. None of them in its
incident happened as far away as three years ago. They were written to
show you how the other half live--in New York. I had them direct from
the veracious lips of the police. The gangsters themselves contributed
sundry details.
You will express amazement as you read that they carry so slight an
element of Sing Sing and the Death Chair. Such should have been no doubt
the very proper and lawful climax of more than one of them, and would
were it not for what differences subsist between a moral and a legal
certainty. The police know many things they cannot prove in court, the
more when the question at bay concerns intimately, for life or death, a
society where the “snitch” is an abomination and to “squeal” the single
great offense.
Besides, you are not to forget the politician, who in defense of a
valuable repeater palsies police effort with the cold finger of his
interference. With apologies to that order, the three links of the
Odd Fellows are an example of the policeman, the criminal and the
politician. The latter is the middle link, and holds the other two
together while keeping them apart.
Alfred Henry Lewis. New York City, Dec. 22, 1911.