The next week I concluded to visit two of the Police Courts. I reached
court at nine o'clock, but it had been in session for half an hour or
more then, and I was informed that "the best of it was over." I asked at
what time it opened. The replies varied "Usually about this time." "Some
where around nine o'clock as a rule." "Any time after seven," etc. I
got no more definite replies than these, although I asked policemen,
doorkeeper, court officer, and Justice. Of one Justice I asked, "What
time do you close?"
"Any time when the cases for the day are run through," he replied.
"To-day I want to get off early and I think we can clear the calendar by
10:30 this morning. There is very little beside excise cases to-day and
they are simply held over with $100 bail to answer to a higher court for
keeping their public houses open on Sunday. Monday morning hardly ever
has much else in this court."
I was seated on the "bench" beside the Judge. At this juncture a police
officer stepped in front of the desk with his prisoner, and the Justice
turned to him.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole tr--'n--g b tr'th--selp y'
God. Kissthebook."
The policeman had lifted the greasy volume, and with more regard for his
health than for the form of oath, had carried it in the neighborhood of
his left cheek and as quickly replaced it on the desk.
"What is the charge?" inquired the Justice.
"Open on Sunday," replied the officer succinctly.
"See him selling anything?"
"No. I asked for a drink an' he told me he was only lighting up for the
night and wasn't sellin' nothing."
"Anybody inside?"
"Only him an' me."
"You understand that you are entitled to counsel at every stage of this
proceeding," said the Justice to the accused man. "What have you to say
for yourself?"
"Your Honor, I have a dye house, and a small saloon in the corner. I
always light the gas at night in both and have it turned low. I had on
these clothes. I was not dressed for work. I went in to light up and
he followed me in, and arrested me and I have been in jail all night. I
sold nothing."
"Is that so, officer?" asked the Justice.
"Yes, your Honor, it is so far as I know. I seen him in there lighting
the gas, an' I went in an' asked for a drink, an' he said he wasn't
selling an' I arrested him."
"Give the record to the clerk. Discharged," said the Justice, and then
turning to me he explained: "You see he had to arrest the man for his
own protection. If a police officer goes into a saloon and is seen
coming out, and doesn't make some sort of an arrest, he'll get into
trouble; so, for his protection he had to arrest the man after he once
went in, and I have to require that record, by the clerk, to show
why, after he was brought before me, I discharged him. That is for my
protection."
"What is for the man's protection?" I asked. "He has been in jail all
night. He has been dragged here as a criminal to-day, and he has a court
record of arrest against him all because he lighted his own gas in his
own house That seems a little hard, don't you think so?"
The Judge smiled.
"So it does, but he ought to have locked the door when he went in to
light up. Perhaps he was afraid to go in a dark room and lock his door
behind him before he struck a light, but that was his mistake and this
is his punishment. Next!"
Most of the cases were like this or not so favorable for the accused. In
the latter instance they were held in bail to answer to a higher court.
Two or three were accused of being what the officer called "plain
drunks" and as many more of being "fighting drunks" or "concealed weapon
drunks." In these cases the charge was made by the officer who had
arrested them. There was no suggestion that "you are entitled to
counsel," etc., and a fine of from "$10 or ten days" to "$100 or three
months" or both was usually imposed.
A pitiful sight was a woman, sick, and old, and hungry. "What is the
charge against her, officer?" inquired the Justice.
"Nothing, your Honor. She wants to be sent to the workhouse. She has no
home, her feet are so swollen she can't work, and--"
"Six months," said the Justice, and turned to me. "Now she will go
to the workhouse, from there to the hospital, and from there to the
dissecting table. Next."
I shuddered, and the door closed on the poor wretch who, asking the city
for a home, only, even if that home were among criminals, received a
free pass to three of the public institutions sustained to receive such
as she--at least so said the Justice to whom such cases were not rare
enough to arouse the train of suggestions that came unbidden to me. He
impressed me as a kind-hearted man, and one who tried to be a Justice in
fact as well as in name. He told me that it was not particularly unusual
for him to be called from his bed at midnight, go to court, light up,
send for his clerk and hold a short session on one case of immediate
importance--such as the commitment of a lunatic or the bailing of some
important prisoner who declined to spend a night in jail while only a
charge and not a conviction hung over him.
"I have never committed anyone without seeing him personally," he
explained. "Some judges do; but I never have. Only last night a man's
brother and sister and two doctors tried to have me commit him as a
lunatic, but I insisted on being taken to where he was. They begged me
not to go in as he was dangerous; but I did, and one glance was all I
needed. He was a maniac, but I would not take even such strong evidence
as his relations and two doctors afforded without seeing him personally."
"And some judges do, you say?" I inquired.
"Oh yes. Next."
"Next" had been waiting before the desk for some time. The officer
went through the same form of oath. I did not see a policeman or court
officer actually "kiss the book" during the two days which I spent in
the Police Courts. Some witnesses did kiss it in fact and not only in
theory. A loud resounding smack frequently prefaced the most patent
perjury. Indeed in two cases after swearing to one set of lies and
kissing the Bible in token of good faith, the accused changed their
pleas from not guilty to guilty and accepted a sentence without trial.
These facts did not appear to shake the confidence in the efficacy of
such oaths and the onlookers in the court did not seem either surprised
or shocked. Certainly the court officials were not, and yet the swearing
went on. That it was a farce to the swearers who were quite willing to
say they believed they would "go to hell" if they did not tell the
truth and were equally willing to run the risk, looked to me like a very
strong argument for a form of oath which should carry its punishment for
perjury with it to be applied in a world more immediate and tangible.
The afternoon found me in a more crowded Police Court. The Justice was
rushing business. I stood outside the railing in front of which the
accused were ranged. The charges were made by the police officer who
faced the Judge. The accused stood almost directly behind the policemen
something like four feet away. I was by the officer's side and so near
as to touch his sleeve, and yet I can truly say that I was wholly unable
to hear one-half of the charges made; most of them appeared to relate to
intoxication, fighting, quarreling in the street, breaking windows and
similar misdeeds.
Some of the "cases" took less than a minute and the accused did not hear
one word of the charge made. What he did hear in most cases and _all_ he
could possibly hear was something like one of these:
"Ten dollars or ten days." "Three months." "Ever been here before?"
"No, your Honor."
"Ten days."
"Officer says you were quarreling in a hallway with this woman. Say for
yourself?"
"Well, your Honor, I was a little full and I got in the wrong hall and
she tried to put me out and--"
"Ten dollars."
"Your Honor, I'll lose my place and I've got a wife and--" The officer
led him away. Ten dollars meant ten days in prison to him and the
loss of his situation. What it may have meant to his family did not
transpire.
To the next "case" which was of a similar nature, the fine meant the
going down into a well-filled pocket, a laugh with the clerk and the
police officer who took the proffered cigar and touched his hat to the
object of his arrest, who, having slept off his "plain drunk," was in
a rather merry mood. Many of the accused did not hear the charges made
against them by the officer; in but few cases were they told that they
had a right to counsel; almost all were fined and at least two-thirds
of the fines meant imprisonment. A little more care was taken, a little
more time spent if the face or clothing of the accused indicated that
he was of the well-to-do or educated class. Indeed I left this court
feeling that the inequality of the administration of justice as applied
by the system of fines was carried to its farthest limit, and that it
would be perfectly possible--easy indeed--to find a man (if he chanced
to be poor and somewhat common looking) behind prison walls without his
knowing even upon what charge he had been put there and without having
made the slightest defense. If he were frightened, or ill, or unused to
courts, and through uncertainty or slowness of speech, or not knowing
what the various steps meant, had suddenly heard the Judge say "Ten
dollars," and had realized that so far as he was concerned it might as
well have been ten thousand; it was quite possible, I say, for such a
man to find himself a convict before he knew or realized what it meant
or with what he was charged.
I wondered if all this was necessary, or if attention were called to
it from the outside if it might not set people to thinking and if the
thought might not result in action that would lead to better things.
I wondered if a rapid picture of a boy of sixteen arrested for fighting,
shot through this court into association with criminals for ten days,
being found in their company afterward and sent by the criminal court
to prison for three months for larceny, and afterward appearing and
re-appearing as a long or short term criminal, would suggest to others
what the idea suggested to me? I wondered, in short, if there were less
machinery for the production and punishment of crime and more for its
prevention, if life might not be made less of a battlefield and hospital
for the poor or unfortunate. I wondered if the farce of oaths, the
flippancy of trials, the passion of the prosecutor for conviction and
all the train of evils growing out of these were necessary; and if they
were not, I wondered if the vast non-court-attending public might not
suggest a remedy if its attention were called to certain of the many
suggestive features of our courts that presented themselves to me during
my first two days as an observer of the legal machinery that grinds out
our criminal population.