The Prisoner at the Bar: Sidelights on the Administration of Criminal Justice

by Arthur Cheney Train

Although it is now three o'clock, Mr. Appleboy goes to the nearest elevated station and takes the train down town. This occupies about half an hour. He gets off at the corner of Franklin Street and walks to the Criminal Courts building. He is now thoroughly familiar with this lugubrious locality and finds the elevator without difficulty, ascending amid the usual odoriferous company to the floor upon which Mr. Smith, the assistant district attorney, has his office. Mr. Smith's door, however, is locked, and inquiry from a deaf attendant in a neighboring corridor elicits the fact that the assistant is engaged in trying a murder case in Part IV of the General Sessions. Appleboy now bethinks him of Jones and forthwith descends to the next tier of offices, but there finds to his chagrin that the latter also is trying a case.

Determined not to be thwarted by any such trifling matter, our hero takes the elevator to the second floor of the building, upon which the court-rooms are located. He first applies at Part I. The superannuated attendant at the door eyes him sharply, asks him for a subpœna, and upon his failure to produce it denies him admittance. Appleboy, naturally indignant, inquires the reason. The watchdog at the door brusquely replies that persons having no business in the court-room are not permitted to enter.

"But I want to speak to Mr. Jones."

"Well, he can't see you now, anyhow," replies the doorkeeper. "It won't do you a particle of good to go in; he's right in the middle of summing up the case to the jury."

This seems a sufficient excuse, even to our much-annoyed old gentleman, and he thereupon makes his way to the court-room in which he has been informed that Smith is disporting himself. Here he makes a second attempt to secure admission. On this occasion there is not even the question of a subpœna. No one can be admitted, because the judge is "charging the jury." The answer is definite and final.

The doorkeeper, however, is a good-natured, genial, warm-hearted Irishman, and notes with some sympathy the disappointment and chagrin of the weary little old man. Appleboy observes the benignity of the other's expression and tenders a cigar,—not what is commonly known about the building as a "cigar" (six for a quarter) or even a "good cigar" (a ten-center), but a bang-up, A-1, twenty-five-cent Havana, with a gorgeous coat of many colors. Being very tired he lights another for himself. The two converse amicably.

It now develops that the doorkeeper not only remembers Appleboy, but the case and the teapot, and finally, having become conversant with the entire situation, he pronounces judgment, namely, that Mr. Appleboy will find the teapot at the property clerk's office at Police Headquarters; that while it is possible that it might remain in the custody of one of the assistants, or in charge of the property clerk, attached to the district attorney's office, it is very unlikely that such is the case, since the defendant was never placed on trial. He therefore advises Appleboy to return with all haste to 300 Mulberry Street and secure the return of his property from the person there having it in charge. Appleboy is very much pleased; he begins to regard himself as quite a "mixer," while for a brief moment visions of running for mayor or perhaps for alderman hover in his mind; and after presenting the doorkeeper with a couple more Havanas he makes his way out of the building upon the Center Street side.

Appleboy supposes, as is not unnatural, that Police Headquarters must be somewhere in the immediate neighborhood of the Criminal Courts building. A laborer, in response to his question, waves his hand in a northerly direction, and Appleboy sets out, traversing what seems to him to be an interminable distance. Every one whom he addresses states that Headquarters is just a block or two farther on. Soon he finds himself on Mulberry Street; swarms of little children congregate upon the sidewalk and pass comments upon his appearance; Italian ladies in faded négligée look down upon him from upper windows; bunches of macaroni in a half-solidified condition stream from frame-works erected in the areas, and Appleboy shudders as he thinks of the germs wafted down the side streets and from the open windows of the tenements which must, as he believes, collect and form a thick crust upon the surface of this unattractive variety of nutriment. From time to time he crosses the street for the purpose of avoiding a fight between small boys or a group of children dancing around an organ; occasionally he is obliged to walk in the middle of the street itself. After twenty minutes he comes in sight of an inhospitable-looking structure, which, he is informed by the peanut seller upon the corner, is that for which he seeks.

"Polica Headquarta!" chatters the Italian and grins; he knows well enough what it is, and "many there be that go in thereat."

Appleboy crosses the street and ascends the steps, meeting as he does so a squad of policemen who bang open the door and come marching down in pairs. He shrinks to one side, and then timidly makes his entry. An officer in the hall inquires his business.