§ 339 Classifying the Delinquent
Years ago, when I was a reporter for a New York evening paper, and covered trials at the Criminal Courts Building, there was an elderly and very devout Irishman who had a job in Part Two of General Sessions. It was his duty to keep order and to act as door-keeper, on occasion, and sometimes as a sort of usher. But he particularly shone on those occasions when he was called upon to aid in taking the so-called pedigree of a newly convicted defendant.
In this matter a certain routine invariably was followed. The prisoner would be arraigned at the bar. The old Irishman would range alongside him and in an undertone ask of him certain questions, then call out the answers to the clerk sitting fifteen feet away, who duly recorded them on the back of the indictment. This ceremony was more or less automatic, since from long experience the old man knew exactly what facts regarding the prisoner’s past life he must ascertain. As the convicted man usually made his responses in an undertone, only the functionary’s voice would be heard as he chanted his own version of the disclosures just made to him.
One day a youth of a most forbidding appearance, who had been found guilty of attempted highway robbery, was brought up. The old Irishman edged up to him and in a friendly confidential half-whisper asked him for his right name.
“Henry Smith,” returned the youth, in a surly grumble out of one corner of his mouth.
“He says Henry Smith, Mr. Penney,” called out the Irishman. Then he turned again to the malefactor:
“Born in the United States?”
“Sure—Brooklyn.”
“Native-born, Mr. Penney.”
“Any religious instruction in your youth, young man?”