“Two hours after midnight Sergt. M. and Officers M., O’B., H. and F., from the Harrison street police station, raided the C. L. saloon at State street, arresting sixty inmates. The majority of these were boys. There was one man with gray hair and wrinkled face.
“Shortly before the police court convened at 9 o’clock the entire crowd was marched into Inspector H.’s office and from there to the courtroom, where the cases were disposed of by Justice M. Every sort of a plea generally used in court was brought into play by the defendants. Some cases were dismissed, while other prisoners were fined $25 and $50. The police claim about half of those arrested were criminals.
“The arrests were made because of the large number of complaints against the saloon.”
The raid on the policy shop belongs to the spasmodic line of operations of the police. Fifty of them could be made if some mysterious reason did not exist why they are not made.
The saloon referred to belongs to the all night class, and is one of the most notorious of the kind. It has been protected in the past, and still would be if it were not for the fact that “a large number of complaints” have been made against it. These are not new to the police. They have been made before, but something must be done for appearance sake while the Baxter Committee continues its probing! That this place was a resort for criminals is not a recent discovery by the police. They always knew it.
To cull the press for proofs of the truth of the charges made in the foregoing pages, would result, in a few days, in the reproduction of a mass of evidence on the total inefficiency of the police force. Such as are here given are examples of the many the scissors could find.
The reader can multiply them, in his mind, ten fold in a week’s time, and then reach a result far short of the facts.
The whole story of the alliance between the police, the saloons and the justices is told in the following cartoon taken from the Daily News of June 23, 1899.
CAUGHT COMING AND GOING.
