In the examination of a witness named John Collins, Mr. Moss said—
I think that the evils perpetrated by these judges, some of them, are even worse in their results than the evil practised by the police.
Chairman Lexow: It seems to me that any evil of that kind permitted by a judge is ten times worse than that committed by any other individual.
Mr. Moss: Of course, I myself have been before some of these judges for the society which I represent, and know what it was to be sat down upon, and outraged and browbeaten.
Senator Bradley: The witness says to me that the judges eat and drink with these people, and know the character of the people well.—Vol. v., p. 4,897.
The best way of bringing out this aspect of the administration of justice in New York is to set forth, without a word of comment, the substance of the evidence taken concerning the abortionists.
Abortion is not regarded in New York with anything approaching the horror that is excited by the same crime in the Old World. According to the evidence given before the Lexow Committee by an expert there were about two hundred abortionists who advertised every day in New York their readiness to kill the unborn child. It is an irregular profession that has regular practitioners. But, like all the other vices, it is a fertile source of revenue to the police. Dr. Newton Whitehead, a leading practitioner in this recognised system of antenatal infanticide, was called before the Committee and testified as to the way in which he was at once helped and hindered by the police. Whitehead was arrested three times in six weeks. He was never tried on any one of these occasions. But he had to pay in bribing the police and feeing the police lawyer the sum of £565.
The doctor was arrested by a policeman called Frink, who insisted that he should retain for his defence a lawyer of the name of Friend. He was told that Mr. Friend had got a telephone directly from his house to police headquarters, so they informed him at once of all these cases, and he was our lawyer—the police lawyer (vol. iv., p. 4,240). Somewhat reluctantly, Whitehead sent for Friend. He had to pay him 700 dollars. Friend remarked apologetically that he would not insist on so much; but “I don’t get this money myself: I have to turn over 50 per cent. of it to the police.” “Our lawyer,” indeed!
The policeman Frink then took his prisoner off into a small court-room, and told him, “In all these cases, Doctor, we expect to have some money off from them. Pay me 500 dollars and I will guarantee that the case will be dismissed when it is called.” He paid 500 dollars and the case was dismissed, the only evidence offered incriminating, not the doctor, but a midwife, whom, however, they refused to prosecute, as “she did not have any money, and was not worth bothering with.”
The lawyer, the doctor and the policeman dined together at a saloon in University Place. During dinner the policeman grew confidential:—