care of you and keep you out of trouble for the use they can make of you. It does not make any difference what political party happens to be in power, or whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in the ascendancy in any given district. The system is very much the same year in and year out.

A little while before election day the district leader goes to see the police captain and, among other things, drops this little hint:

"By the way, Beetlebrow, I would like to have Officers Burns and Bradshaw at the polling place around the corner. They are both good, reliable boys and they know everybody."

No sooner said than done. When the detail is made each of the policemen is given a bundle of warrants for floaters who are expected to attempt to cast a ballot. To the district leader who has obtained for them this interesting assignmentand every policeman is interested in the electionBurns and Bradshaw promptly reveal the names of those for whom the warrants have been issued. The result is that known repeaters are warned away from the polls and there are no arrests where there should be a coup.

I have related the conditions just as I have found them. It is my conclusion, and I do not think I have exaggerated the situation, that the Police Department, under the present system, is the breeding bureau of an army of grafters. It is no place in these days for a man of conscience and intelligence and determination to succeed. That is a ruinous combination, my friend, for the man on the beat.

Administration of Justice in New York

(The following extracts are taken from the writings o Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst.)

It was only this past week (February, 1892) that a search warrant was issued by one of the courts in town, and before the officer with his posse reached No. 522 Sixth Avenue, the action of the court reached there, and the house that is spoken of in Scripture as empty, swept, and garnished, was not, in point of unadorned vacuity, a circumstance to the innocent barrenness of the gambling rooms in question. I do not say that the judge of Jefferson Market Police Court was responsible for the slip. I do not believe that he was, at least in any direct way. All that is intended by the reference is that the police court leaked. With hardly the shadow of a doubt that court, in some one of its subordinates at any rate, stands in with the gamblers, and to that degree the court becomes the criminal's protector and guardian angel. This is mentioned only as illustration of fact that some people understand, and that all people ought to understand, that crime in this city is intrenched in our municipal administration, and that what ought to be a bulwark against crime is a stronghold in its defense.

Unless all signs are misleading, your average oliceman or your average police captain is not go

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN NEW YORK. 75

ing to disturb a criminal, if the criminal has means, if he can help it.

We are saying nothing as to the connection there is between the criminal's means and the policeman's indulgence. We only state in explanation that it is the universal opinion of those who have studied longest and most deeply into the municipal criminality of this city, that every crime here has its price. I am not saying that that is so, but that the more intently any man of brains scrutinizes these matters the more he discovers along this line that it is of an intensely interesting nature. I should not be surprised to know that every building in this town in which gambling or prostitution or the illicit sale of liquor is carried on has immunity secured to it by a scale of police taxation that is as carefully graded and as thoroughly systemized as any that obtains in the assessment of personal property or real estate that is made for the purpose of meeting municipal, state, or federal expenses current.

Near the beginning of the year (1892) the Grand Jury considered the matter of indicting the keeper of a notorious resort on Fourteenth Street. There was no legal evidence at hand that would be sufficient to convict, and the District Attorney was asked to secure some. An innocent imagination would have supposed that he would jump at the opportunity. The request was repeated by the Grand Jury, apparently without effect.

Our guileless District Attorney, with the down