New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-01-18
Lodxers in the station Houses.

Local law or custom has Tor many years
given stray human waits the privilege of
finding shelter and nights lodging in the
several police station houses of our city.
Our occupation as press reporter has
given us a certain insight into these things
that citizens generally are oblivious to.
There is scarcely night in the three
hundred and sixty five of the year that
some unfortunate human being does not
apply to one of the clerks for permission
to shelter himself in bare cell, where he
may lie without fear of arrest, and be free
from the elements. What may be the cause
of this singular request is of course
the business of the poor fellow
himself; thousands of incidents and
clients, perhaps crimes, have brought
him to this low standard of social existence.
We will take it as granted that disease or
want of employment is the immediate
cause of his poverty-for naught but direst
poverty will impel man to voluntarily en-
ter grated cell of a prison and there to
seek repOse on bare plank, one degree
better it may be than lying in the open air
subject to suffering from rain or biting cold.
In most instances these persons are stran-
gers, homeless, friendless, and without
money, here in the expectation of procuring
remuuerative employment. At the present
time of dearth it is not surprising that
nearly all are disappointed who visit this
city in expectation of receiving even sufi-
Gent wages to defray expenses, Suppose
one OF this class of miserables finds himself
" dead broke" and compelled to ask that be
be allowed to hide his exhausted and
troubled self in q cell, his name
entered on o book as lodger,' y
and in the morning be sent up be
fore committing magistrate labeled ava.
grant" and failing to give good account of
himself is woikhOused, although be may be
inwATdly one Of Gods noblest works-an
honest mau. The worlzhouse was not
erected for honest men. We are far from
believing that either one of our four excel
lent recorders would knowingly commit so
great an outrage as is contained in our sun
position, but in the multiplicity of their du-
ties such wrongs are liable to be committed
have been committed. We know that for
many nights in succession application is
made by the same individual for lodging.
and that clerks finally reluctantly grant the
oft-reTeated request, and with hint that
another time will consign them to the con-
sequences of charge of vagrancy. The
threat made by the clerk is doubtless we'll
meant, and has beneficial effect in making
the applicant avoid the quarters, or melting
him to seek some other kind of home, be it
ever SO poor.
Generally these free dodgers are
Of class that will bear close
watching, for extreme poverty is wont
TO clese an eye to rights that civiliza-
ton has definitely marked. When
the recorders take squad of this class and
after few hastily put questions consign
them to prison, we must enter our pro-
test in the name of humanity, for 1t is better
that ninety nine guilty men escape than
one innocent person be punished. If the
dodgers are to be werkhoused, let the
utmost discretion be used, and give each
one fair chance to show that misfortune,
not crime, has brought him so low in the
world.