The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-11
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST II, 1869.
DELINQUENT ALDERMEN.

Tur delinouencies of some of our committing
magistrates have not yet been remedied, and,
unless some serious effort is made by the
courts to compel them to do their duty, the
probability is that things will go on in the
old-fashioned way for some time to come.
The alderman have been reprimanded by the
iudoes. but some aldermen do not appear to
regard a reprimand as amounting to much.
They have been cautioned about their sworn
duty. but cautions have not availed to bring
all of them up to the strict line of that duty.
Their intelligence as men has been appealed
To. but some of them are not as intelligent as
they might be- And finally, they have been
threatened with prosecution in the criminal
courts. and yet threats have not suffced to
induce them to remember the tritiing fact
that n man is innocent until he is proven
o11iltv. and that man who is accused of any
transpression of the law is not thereby de-
prived of all his rights as man and
citizen.
Yesterday number of these delinquent
officials were summoned before Judge Brew
ster, presiding over the Court of Quarter Ses-
sions, and required by him to give some ac-
count of their shortcomings The complaint
against them was the old complaint that per-
sons had been thrown into prison by them
in default of bail, to answer some trivial
charge, and that no return of the cases had
been made to the District Attorney, as is
required by law. In two or three cases, it
was found that somebody or other had been
stupid, and that the aldermen were not to
blame AS a matter of course, the magistrates
in these cases were told to depart in peace. In
other cases, the aldermen failed to respond to
the demand for their presence in court, and
the proper process for compelling their at
tendance was accordingly issued But in
two cases at least the most culpa-
BILE negligence was shown to
exist, and tLy magistrates had nothing to say
in response except the reiteration of the pitt
full plea of mistake or forgetfulness. In one
of these, the alderman acknowledged that he
had committed man to the County Prison as
long ago as the fifteenth of July, and had
been SO thoroughly persuaded in his own
mind that he had made the proper return, that
if the Assistant District Attorney had not
called his attention to the affair by sending
Cor the transcript, he probably would never
have done anything about it. And yet he
''did not think it was neglect or forgetful-
ness on his part, but simply mistake!' An
other alderman, when asked what he had to
say about committal made by him on the
thirtieth of July, of which there had been no
return, could only confess that his memory
was so utterly unreliable and his business
habits lpOCa that ha ho1 naplaotol 4
through forgetfulness.
Judge Brewster repeated to these two de-
linquents almost the very words he has used
previously, telling them they were more at
fault than the alleged criminals whom they
had illegally restrained of their liberty: that
they had impeded the action of the District
Attorney, and drawn upon him the unmerited
censure of the public; that they had caused
the Court to be accused of want of ZEAL
that they had incommoded the Jurors; in
short, assured them that they were clearly in
the wrong, and that if stop were not put to
their carelessness, it would be necessary for
the court to bind some of them over to
answer for their delinquencies before jury.
If Judge Brewster had gone one step further,
and simply ordered the twain to take their
places in the prisoners dock, he would not
have done anything out of the way, and his
action in the matter would have received the
unqualified endorsement of all reasonable
citizens.
Complaints come every day from the
County Prison that it is overcrowded to such
an extent that no attempt can be made to
carry out the regulations which the Board of
Inspectors have made for the confinement of
the prisoners; and every grand jury that goes
over the list of committals ignores fully one
half of the bills presented to it, because the
charges are of the most trivial character
and frequently prompted by the malice of the
prosecutor alone. And yet some of oul
aldermen persist in aggravating both these
abuses by sending miserable and friendles'
wretches below, without making a pretense o.
complying with the slight formalities of Law
which are required to bring the cases before
the courts. One or two examples would have
salutary effect by way of remedying thi
last difficulty, and would likewise be calcu
lated to do away to an appreciable exten
with,,the present practice of sending people t.
Moyamensing on ridiculous or malicious
charges.
THE NEW DEMOCRATIC RULES.