News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-01-01
A CITY'S GREAT CRIME.
A DESPONDENT VIEW OF THE STATE
OF AFFAIRS EXISTING IN NEW
YORK.
Crimes of the Darkest Hue Committed In
Open Daylight, and the Police Can Find
No Clue.
from the New York Herald.1

Lrrom the New YORK Herald.
Nine unrecognized bodies carried
away from the Morgue to be buried in
one day may be taken as mere surface
indication Of what the mysterious
fatalities of life are in a great city.
Whether life was ever less safe any
where in any civilized country than it IL
with us just now, and whether a well
paid and much pampered police ever did
less to prevent acts of violence or to dis
cover the perpetrators, or whether
cumbrous and expensive Judicial ma
chlnery ever less answered the pre-
sumed end of making the law terror to
criminals. are all points open to doubt
Murder appears to be pastime and JUS
tice farce. In the open streets, IN the
broad daylight, a man gives a woman a
mortal blow; she dies in the hospital,
and the police are as much at loss for
any knowledge of the facts as if it had
occurred in China in the time. of Con-
fucius. And if this blindness of the po-
lice does not give man of murderous
impulses assurance enough, the admin
istration of justice is fitted to strengthen
his resolutions, and the infinite refine
ments and delays of Judicial procedure
as 1nstanced, say, in the case of Conroy,
the policeman, seem to assure absolute
immunity from forcible attendance at
what was once known as ''a sheriff's
ball."
Within a short time two Incl
dents have been added to the strange
chronicle of vast and varied incapacity
that the history of our criminal justice
presents. One is the story of the dead
woman found where she had lain in a
heap of ashes for year or two in the
very heart-sss. sss- oitH-a-s a few hun
dred yards from the City Hall and with
in few feet of constantly crowded
thoroughfare; the other is the departure
of that affectionate ''mother" of the po-
lice, Mrs. Mandelbaum. Mrs. Mandel-
baum has lived in the city for twenty
years or more, and for all that period
her house has been an acknowledged re-
ceptacle for the products of thousands
of burglaries. Upon the commission of
any important robbery within hundred
miles of this city the police could have
gone with almost absolute certainty to
the place of deposit of the valuables in
that woman's house, or in some house
that was only detached portion of her
premises. Nay, she kept shop at
which stolen goods were sold over the
counter Nota finger was laid upon her
till lately. But the spirit ofreform puts
one good man into office. He shows
disposition to do his duty, and all the
machinery of law and "justice" comes to
the protection of the old sinner and she
is rescued once more. AS to the woman
in the cellar, her history provokes
doubt touching the efficiency of the po-
lice for the performance of the most
modest of police functions. 1t often APP
pears as if the city were the battle
ground of the criminal classes and as if
the police were only kind of ambulance
corps to go about and gather up the
killed and wounded; but this incident
shows that they are not very excellent
at police duty in even the strictly mill
tary sense.
By the way, should not the Board of
Health itself have discovered this woman
in one of the two summers through
which she lay unburied on the premises
of public hotel? 1t may be too much
to expect of the average policeman that
he should know what is happening upon
his beat, and when Police Commissioners
have all their time taken up with party
politics it is hardly to be supposed there
could be discipline enough in the force
to make it effective; but it is the duty of
the Board of Health to nose out and fol-
low to their sources the foul odors of the
city, and that body is authorized to
make for that purpose an inspection
from house to house, and should do so
often in bad neighborhoods. When was
an inspector in Frankfort street? and
what guarantee does such Board offer
og1 1gsfI ths propagation