Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-05-08
0t)e laufaster 1ntelli9cntcr.
LANCASTER, MAY s, 1855.
6 sScalpers,, in Police JTnjtorm,


wonder to many good people why there
should be law on the statute books of
PENNSYLVANIA, making 1t a criminal offense
for any one to sell, barter, or exchange, or
to even offer to sell, barter, or exchange,
upon the streets, or public highways, mot
indoors), or 60 in front of any place of
amusement, tickets to any entertainment.
Under strict enforcement of this law
every ticket-seler at the circus held here
the other day could have been arrested and
sent to Jail, for they all sold on the street,
or Sin front of" the show. The only legal
sales were those made inside book store
down town. BY the operation of this sta
tute if one member of party should buy
the tickets for all of them to an enter
tainment, at the box office, and on their
way to the place of amusement should col
lect the money from the others, he might
be sent to Jail for three months for doing
it. A law which permits such a condition
Of things as this is of course disgrace to
the statute books and a monument to the
ignorance of those who enacted it.
1t may be said that the act was passed to
protect the theatre managers of Philadel-
phia and the public from the scalpers," /"
who made themselves offensive to both !;
but it is clear that no such law as that of
1888 was necessary to this end, and that its
operation is quite capable of protecting the
most malignant persecution of people who
commit no real offense against private
rights or public order.
The case we have fancied is of course an
extreme one, but entirely possible and
would hardly be more cruel example OF
the opeIationof such an infamous statute
than the one which brings it to Ire notice
of our citizens by an illustration of its
operation i'll Lancaster. And, by the way
laws like this one are passed and put intC
operation without any notice to those who
may be affected by them. Certainl,
no moral instinct nor inherent sense o.
. right teaches man that it is wrong tC
buy circus ticket for 50 cents and sell i
for go, any more than it is wrong to buy
horse for 800 and sell it for sos, or for ;
book seller to buy Bible for IS cents an,
sell it for9O. Blackstone declares it to b.
fundamental principle of justice, that
law I" "must be notified to the people WIN
are to obey it, and the heather tyran
Caligula was in nothing more cruel than il
that he wrote his laws in a very smal
character and hung them ON a high pillar
. the more effectually to ensnare the people.
y But statutes are made of every sort il
Henpsylyania-and not even hung up on
high pillar-under which its citizens ca
be laid by the heels and landed in Jail with
out having ever had any reason to suspec
that such statutes existed or that tn
things forbidden by them were wrong unde
any law of man, any more than they ar
offensive in the sight of God.
SO it happens that stranger in town
pursuing what lie has every reason TO be
lieve is a lawful business, and what he see
half-score of Others doing without moles
tation, is pOunced down upon by the pc
lice, dragged to the lookup and after eI
jOying the comforts of a station-house ce
for seventeen hours, is given a hearing
found guilty and--released upon paying tn
costs and, as he says, six dollars of blacI
mail to the complaining officer.
If his story of the transaction so far as
reflects on Officer Barnhold is true, @
course there's no proper visitation of justic
upon that officer but prompt dismissalfror
the force and immurement in the peniter
tiary. The blackmailer is as bad as tn
highwayman; and the one has no NOR
right on the police force than the other. |
Barnhold arrested this young man for
violation of the law with honest purpose, it
difficult to reconcile such a purpose wit
his consent the next day to dismissal @
the case and with his failure to gather i
any of the dozen more like offenders VIII
piled their trade unmolested; especially
there suspicion that he asked and got
consideration when it appears so plainl
that the back office" interview played it
part In the transaction.
In any event the incident furnishes an il
lustration of the ease with which ba,
law may be abused to persecute an,
blackmail people whom no public interes
demands should be thus treated; and O
the way in which laws that may effect tn,
liberty and property of lis all, get SNUG
gled into the statute books, only to b
brought to public notice when some super
serviceable executor of them wants t,
make fees or levy blackmail.
A>S
The Iicense Question.