The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-10-04
An Ingenious Plan for Securing Testimony
Which the Vigilant Guardians of the
Peace Are Unwilling to Furnish.
Abandonment of the Proposed Fair in
Aid of the Grant Memorial Fund.
A Military Scandal Which Is Causing Com
motion-Gossip About Flowers Refusal
to Run for Lieutenant Governor.
VICE IN THE METROPOLIS.

The Law-Enforcers and the Law Breakers
The Testimony of the Camera.
Special to the indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, Oct. 3.-There is an unusually
thorough disturbance in the relations between
the police and the vicious resorts. Not within
five years hitherto has there been any consider
able lack of harmony between these law enforc-
ers and law breakers. The payment of a price
for the privilege of selling liquors in the concert
halls on Sundays. and of maintaining what are
called sporting houses, such as Billy McGlory's,
Harry Hills and Tom Gould's has been consid-
cred usual and regular as the settlement of any
other accounts in the wretched business. Roster
q Bial who run the largest theater in which al
coholic drinks are sold in the auditorium, say
that they have paid FIVE hundred year for inn
munity in breaking the statute forbiddng such
traffic. Theirs is the largest establishment in
town combining theatrcals of much pretentious-
ness with the assembling of adventuresses
From this grade down to the depths of the Bel
onico, a bowery concert hall out of which no
drunken man is ever permitted to carry his wal
let or watch, police protection has been unswerv
ing. The convictions of McGlory, Spencer and
Geoghegan were by the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, impeded
as far as possible by the pelice department.
Suddenly all amicability is gone The police
superintendent ard his inspectors rudely up
setting the captains Arrests have this week
been made in dozen more Of the bad resorts.
Threats of overhauling the excise board for
licensing them have frightened the commits
sioners. and they are seeking self-protecton by
exposing the influences brought to bear by the
keepers. The disclosure of letter written by
Assembyman Gibbs, ''reformer," asking that
absolutely the vilest variety show in town, Tom
and dissolute girls, might be licensed to sell rum.
has incidentally ruined him politically. In this
same instance police captain certified that the
place was moral and circumspect Huber, owner
Of the infamous Prospect Garden is put under
bail, ai1d Thiess, eof the gorgeous Alhambra
Palace, is also under arrest Nobody expects
that any publication will ensue, but the exhibi-
ton of vice, during the interim, in official sane
tion is shocking the public.
Curious evidence has been obtained by
member of the Property Owners Association,
now engaged in an attempt to clear vice out of
the mercantile portion of Sixth avenue. Warned
testify, when the cases under preparation are
brought up in court that the assaied establish
ments are not wicked, and that the excise laws
are not broken in them this earnest investi-
gator has used camera to some purpose. The
rotten neighborhood is brilliantly lighted at
night by electricity. The city's street lamps
there are electrical. and these are reinforced by
those hung in front of saloons. The interiors
of the dance houses, concert gardens and variety
shows too, are e)aringly illuminated. Armed
with pocket camera for taking instantaneous
views, he has made over hundred negatives,
the prints from which show the character of the
nuisances beyond the possibility of contradic-
tion. In every case the camera was used after
l o'clock in the morning, when the sale of ntox
icants is supposed to have stopped The
street scenes, showing throngs of men
doorways, were obtained without difficulty, for
only seconds exposure of the lens like the
flash of dark lantern, was required IN each
case Sixty of these were made without attract
ing any attention. Then he undertook the more
delicate job of interior photographing. He got
eighteen covert shots from the galleries and
private boxes of the Haymarket, Sans Souc
Roster & Balls, Prospect, Alahalnbra and Cof-
fees, all in the region of retail shopping njuri
ousy affected by their presence At this stage
he was caught at it. He declared he was at
work for the Police Gazette which was going to
publish laudatorv illustrated accounts of the re-
sorts, and thus in the guise of "a special artist
on the spot" he victoriously completed the work.
1t is expected that juries will believe the pictures
against the word of the police.