The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-08-26
police outrage in Newark.


II the so-called moral spasm OF New
ark, detailed in another part of this
issue of THE NEWS, were a movement
for the suppression of concert gardens
and improper resorts of various kinds
ii would be entitled to public respect.
But if it be proposed, as the report
obviously indicates. to make promis-
cuous arrests mon young girls, who
happen to be out late. on the ground
that they are not under the guardian
ship Of proper escorts, the matter de-
generates into a brutal and public
outrage. In fact, the circumstance
would fairly warrant the parents or
guardians OF its victims in shooting
the officer attempting to make the
arrest.
II it be commended that girls
should be arrested because the place
they propose to visit is improper.
then it should be the duty of the
police to close the resort and SO put
an end to an infamous business before
it has opportunity to broadcast the
seeds of iniquity in the community.
But the Newark police do not seem
to see anything wrong about these
immoral resorts, or else the law is
sadly out OF joint in that city. The
guardians of the public peace and
morals there are much like a quack
doctor who cut off a mans head lest
he might choke to death with a bone.
The only parallel TO this infamous
business we can now recall was fur
nished by Inspector Williams, when
he was a plain captain, in New York.
That excessively virtuous guardian of
public morals, who has amassed a for
tune, built himself a magnificent
country home, and maintains a yacht
on a not remarkably extravaganza sal
airy, once issued an order to the force
under his command to arrest every
woman who passed the Fifth Avenue
Hotel after nine O'Clock at night with
out a male escort. The affair aroused
such a tempest of public indignation
that only the phenomenal pull"
which Captain Williams u%naccount-
ably possessed saved him from being
swept into the North River.
1t is obvious that arrest, made for
such a commonplace cause as is pro-
posed in Newark, must necessarily
result in the apprehension of many
innocent girls-and to improperly ar
rest a young girl is far more likely to
drive her to ruin than to amend her
ways.
We do not know that the police are
absolutely responsible for the outrage
proposed in Newark. or exactly how
far the outrage is to extend, but If
they propose, as is fairly intimated,
TO arrest all minors found on
the streets after a stated hour,
an Indication of official insanity.
There are hundreds of reasons.
sound, valid. respectable reasons,
why young girls should be upon the
streets unaccompanied after nine
o'clock at night. Take Saturday
night for example. How many girls
are there employed in stores who ON
that night are compelled to remain at
their work until eleven o'clock, or
eyen'later, and then go home alone?
Thousands. probably. Yet under the
rule proposed these honest, hard
working girls, who may perhaps have
neither father nor brother to look
after them, must either find
a suitable" escort or be stig-
matlzed by being arrested, and this
merely to crafty the within of a police
force, which, by the very act, con-
fesses itself unable to discharge its
proper duty and suppress open and
acknowledged w~ickedness which
boldly fiaunts its meretricious wiles
under the official nose.
The implied attempt to adjudicate
who may or may not be a proper es-
cort for a young girl after nine o'clock
Is an exceedingly delicate n ddidicuit
task. The police say that none but
the parents are proper escorts under
such circumstances or at such an
hour. Yet American customs are
such that a girl still a minor
may be engaged, DR. in a fair way
to be engaged TO marry a youth
not much older than herself, and with
the full knowledge and consent of her
parents. Her fa1sce would certainly
be a proper escort, yet the police
might say ne was not. The court
would probably dismiss any complaint