The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-05-03
ments; have had a closing of saloons to
some extent on Sundays and have had

change in the police agency which
promises to bear good fruit. For three
years at least Superintendent Murray
was absolutely unable to give necessary
attention to the police department, and
Inspector Byrnes, naturally hampered
by the limitations of the pro TEN. in
tendency, could do nothing decisive
Now that we have Byrnes at the head
of the police department he will be
able to carry out, l think, some
needed reforms. His first decree shift
ing the various police captains to new
districts is wise and judicious perfor-
nance. The tendency on the part OF
long stationed police captains is to be-
come absolute autocrats of their dis
tricts. They naturally form close
friendships and inspire bitter enmities.
Removing them to unfamiliar sections
of the city has tendency to break up
coteries of law-defiers, defects a great
deal of temptation and begets whole
some regard for the mutability of hui
man affairs. One of the results of this
systematic effort at general reforma-
ton is that hundreds and perhaps thou
sands of depraved women are being
driven from the open haunts of
vice into private and secret av-
enues. A gentleman told me yes
terday that he had been compelled
to remove his family from an apartment
house uptown because three women of
bad character had succeeded in estab-
fishing themselves there. The general
Impressions that in pursuing this policy
society does not cure itself of its vicious
assesses, but merely scatters them.
Inspector Byrnes used to have a theory
that in dealing with the criminal and
vicious classes of the community the
best thing that could be done was to
keep them in one particular quarter of
the city. Decent people would have no
call to visit that section, and the con-
tamination would naturally be much
less than if the whole mass of abandoned
and degraded humanity were scattered
indiscriminately. This idea cannot be
said to be a new one in dealing with
this most serious problem of great
municipalities. When James /. came
down from Scotland to take
charge of the British throne
he found London about as wicked and
depraved as Sodom and Gomorrah COM
bined. In his shrewd,s Scotch way he
arrived at the conclusion that the best
thing to do for the town was to coop up
all the thieves, scoundrels and wicked
women in one section and keep them
under restraint. That old part of Lon
don known as Whitefriars was the dis
trict assigned to the off-colored popula-
ton. A line of constabulary surround
ed the district, and as long as the crooks
stayed inside of what was called s'Al-
satia" nobody cared-not even sublime
translators of the Bible in st. James
palace-what they did or how they did
it. According to the veracious chronic
Ter Of 'sThe Fortunes of Nigel" the out
casts of Alsatia had sort of independ-
emit government within their lines
of jurisdiction. They had chief
who settled their ordinary dis
putes, and they seemed to get along
pretty well. It was only when they at
tempted to make stories for pur-
poses of plumber that they got them
selves into trouble. 1 suppose the time
came when the goody-good people of
London of high reformatory impulses
concluded that it was their duty to dis
perse all this wickedness and divide it
with the community. 1 don't know
how the system worked in the olden
time, but / do know that to-day there
is not a city on the face of the globe
where there is so much open, shameless
and repulsive vice as can be found in
London, day or night. And that, too,
in decent, semi-respectable sections.
Whether DIR. Parkhurst's efforts will be
productive of lasting good or not I am
not prepared to say. He has certainly
stirred the stagnant pools of corruption,
and the odors that permeate the COM
munity are not pleasant. I suppose
things will rectify themselves in due
time. AS the old western philosopher
used to say: 'When things are bad they
never get much better, but when
they're darned bad they just cut loose
and better themselves
A FAIR AMERICAN PRECEDENT.
Miss Georgine Wolters, who has Just
recovered a verdict of twenty-five thou
SS--~ NOAA'Ao III q OiCoCI u promise TO
marry, bids fair to be the heroine of a
famous American precedent. Jurists
and counselors for generation will no
doubt be talking about the verdict in
the case of Wolters VS.. Schultz-that is,
If the court of appeals allows the YER
dict to stand, and legal authority who
has followed the case pretty closely
tells me that the record will, in his
opinion, show no error grave enough to
warrant reversal. Bardell VS. Pick
wick has, since the immortal 'sPickwick
Papers" first made their appearance,
been the best-known breach-of-promise
case. The plaintiff there, too, got her
damages. But she was no such looking
woman as Miss VOTERS. And as this
estimable young lady, will she mill she,
is to become character in the legal
history and literature of the country,
something about herself and her family
and the law suit they compelled her
to bring will be interesting. The VOL
ters' cigar shop is well known to
men about town, but the fair plaintiff
has only been identified with it for
short time It is on Sixth avenue, just
below the Eighteenth street elevated
station and ic o1Uped opd ,,,onooad h.