The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-12-24
TO PURIFY TRENTON.
Lively Parkhurst Crusade Start
ed in the State
Capital.
Special TO the Jersey Citu Meas.


TRENTON, Dec. "a, 1S94.-Chief of Po-
lice McChesney has prepared a list of
disreputable houses in the City of Tren-i
ton for the inspection of the Grand Jury.
This is the result of aroused indignation
expressed by citizens over the loose NOR
ais of New Jerseys capital city.
The Police Commissioners some weeks
ago announced that the city needed
closer surveillance of immoral resorts,
Sunday liquor selling and prize fights.
The only thing of a positive character
done was to order that no more smuggling
matches take place. Up to that time
they had been of almost nightly occur
renee. The Excise Commission made a
pretense to check Sunday selling, bu
their crusade was "faxey," n the
citizens complained and demanded better
observance of the law. Chief McChesney
came in. for severe criticism from the
Commissioners and citizens about the
way he was allowing disorderly houses
to run, so he set quietly at work to get
at the magnitude of the nuisance.
VERY GAY TOWN.
The statistics of the evils of Trenton
present facts showing that Trenton is
a very gay Jersey town. There are 1884
saloons in the town, which has 5S,313 in
habitants, making a saloon for each l52
men, women and children. 1t is esti-
mated that one half of these places
are violating the law by keeping open
on Sunday. 1t is only recently that Sun
day selling became general. Before it
was suppressed by the Law and Order
Society with Joseph B. Richardson at
its head. He was the P~arkhurst of the
place, and was feared and hated by
every saloon man. He moved away
and the Law and Order League went to
pieces. w. A. Venter, the General Sec
rotary Of the Young Mems Christian
Association, has taken up the crusade
and is going to get all the clergymen
and the prominent lawyers of the town
interested in the movement, and the an
nouncement was made this afternoon
in the general meeting held in AS
sociation Hail..
PRETTY BIG CONTINGENT.
Trenton has over 100 disorderly houses.
These houses have in times past -four
ished because of the presence of so many
strangers in the city attending sessions,
of the Legislature, political conventions,
grand lodge meetings, Interstate fairs,
etc. Since the raids in New York these
houses have doubled. The place has its
Bowery, which faces the feeder of the
Delaware and Raritan Canal, where the
widest kind of debauchery takes place.
1t also has it's Tenderloin district.
Marian Dexter, the queen of the Bow
cry, was on Friday sent to the State
Prison for one year for keeping a dis
orderly house. There is now a reign
of terror in the Tenderloin since it has
become known that the Chief of Police
has a little list on which are the names
of the women, the inmates and the pa
irons. The police have notified these
house owners that they are in danger
of indictment under the law for renting
their properties for such purposes and
some have warned their tenants out.
The Chief of Police in an interview
thinks that the Excise Inspector ought
to be. made to report the houses selling
liquor without a license. The work of
cleansing the capital of New Jersey has
begun in earnest.