The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-09

sshuaS bny Hu 1pShiuetu uSp os p~toSh there shopia besiittle break p1he now Of its animal spirits7 But even with all this, think 1t was something of sur prise to the community when last spring resolution was introduced at a meeting of the commission stating that since certain officers had failed to do their duty for fear their official posi- uons might be Jeopardized. henceforth each officer would be expected to do his full duty and that failure in that would Jeopardize his position. and the resolution was lost by tic vote! What do you think of n vote like that? and who would expect after such a vote that n police officer in this city would feel it his duty to do his duty?
 Well. the latest news came In yes terday'n papers. A meeting of the po- lice commission was held on Friday night and the board found commupi- cation from the Law and order league accompanied with four bottles of whis- key which were submitted as evidence. One of them had been bought Ut an alderman's snloon on a Sunday while sixteen men were present drinking. If the reports In the papers are true, Il ripple of excitement has at last been started in the chamber where, the com mission holds It's meetings. One com missioner claimed that the board had nothing to do with the matter. Anoth- CT said Tt is none of our business. :" (iis business by the way Is the bot ting business.) Other members saw what the whole city sees most clearly, that 1t had vast deal to do with the good name and with the future of New Haven's police commission. doubt if that commission ever faced an hour more heavily loaded with destiny than that hour. last Friday night. One man tried to brush the thing away by sug- gesting that nobody knew anything about the whiskey anyway. "It might have been bought Saturday night and then labelled Sunday" Why. yes, of course. Or 1t might have been bought in New York or stolen in Yokohama and brought here for this purpose; or 1t might be that pr. Newman Smyth has a distillery in his cellar and sits up nights to manufacture evidence against the police commission. One man made a motion to table the communication. His name was Doo-little. But the ghost would not down. Then an at tempt was made to place 1t on file; but the file was already over-crowded with the ghosts of other days. There seemed to be no possible way out of the difl- culty but by inviting pr. Smyth to come before the commission. He has been waiting long time for that invitation and it is safe to predict that he will &C., cept it with heart overflowing with gratitude. Not much else was done of public interest at the meeting except the election of two officers to the force One of these was John McQueeney. There are three men of that name in the city directory. One of these has re- moved to Ireland. Evidently he was not the man. The second of that name is a bartender and the third a saloon keeper. There Is no fourth. That Is about the way it goes. The saloon is the hot bed of crime in every city and the unrelenting foe of all righteous ness. Aldermen the owners of saloons Men on the police commission whose business is bottling and whose custom CTS are the saloon-keepers. Men pro- noted from the saloon bar to the police department. Is it likely that the man who has been the. good friend of crim- inal at the bar of saloon will be over zealous in bringing that criminal to the bar of justice?
 Perhaps I should have added that there was one other incident at the Fri day night meeting of public interest. For the papers tell us that one of the commissioners had his spirits ruff1ed again before the meeting closed and with emphasis declared that he had Ia knife up his sleeve and would slash the whole lot of them" before he got through. This suggests the importance of detailing special force of police men to attend the meeting of the po- lice commissioners and to prevent blood shed. And also suggests that the city might find itself at almost any time with only one man left on the commits sion.
 But is it not pitiful? There are some excellent men on the police commission. Is 1t not a pity that their influence does not account for more; or that they do not wash their hands of the whole bus mess and save their good name? ",
 There was just one other thing in yesterdays papers which ought to be mentioned here. I call your attention to it because 1t occupied an obscure place in the papers and because you probably do not often read the record of the courts. In five years I do not re- member to have read a paragraph which threw such 8 blaze of light upon the whole system of municipal misrule as we have 1t. The case was case of divorce in the superior court, Judge Wheeler on the bench. The d. vorce was sought on scriptural grounds and in the course of the testimony 1t was said that the wife came to this city and entered questionable house whose location was given. Police Ser geant Driscoll was called to testify re- gardfng the character of the house named and the following dialogue took place:
 Judge Wheeler-How long have the police known this place to be one of i'll ..
 Sergeant Driscoll-"About twenty years" ...
 Judge Wheeler-"How often have po- lice raids been made on the place?"
 Sergeant Driscoll-"About one year." >'
 Judge wheeler-"It was something of a license arrangement then, was it not?"
 Sergeant Driscoll-"We did not tn- derstand it as such"