The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-23
SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY.
New YOTk'S Police Force the Most
Shameless Thieves in History.

Order and Crime and Disorder.
Thirty Years of Depravity-Last
Year More Than So, ooo, 900 of Blood
Money Was Extorted-S1oo, 900, 900
The Grand Total.
New York, Sept. 22-Corruption in
sickening, loathsome plentitude is being
laid bare in New York these days. The
committee which has the unpleasant
task in hand has adjourned for a few
days, so it is good time to look back and
sum mp the total of municipal rotteuness
which has been uncovered In one
sense it is the most colossal scandal of
the time that Gotham has developed
1t diners from ordinary financial steals in
that the men who have been mixed
up in it have not only been proved to
be dishonest, but to have linked
! themselves to all manner of revolving
! vice. And the fact that they are all
men who have sworn not only to keep
| financial faith with the public, their en-
| ployers, but to protect it from the very
| people whom they have been proved by
undoubtable testimony to have fostered
and encouraged in their crimes adds to
| the amazing features of it. Not in the
| history of America, either, have disclos-
ures Affected so seriously the personnel of
the whole municipal department not in
the history Of America have disclosures
shown so great tester to have existed so
long without interruption in any city.
THIRTY YEARS OF UNINTERRUPTED VILE
NESS.
When the testimony of Tom Gould, a
notorious divekeeper and all around Grim
lnal-a men who for years boosted the
proprietorship of a den so vile that IL was
| celebrated from the Atlantic to the Pa
citic, man who has been locked up for
ms WrongdolngS and would be now if he
had his deserts-showed that the organ
! lied corruption in the police department
! OF New York city had existed since the
days of the civil war, the whole city stood
! agnast. That means thirty years. 1t is
| generally conceded now that it began be-
| fore the war did. And up to the time
that DR.. Parkhurst stepped in with his
| disclosures 1t had never been interrupted
| Tor so much as day. The town had gone
| through spasms of virtue when the police
had been forced by public sentiment to
close up some of the dens which they were
| paid to protect, but the police themselves.
infinitely worse than the dens, had gone
! unscathed. Both the police and the dens
knew that it would be only a spasm and
neither dreamed for moment of altering
| the pleasant relations that had so long
| existed between them. The dens knew
that the police in closing them up were
| simply bowling for time, and that as soon
| as circumstances altered they would be
| permitted to go on again. There was no
hard feeling on either side. Each knew
that the other WAS right The police
| were certain that as soon as they could
| allow the dives TO open again theirreVenue
| would begin to pour in, and the dives knew
that the police were animated BY no per-
| sonal enmity, or even opposition, when
| they ordered them to stop business for a
time. For years it was the, custom for
the captains of police precincts to send
men around to warn the divekeepers
when complaints made raids necessary,
so that everything could be right and
tight by the time the police got there to
enact their miserable farce of enforcing
the law. This little accommodation was
only omitted in those cases where the
divekeepers had failed to put up" In
such cases outraged law swept the wrong
doors away with high hand
AN INCREDIBLE CONDITION.
Such a condition seems incredible, but
it only approXimates the condition that
really existed in New York Not only
were hands outstEetched from between
the silken curtains of the disorderly
houses to drop coins into the waiting
palms of the police, but common crimi-
AAAAo JellAC4 GAlACNCSs SdWuuSb men, green
goods operators and a score of workers in
allied fields piled their trades under the
direct care and comfort of the police of
the biggest city in America. During the
testimony given before the Lexow sena-
toral committee green goods operator
told how the whole detective foace had
been working in the interests of the
green goods men, who thereby had
been enabled to form what was
practically trust in the city The
detective Office acted as kind
of board of directors for this trust. They
divided the city into districts, each one
OF which was In charge of a certain green
goods man. That particular green goods
man was permitted TO do as much bust
ness as he liked in that particular dis
trIct, and whenever he needed help he
had but to call upon certain members of
the detective force in order to get it. If
any victim of the green goods men COM
planned he was forced by the detectives to
| leave town or DE locked up; and if any
green goods man so far forgot himself as
TO operate in another's district ne was
promptly prevented from so doing by the
police. But no objection was offered to
his working in his own territory.
SHARED THE PROFITS OF THIEVES.
In return for these little courtesies the
| green goods men of New York paid 10 The
accommodating detective force very
| ldEGG snare Oh bublT enormous profits.
| Reliable testimony will be brought out
before the Investigation ends to the effect
that the police protected pickpockts as
carefully as they did green goods swind-
| lers. Their relation to panel thieves and
workers of the badger game" have been
more or less clearly understood for many
| years, and will doubtless be proved be-
! You'd a doubt within few weeks.
II is already evident that no wronQdo-
ing has been too vile for the police 10 act
as its abettors and protectors when they
were well paid for it, and no persecution
too petty and contemplate for them to
resort to for money.
BLUE COATS AND SCARLET SKIRTS.
Perhaps the most impressive part of
this disgraceful spectacle is the unholy
alliance between law ana female degra-
dation. For thirty years the scarlet
sklrted women of the town and the blue
coated men of the police department have
walked arm in arm through the dark by
ways of New York's neither life Prosti-
tutes and police have played into each
others hands increasingly and skillfully.
The police have carefully seen TO
it that the prostitutes were not molested.
ana that their traffic in souls was
brisk-so long as the money was given
promptly at the end of each month in paw
ment for the service. The prostitutes
l. 81