The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-23

showed plainly, however. that IL was not
dead letter. The police had not for
! gotten It. They remembered il and used
1t as handle for small extortions. Ped
dlers violating 1t were forced to pay into
the police departments greedy nav
weekly sum. This news, though not so
| great a shock, was still most unpleas-
ant phase. These peddlers presuma bly,
were honest men, but men-many
OF them-incredibly poor, yet they
were forced to pay considerable share
OF their puny profits to the police. 1t
showed that no purse was too small to be
FUN bled at and robbed by the fatteniug
| fingers of the city's uniformed protectors
! Then came other witnesses showing that
score more of uninportant laws, forgot
ten by all who did not feel their infu-
ence directly, were enforced in the same
paradoxical way. ANY one could violate
them-lf he paid, and all who violated
them had to pay Merchants whose bust
ness forced them to leave boxes, barrels
and bales standing on the sidewalk or
who, IN loading trucks, threw skids
across, thus blocking the progress of pc
destrians; Others having signs projecting
few feet further from their build
lngs than some long forgotten
law allowed; owners of trucks
left standing in the street at night con-
trary 10 ordinance-all these and more
were levied on the rapacious blacknail-
ers of the police department for regular
payment. If they failed to pay, then
came police persecution. Reputable mer-
chants who had submitted to these petty
extortlons for many years swore to the
truth OF this amazing condition of affairs
and were followed by building contrac-
tors, who declared that for every load of
sand and lime their business had com
PEELED them to deposit in the street. for
every temporary bridge they had been
forced 10 ThFnW the siHaxva1l liz fD
cover an open cellar or support scaffold-
ing they had for years been forced to pay
10 the captain of the police precinct.
THEY RULED THE LIQUOR DEALERS.
After these minor revela tions major
secrets began to leak out again Great
difficulty was encountered when an effort
was made to show the dictations between
the liquor dealers and the police. and up
to this time q missing set of books has
made 1t impossible to positively prove
the charges that the prosecuting lawyers
have freely made. No one doubts now,
however for an instant, that each one of
the saloon keepers who violated any of
the manifold excise regulations of
the city paid, and paid literally, for
the privilege 1t is agreed that the
police have had well regulated tariffs
for different offences. Saloons keeping
open after l a. N. paid a certain sum
saloons doing business on Sunday paid an
other saloons selling liquor without
license paid another More than half of
the 1000 saloons IN town committed all
three of these wrongdoings; so the reVe-
nue., as shown below, was enormous. Be
sides, 1t is pretty clearly understood that
many of the low groggeries in town in
which drugged drinks are sold and Gus
toners are robbed paid highly for the
privilege of going unmolested, in one or
Two precincts actually dividing the pro-
ceeds of the robberies with the police
captains and their ward detectives.
A SURE THING WITH THE GAMBLERS.
Then came the gamblers This class
may be divided into three classes First
were the big gam bling houses, where
faro, roulette, rouge ct noir, keno, poker
and other like games of chance were
carried on; then the pool rooms, in which
bets on horse races were illegally placed
and then the policy shops.
Up to the present time this group has
been only casually touched upon by the
committee, but enough is known to make
certainty of the belief that all paid the
police large sums for the privilege of
fleeing the conhding public.
That there have been scores of other
lines along which blood money has flowed
into the capacious Golfers of the police,
nobody for an instant doubts Hints of
many have been heard and proof of many
Will uOuDblGSS uGNGlOD DeIOre Lle IIRX0W
committee ends its slttings.
But without these minor matters the
stealings which have already been &C
counted for are so enormous in their total
that the people of New York are dazed by
amazement.
FIGURING UP THE TOTAL
1t is not easy to approach accuracy in
figuring up the aggregate of all these
steallngs. The estimates below are not
too high, however.
wRUNG FROM UNFoRTUNATEs.
The price charged houses of prostitution
for protection was as we'll established as
IS the price of pig iron or wheat-and. un-
like them. it did not f1uctuate When a
disreputa bic house opened its proprietor
was expected to pay $500 to the captain
of the precinct as initiation fee " and the
expectation was always realized. After
that, as long as the house was running. a
regular contribution of $50 month was
called for. Default ofany payment was
the signal for an immediate raid A little
figuring will show how much this
amounted to.
Complaints were received by the Society
for the Prevention of Vice of |, 435 houses
OF lll-tame during the past year. MIR.
Frank Moss, counsel for the society. esti-
mates that less than one-third of the
existing houses were complained of. This
AhuAS10Co b4ldb NEW OEh s NUMBER is
4,5OO II is an expert who says that the
average life of house of bad character
under one proprietor is three years That
makes the limitation fee" of one-third of
the houses fall due every year. So the
total figures up in this way:
Initiation fees" of 800 houses $500
EACH, S75O,0 per annum
Regular monthly payments of 800
houses at $50 per month $500 per an
NUM-, 81, 100000 per annum.
This gives total of SO, 450, 900 per wear
for the houses of prostitution, and i'm
mense as this sum may seem, it is based
on hard and undeniably fact. Remember
ing that no account is made of the extras
paid to the police for overlooking other
violations of the law, such as assaults.
rooberles, etc, occurring in the houses
and the prices paid for bogus bail bonds
when inmates were arrested (and proof
that this latter is a considerable item has
been offered to the committed. it will be
seen that these figures are small.
GREEN GOODS BROUGHT GOOD MONEY.
The blood money paid by the green
goods men makes total sum of great
size, but smaller than that paid by the
houses of prostitution. 1t was shown that
the main operators-there were four of
them who controlled the whole city-paid
the police captains $3.50 a month each and
the detective bureau from SIS to $3.50