The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-06-18
WILL THE POLICE COMMISSION Acrs

Today the police comms sion meets in
regular session for the consideration of
the business of the police department.
Without in any way intimatng that the
commission is ignorant OF lis duties,
The Herald would venture the reminder
that there can be no more i'm portant bus
mess today before the body than the re-
form OF the city Jail and changing
abuses exposed oy this paper last week.
The conditions pictured by The Herald
representative is one absolutely so nhu-
man as to be everlastingly disgraceful
to the people of this city. They should not
exist another day. The herding OF men
engaged in the hardest kind of manual
labor throughout the Gay in bedless vaults
called cells and the feeding of them on
insect infested bread and apologize coffee
and tea is unspeakably brutal. The upper
size OF a cement floor or pine board
and five-cent meals hardly afford the rest
and the nutriment requisite for chain
gang laborer. The smuggling and cutting
OF prisoners who know enough to insist
on theii legal rights is not the kind OF
treatment contem plated by the law tn at
provides tor the Imprisonment of those
dCCustQ Vi COHNlCteu Vi CIlU1tS Ut I'LL SUE
meanors. The detention OF men who
have been ordered to leave the city be-
cause they were impecunious and in at
tempting to get away have been arrested
and returned by avaricious and otficious
county constables is not what the people
want. These wrongs and outrages perpe-
trated in the name of the law exist. as
The Herald has truthfully and plainly
shown We are prepared to substantiate
the assertions made by sworn testimony,
notwith standing the denials OF any otfi-
cial. Affidavits are indeed supertluous;
the facts in question are notorious to
every reporter who has done the police
detail in this city OF late years and to
practically everybody who in the last de-
cade has been able to become acquainted
with the inside OF the city Jail and the
methods of the police. The people of
this prosperous and beautiful city are not
so Unfortunately stingy that tnoy will not
provide better quarters and at least clean
and nutritious food for the unfortunates
that because of minor crimes or the sin
vi poverty are imprisoned in the Second
street bastile. They are not SO cruel as
to approve OF or sympathize with the
physical chastisement of helpless prison
ers by iailer or trusty. They are not so
indifferent to right and wrong as to coun-
tenance knowingly the incarceration of
men who have been prevented from obey
ing the mandates of the court by bu-
collie consta bulary hungering for fees and
mileage. The people are willing and
anxious to have wrongdoers punished
in way BETTING the enlightenment and
decency Of the closing days of the nine
tenth century. The people will not be
aiders and abettors in a campaign OF per-
secution of those who choose to beg
rather than starve or steal, or who use
the means of locomction nature has pro-
vided because they happen not to have
the price of railroad ticket.
This abuse of power and barbarity OF
treatment must stop. The poles com
mission can do the stopping. Will they
do it? The people and The Herald are
watching.