The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-06-09
TUESDAY. JUNE 9. 1896.
This paper is Democratic in principles
and is Independent in its views on all local
questions.
The Liquor men,. Blunder.

questions.
The Liquor mems Blunder.
When they caused a grocer to be fined
s. yesterday for selling a can of sardines
on Sunday. the liquor dealers of this
county did more harm to their own cause
than the Rev. Claude Raboteau has done
with all his oratory to date. They turned
public sentiment against themselves, to
begin with, by changing their role from
that of victim to prosecutor. They aban-
dotied besides the principle that there was
sale; they proved that the blue laws were
not dead letters, and they showed thai the
courts were impartial in their admins
tration of the statute law.
All these were the very things the
liquor men should have avoided. They
might with perfect justice and propriety
have urged the police and the ministers
to carry out the Sunday crusade ITO its
logical consequences, to stop all sales of
every sort and to tie up the trolley cars.
This would be perfectly right and proper.
way when they took the law into their
own hands. and already public opinion is
yeering towards hostility to them.
The proper thing for the liquor men to
do is keep cool and quiet, and wait for
the present wave of malignity to pass
over. Mr.. Scudder will soon think of some
thing else to advertise himself with; Col
onel Toffey and Sam Dickinson will patch
up a truce and there will be no more
crank Grand Juries. An will be well un-
less too much bitterness is stirred up.
The world is too old to submit very long
to bluenose rule, this year of 1896.
Meanwhile. it is to be hoped the craze
viii not check the great awakening of the
Bayonne and GreenvHlle water front as a
pleasure resort for the Great New York,
The Detention OF Accused Persons
b arrest of Miss Ehrgood in New
York because her bicycle lamp went out
oAto Solur FAPIeSslOl6 VI Justice Her
bert Potts in the First Police Court, this
city. yesterday, serve to draw attention
to one of the worst evils of our present
police system This is the manner of
confinement of accused persons in our
police stations.
The vast majority of persons who pass
through the experience of preliminary
detention are either entirely innocent or
else are guilty only of some triAing error
which is disposed of by a reprimand or
a small fine when they come into court.
We believe not over one per cent. of
Penitentiary or State Prison.
This is in Itself an appalling fact, and
shows how crude and brutal our police
methods remain. The idea that people
are kept in durance at all on such
fimsy grounds is a wrong which it
would be well for police experts to study
to correct. But the mere fact of deten-
ton is a trife in comparison with the
hideous wrong of the method of it. The
such awful crime as riding a bicycle
without a lamp is thrust for a night
into a noisome dungeon. There is no.
exception in any police station that we
have ever seen. The cells are invariably
below the level OF the ground. They
average seven by four or five feet.
They have stone floors and a plank for
couch or seat. They are i'll lit, i'll ven
tilated and totally denuded of all ac-
eessory to comfort and decency.
The people thrust into these dungeons
may be tramps and women of the low
est class, or they may be refined and
respectable people. 1t does not matter.
An are on a common plane of shameful
sli-usage when they fall into the hands
of the police. for confinement in such
cells for people of any decency amounts
to shameful iIl-usage. The murderer.
the pickpocket, the filthy drunkard and
the ma or woman who is the victim of
accident, mistake or misfortune, all fgo
together into the subterranean pigeon
holes to spend the long hours in dark
ness and discomfort until it is time to
be hailed into court. The wonder is that
more people do not go insane under such
conditions. In the case of women. as
appeared in that of Miss Ehrgood, the
horror is increased by the association Of
modesty n self-respect with foul
mouthed and aggressive brutality.
Is there not some way by which Thu
unciviTized system may be reformed
Why must cells be always located in tbs
Basement OF a police station2 WHY