The herald., 1898-02-28
KEEP ON YOUR CAMISA
All SANG AND THE WHITNEY
ACT BE BLoWED
JUSTICE SHOP WON'T CLOSE
Are as Well Off Now as If Our Magis-
trates Were Still ex-Oficios.
Old Days Recalled

decision respecting the police judges. If
they are no longer judges, they are still
Justices. with all the powers they had here
tofore, except that they can now only hold
examinations in that class of misdemean-
ors which for some reason are denomnated
"high," and which include criminal libel
hiding money for the purpose of cheating
creditors, ETC., and cannot try them di-
rectay, as they could while acting under
the provisions of the Whitney act.
So long as evildoers cannot escape the
strong arm of the law 1t matters but little
whether it be justice of the peace or a
jolice judge who metes out cool 150 days
to John Doe for stealing what isn't his'n
And If the said John Doe takes his medicine
quietly and resignedly, surely the audience
hasn't got kick a-comin.
There are those who think that after the
term of Justices Morrison and Owens ex-
pires and until the legislature can help
us out there is going to be chaos in judicial
circles here-or at least that with one JUS
tice Of the peace only Los Angeles will be
hard pushed to keep her petit criminal
element in proper check but that is mis-
take. Los Angeles township, as much as
any other township in the state, is enti-
tied to two jus,.ices of the peace. If Los
Angeles township Is too big to be handied
by two justicets of the peace, there is no rea-
son why it cannot be cut up in two or three
townships, each one with it's two Justices
and in that case IL all that part contained
within the city boundary be made into one
township. Los Angeles could struggle on
easily enough with its two Justices.
Before the Whitney act went into effect
in Los Angeles and before the act curtail
ing the income on criminal cases for JUS
tices and constables was passed. the busi-
ness of the two Justices courts was much
larger than 1t has been for at least eight
years-and yet the work was not suffered
to accumulate. In those days the justices
and constables did land office business,
which was a disgrace to the community.
These officials easily made $4S00 month
for the four or five of them on criminal
business alone, and heaven knows how
much on civil cases.
A case in point is that Of justice of the
peace, now deceased, who was magistrate
at Florence. One of the justices of Los
Angeles had a private engagement else
where. and requested the Florence man to
hold court for him during his absence. In
Florence they did the best they could, but
that was hardly enough to defray the losses
of one of the J. P.'s mildest poker games.
After he had been here a week and found
out what he had earned he said that the
Aedh tdtc iIiSu Wtnti III II Will
So he quietly moved up here from Florence
and when the conventions met he just
snatched the nomination from the justice
of the peace who had put him up to the
dead easy game of getting rich at the
expense of the people. and got elected.
He was, all the time that he held his job,
"in it, strictly for business. If he didn't
die rich it was simply because like other
great geniuSes such as Poker Davis,
Johnny Abbott and j. Warren King, he
would too often play what he thought was
a square" game, because on that occasion
he did not cheat himself and believed the
others could not while he looked on.
The greediness of this particular ]. P.
proved his undoing. Having made money
hand over fist during nearly two years,
he wanted more of 1t for two years to
come. and as he calculated that "de push"
would need a few dollars he set about earn
ing and spending money as fast as he
could. His constable arrested one night
thirty-eight Cinnamon playing fan-tan,
and the next day they were all arraigned,
upon one complaint, on this charge. The
gally Justice, in making out his bill to the
county, charged this up to his credit for
the small amount of s114. But the papers,
when they got hold of the story, raised
such storm about this highway robbery
that the Justice was not reelected, and the
legislature passed law soon after restrict
ing the criminal fees of ]. P.s and consta-
bles to $S3.3S monthly. good deal more
could be said upon the subject, but that
would be another story. Sufficient be it to
say that the two constables had each
much larger force of men than the police
department., divided in day and night
watches, whose duties 1t was to do the
Identical work of the police, and especially
to run In hobos, drunks. who were charged
with disturbing the peace so as to bring
them under the state law, and other petty
malefactors whose offense too often con-
sisted in a lack of money rather than
criminal intent to break the law.
Then came the Whitney act, with its
city police judges. The Whitney act is
gone now, and we are no worse off than
when 1t came. In one way we have the ad-
vantage that feed officers, such as deputy
constables are not going to make uncalled-
for. arrests to swell their bills, as their
principal cannot exceed 1888 per month
and out of that sum the deputies must get
their pickings.
Some deputies get no pickings at all for
the work they do. This is the case in one
constable's court. The incumbent swipes
all himself in criminal cases, and his depu-
ties get the rest. When a man has to earn
a living on his percentage of $50. 33 and gets
nothing he necessarily has to make it up
in some other, perhaps less avowable, way,
but his family cannot suffer. and If he
must wear deputy c0nStableS star 1t Is
more advantageous for him to do it near
the police station, where things may come
his way, than to peddle fish In the country
footing tin horn.
In the good old days before the Whitney
act, which was always a deluson and a
snare with which ambitious lawyers have
toyed and with which the supreme court
has fiirted In a horrid manner, saying one
day that it was o X and the next day that
1t was all wrong, his honor, the mayor, had
to adjudicate all infractions and contra
ventions to the ordinances. There are
Maj. Toberman, who used to devote
couple of hours every day to filming drunks
and other people who failed to obey the
law as laid down by the city fathers. A
man doesn't need to know Blackstone and
Estee's pleadings to find out whether an
other man had jag on the night before
how much money he ought to be taxed for
his skate, and the like.
If the mayor is an ex-officio Judge of the
police court at all times. as it is claimed,
there ought to be no danger of chaos in
that department, should the city Justices
conclude that they need not bother with
cases for which they cannot get honor or
pay. The present enterprising mayor,
Hon. M p. Snyder, will never allow the
police court to drop into innocuous desue-
tude for little more work
Those who think that Judge Van Dyke
opinion In the All Sang case will operate
disastrously in misdemeanor cases tried
before his decision was handed down, may
rest reassured. A single test case would
settle that, if necessary. The supreme
court has repeatedly held in similar cases