The San Francisco call., 1899-04-01

matter had been placed in the hands of
Captain Spillane. The latter was sum-
moned to appear in. the Chiefs office and
with a self-complacency remarkable for
its indication Of Indifference to the well
fare of the public he told of his mastery
No proceedings have been taken to
bring about the arrest of the men who
are running, the. monograph parlors
said. Il intend to let the matter rest for
few days and will then put an officer
on this special detail"
Chief Lees supplemented this statement
by explaining that the reason for this
course was the belief that the Offenders
had probably withdrawn the immoral
pictures, songs and dialogues from exhibit
tion and had concealed the evidence of
their crimes. No reason was assigned
however, for not swearing out search
warrants for the discovery and seizure of
these collections of moral filth and cor
ruption. Lees made the magnanimous
proposition during the interview that if
question would swear to a complaint and
procure a warrant for the arrest of an
offender he, would see that the warrant
was promptly served. ~
Captain Bohen was found to be equally
aEerse TO inconveniencing the proprietors
OF the "phonograph parlors." He de-
clared 1t was necessary for strong sus-
Plclon TO exist against a person before
/ the police would feel justified in swearing
out search warrant to uncover the evil
dence OF crime, and his mind, he said,
90 AlOl lAlbuEu Will any SlIOn& Su5DI-
cion, despite the clear. plain statement of
facts, including time, places and persons,
published in The Gail.
Among the general public a feeling of
intense Indignation exists that such ex-
hibiions should be allowed to flourish and
bring big profits to Peter Bacigalupi and
his ilk in the most public thoroughfare of
San Francisco without an attempt on the
part of the police to suppress the terrible
evil.
Mayor Phelan was unqualified in his
l 0rl dom mot ton, Of Ia
If they have been exhibiting lewd pic
lures of that kind he said, "the police
ought 10 have had knowledge of it and
should have made arrests. This is the
first time my attention has been called to
it. will see that the traffic is suppressed
and II we have any evidence we will make
arrests and punish the offenders"
All the ''phonograph parlors" were run
/ ming yesterday, but the vicious pictures
were invisible and the obnoxious songs
and indecent dialogues were inaccessible.
The indications are that they will be kept
so until after the visitation of Captain
Spillane's specially detailed officer, when
the work of debauchery of young and old
! at 5 cents per head will be resumed, un-
less other agencies than the police au-
thoritieS take a hand in the work of pro-
tecting the people of San Francisco from
moral pollution.
Il visited Bacigalupis place at 1000
Market street this afternoon, after read=
! ing the article in The CALI said Secre-
+ tary Frank Kane of the Society for the
] GGGNOnIlOn OF wee when seen dL
/. his residence in San Rafael last even
I ing, and an examination of all the kinet-
+ oscopes in his establishment soon showed
me there were number bordering on OBJ
scenity. I ordered them removed, Baci-
galupi making no remonstrance.
THE great difficulty in prosecuting
these men is the insuflciency of the law.
/ Many of these exhibitions are unmistak-
/ ably indecent and should be suppressed,
/ but indecency is not a sufficient ground
/ for taking action against them. To come
within the statute they must be obscene.
! 1 have kept close watch upon all these
] places and in the past have made a num-
1 her of arrests. Bacigalupi was among the
first. In 1894 he was conducting a place
lower down on Marke street, where pho
! nographs were the attraction. He was
not prosecuted, however, because the ar
resting officer left my employ before the
case came to trial.
II have had men out in all directions to-
day investigating the other places of the
kind So far no infractions of the law
/ have been reported, but L will continue
the work personally tomorrow. The
police authorities have also at different
times made Intellectual attempts to sup
press the worst features of these places.
| make it rule to follow in their path,
and have often detected obscene pictures
! which they have missed