The age-herald., 1901-12-04
MADE
 TOUGHEST CITY BY
 CENSUS BLUNDER


 distinction of being the toughest" town in the United States. says the New York Herald.
 Our national Uncle Samuel has just completed ah examination into the nor als of his municipal nephews and nieces. Not that he had good conduct cards to distribute among the well behaved. or any material. black marks to place opposite the names of the unruly. He merely wished to satisfy himself as to the comparative adecorum of his exten- sive family
 The results of his research are of such a high degree of interest as to be al- most nationally absorbing. It Is natural that every thinking citizen should wish to know what manner of town he lives in, whether 1t be a good town. a bad town, or merely an indifferent town.
 Naturally, too, every citizen of the class here referred to as thinking has pretty well defined ideas as to the status of his town. For example if you were to ask a hundred New Yorkers-selecting them from the ranks opposed to Tam many rule. let us say-what sort of a city New York is ninety-nine would answer
 Tt is a bad city. A thoroughly bad city. The police, courts are crowded daily with law breakers of every known class. Oh. New York ranks very low in morality"
 1he hundredth man might say-but there 1t doesn't matter much what the hundredth man might say He would be in such a hopeless minority that his voice would be drowned in the clamor of the ninety and nine
 Nevertheless. where the hundredth man to say: Why. on the whole New York | is pretty clean, city. It is the fashion to sheer at Its morals and prate of the | modern Babylon on Manhattan Island, and all that, but as a matter of fact New Yosk compares pretty favorably with other large cities when 1t comes to doing things for which men are liable to arrest. Oh, we're not so bad as we're painted"
 Which is right Have the prepondering majority the correct idea, or does the isolated hundreoth grasp the situation as 1t really Is
 Uncle Sam answers this question in de- cisive style New York Is tho best behaved city in the Uni:ed States--that Is to say, 1t Is the best behaved big city. Here and there are to be found municipalities which report a smeller percentage of arrests. but these are the little fellows, where conditions differ in many respects from the New York conditions.
 | Just to particularize bit. There were. at the latest count, 3437,20 of us in this settlement. A good many persons to get 1 together under one municipal govern ment. And how many of us broke the law, so that we were arrestel and hauled to court? Well, during the last year the number was just 132.so5.
 | More than . hundred thousand persons marched off to the station houses by the fr. kl.tAa aRA Az.. midable showing. But it isn't It means simply that the percentage of arrested persons was 3.S. Only this and nothing | more. | Three per cent bad isn't very serious showing. In fact, f. is a very creditable showing. and there Is only one city of more than 30o00 inhabitants which can show T cleaner bill of moral health The great plurality of arrests in this | city may be laid to the habit of oonviviaI- | ity. There were 42,012 arrests for drunk enness, 31.s11 persons were called to an swer to the charge of disturbing the | peace. GS66 let their angry passions rise ~-~~<~>%>>~~ | heard of unless the keeper happens to be | outside of the click Here there is very little gambling, I having almost entirely broken 1t up since I went intos office. while in New York and many other cities in the country it is carried on openly and the police are afraid of losing their of- ficial heads if they disturb the pets of the | governing power.
 "A total number of arrests of 1o,0s5 Is not a great number for city as large as Birmingham. especially when you con- slider that there are fully fifty per cent. l of them from the suburbs. Taking it all together think Birmingham Is very quiet town, considering the number of | negroes who work in the various mines, mills and foundries in the vicinity, and also the number of tramps who come here during the early part of the winter"