The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-01-14
SODDEN WITH CRIME
RECORD OF ST. LOUIS THE WORST
OF ANY CITY YET.
THE GRAND JURY'S REPORT.
SHOWS 1T TO BE MORE WICKED
THAN GREATER NEW YORK.

Everything Is Rotten, the Police
Force Guilty OF Frauds and Brib-
cry, Election Frauds SO whole
sale ns TO he Appalling, ImmOraIi-
~ Rampant, and Charitable In
stitutIons in Disgusting Condi-
tiOu-1wcnty- -four Indictments Re
turned.
st. Louis, Jan. 13-The final report of
the grand jury, composed of prominent
business men who have been investigating
municipal matters. has been returned.
Twenty -four indictments, only four OF
which for minor crimes are made public,
were handed down The rest, which are
against persons not yet in custody are
withheld. one indictment is against an
official of the House Of Delegates, who is
charged with attempting to bribe state
witness against men accused of highway
robbery. He will be served with a bench
warrant on Monday
The Post-Dispatch says of the report;
Accompanying the indictments was the
report of the grand jury touching their
Investigations of police bribery and cleo
ton fraud charges, together with the re-
suit of their investigation of public criti-
cisms on the conduct of the police de-
partment.
Lack of cooperation between the
Board of Police Commissioners and the
chief of police calls forth ceusure; corrupt
use OF the police in politics drawn from
instances during the past election as in
vestigated by the jurymen, is condemned,
and in this connection a meeting at the
Planters Hotel preceding the last election,
where it is charged that the police heads
and Democratic state officials discussed
the instructions TO be given to the police
in their conduct toward deputy sheriffs
under a Republican administration, is
stigmatized as reprehensibile.
The jurymen throw up their hands
when they come to that portion OF their
report treating of the many charges spe-
cihc and general, of wholesale election
frauds. They dismiss the charges as sim
ply appalling by reason of their multi
tude and varied character. So vast was
the evidence of this sort of corruption
that the jury expresses itself as utterly
inadequate to cope with the situation, be-
cause of the limited time at their disposal.
"A short chapter of censure Is devoted
to the failure of the Mayor to attend ths
meeting of the police board, of which he
is am ex-officio member by law The Jury
says that opposite political affiliations
are no excuse for the persistent, and, to
them, studied absence of the city's chief
executive. Wine room evils are branded
as being amohg the worst fniquities of
municipal life and the evident failure of
the police to crush this violation Of oooI
morals receives a brief but sharp rebuke.
The condition of the city eleemos-
ynary institutions are classed as wretched.
what the jurymen saw during personal
visits to these places is painted In .he
most deprecatory manner. and the kind
OF administration Of public affairs. max
ing possible such conditions is referred to
in an ironical strain.
The report says tina, enforced econom-
les and overcrowding are carried on TO
such extremes that so far as they relate
to methods they have made Il necessary
to employ there is an uncomfortably close
relation between lack of funds and crime"