The age-herald., 1902-02-04
Fifty Per Gent of His Gases Involve Persons Outside the
 Corporate Limits
STATISTICS FOR 1900
 NOT FAIRLY PRESENTED
Inferior Criminal Court Has Jurisdic- tion Over Territory That Is Di- vided Among Several Courts
 In Other Cities.

Judge N. B. Feagin of the Inferior the falcity of the statement which ap- peared recently in a New York paper that Birmingham was the wickedest city in the world. To do this. Judge Feagin is keeping a record of the place of residence of persons arrested on certain days in each week. He said yesterday afternoon that fifty per cent of the cases he tries are of persons living outside the corpor- ate limits of the city
 He has kept records of only a few days, but the percentage of out of town cases has never been below thirty-three per cent and frequently over one half. In discussing the question Judge Feagn called attention to the fact that there were 10000 cases in 1901 and that this was only twenty-five per cent of the pop ulation of Birmingham, and that taking away from thirty to fifty per cent of these for persons living out of town, the percentage of Birmingham's population arrested yearly would be reduced to be- tween twelve and twenty per cent Judge Feagin in giving other reasons said:
 Had Exclusive Jurisdiction.
 "The statistics on which the article in New York paper was based were gather ed from the docket of the Inferior Crim- inal court of Birmingham in the year 1900 by the United States government In that year this court had exclusive iu- risdiction over all offenses committed against the laws and order of the city or Birmingham and over all misdemean- CTS committed against the laws of the State of Alabama in beats 21 and 37 which include more than half the popula- tion of Jefferson county, which is some- thing over 150,000, and all violation of all ordinances which come in police juris- diction, which extends three miles from the city limits. This gives the Inferior Court Jurisdiction over more than 100, GOO inhabitants
 Every justice of the peace who issued warrant for the arrest of a person violating the law in that year had to make it returnable to this court The grand jury in 1900 found no true bills for misdemeanors committed in this juris- diction. In short to make a fair estimate of the arrests made in Birmingham and compare it with those in other cities, the docket of every justice of the peace, or notary public with the powers of a jus tice, having jurisdiction of criminal cases. and dockets of all courts wherein grand juries are organized to find true bills for misdemeanors or violations of state laws. must be examined and the arrests there made should be counted and added to inc arrests of the police court proper before fair comparison could be made.
 "In other words the inferior criminal. or police court of Birmingham has turis- diction over many more varieties of cases than in other cities such as Mobile, Mont gomery, Atlanta or New York or in still other words every arrest made for any offense known to city or state laws wherein felony was not charged. was made tryable in the police court excIu- sively. ,at
 The Preliminary Hearings.
 Besides this, every person arrested by policeman charged with Q felony was brought before this court for preliminary trial to be bound over If the evidence is sufficient. To make the case more clear it must be remembered that the dockets of the inferior court. when these statis- tics were made showed every arrest made within the corporate limits of Birming- ham, or within three miles, or within beats 2i and 37 where a misdemeanor was charged or felony and whether the arrest was made by policeman of by order of a justice of the peace. The sheriff only made arrests for misdemean- ors committed outside of the jurisdiction of the police court
 By what Judge Feagin says and by tine facts he has stated, the court over which he presides has jurisdiction over the same amount of territory and for the same offenses which several courts divide in other cities, the arrests of which did not go on record when the statistics were made out. Judge Feagin says the actual number of arrests made in Bir- mingham and any other city when com pared with the populations thereof will show that Birmingham has better re- cord than many others.