The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-08
THE POLICEMEN
 oa, ARE UP-TO-DATE
The Most Admirable Institution of the PanAmA Republic is
 the Police Force.

ing order. When a policeman comes up with a crowd of street hrawiers every body about can expect to receive resound- The greater the number of officers sum- moned by the whistle the more cracNed heads there will be, and so dexterous nave the policemen become in wfeioing tnese clubs that a crowd of disturbers of the peace will scatter the minute an omccr comes fin sight. Cracked heads are not relished by this populace, and the facii- ity displayed by the police force In caus- ing them has had much to, do with ere ating for it universal respect and esteem.
 Admirable as this force Is in itself, how evr. the administration of justice IS nt- tie less than a travesty. Its dispensation is under the immediate direction or the alcaldes of the respective cities and town, and a rather sorry lot of officials these have proved to be in the past. Colombia made it rule to appoint these men, but never to bay them. The result was that there developed a gang of grafters that would have put St. Louis to shame.
 The business of the alcalde when he found his pay not forthcoming, was to turn his offlce to his personal account great success. Everybody knows that fines assessed against offenders were ap- propriated by the alcaldes and applied to the liquidation of amounts due them for salary, and the same universal knowi- edge obtained with respect to the prac- tice common among the alcaldes of ac- ceptlng small sums of cash as full sat- isfaction for sentences of penal servitude, reform.
 Instances of Police Justice.
 Instances of these practices are most common. while the stories of what any other people would set down as outrage. ous perversions of justice are handed about with the utmost freedom. No white man on the lsthmus will ever strike a native so as to blacken his eye or other wise leave mark on the native anat- omy. The white men all have money. and an cffense of that kind means that the al- calde and the police prefect will join hands to mulct him of from 50 to $lO0 in gold. assessed as fine. but instantly appropriated by the two officials and con- verted to their own use. On the other hand, a native may offend a white man with virtual impunity.
 Kaleisch-boss stevedore of the Panama Railroad at Colon, a German who has been a world-rover and who Is so broad that he can seize the biggest black by the nape of the neck and huri him across the dock-teils a story truly Illustrative of the native administration Of justice. Sometime ago Kaleisch caught native dock laborer stealing part of ships car go. He seized the man. carried him on to the police station, preferred his charge and the man was taken into custody. His trial was held immediately. the evidence against him was conclusive, and he was sentenced to sixty days imprisonment. kalcfSch telt SattSneo, tne enoS or JuS- tice had been conserved. The next morI- ing kaleisch's satisfaction changed to unbounded aniazemcnt when the burly black turned up on the dock and asked to be put to work. Kaleisch at once kicked him or the pier and then made some in- qulries.
 The sentence of sixty days imprison- ment had been commuted to one night in the Colon calaboose in return for the pay ment of $10 Colombian silver), a sum the natives friends had raised and paid to the committing magistrate, who accepted it and signed an order for the thiefs re- lease. Since that experience Kaleisch ad- ministers justice on thls own account, taking care, by using his feet on the soft CT parts of the offenders anatomy. not to leave marks that can be shown in court as prima facie evidence against h.sn. ~, Boot-Toe Justice Effective. So summary and effective has been the justice that for months has ooZed out of the toe of Kaieisch's boots that now he has the hordes of black dock -Iaborers reduced to state of perfect subjugation. Order prevails about the pier; offenses are few and far between. for the entire gang stands in terror of the big and pow