The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-02-19

E. III esJ -~~---------|-~--~----- What is the result? Why, that in ninety nine cases out of a hundred the poorest defendants proved guilty, rest at night in that disgraceful hole called the city jail and toll by day on the public streets in shackles. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred the well-to-do defendants. proved guilty, pays fine of twenty-five or fifty dollars, and goes his way, back to his business, back to his home with no social stigma whatever upon him. By nobody is , he ostracized by nobody Is he regarded as criminal, by nobody is he suspected of being a dangerous member of society who should wear shackles before the public gaze, because in moment of weakness or passion he committed misdemeanor.
 The Chain Gang.
 But the poor are imprisoned and ex- hibted in shackles in our cities, not only because they are compelled to work out fines which they do not pay. but because of the predilection of police judges for sentences for the poor that carry with them both fine and imprisonment. If there is any police judge in these United States who Is not ten times-perhaps should say a hundred times-more likely to fine and imprison a very poor man for any one of the most common minor of lenses, than he is to fine and send to jail well-to-do man for the same offense have never heard of him. and I should like much to know where he holds court. Let the newspapers of a city start cru
 
 the code, such. for instance, as the carry ing of concealed weapons; let the police judges believe that the newspapers are rejecting public sentiment. and it Is al- most certain as that two and two make fcur, that poor men found guilty of car rying concealed weapons will be straight way given the maximum sentence fined as much as possible. and kept In prison and in shackles as long as possible; and that not a single well-to-do man, proved guilty of the same offense, will go to jail
 And whoever heard of a police judge putting a well-to-do man in shackles9 Whoever heard of police judge seriously entertaining the thought that a man who dresses we'll and lives in a nice house. and does good business and has infiuen- tial friends could possibly deserve to be put In shackles for a little thing like a Colts automatic in his hip pocket?
 And yet, 1t is by no means uncommon for well-to-do men to carry concealed weapons-to go armed for human game! As matter of fact. by such men some of the most brutal and inexcusable homicldes which blacken the record of this city have been committed. and they would not have been. but for the ready revolver in the hip pocket. But fear it will require many more such homicides in every com munity to convince police judges that 1t would be right to send any but poor men to prison and the street-gang for the con cealed weapon habit And I wonder what would be needed to convince them that the poor man who commits any misde- meanor is. not deserving of more and se- verer punishment than the well-to-do man who commits the same misdemeanor- that, in brief, the poor man is not more of a criminal when guilty of crime, be- cause he is poor.
 "It is safe to say that nothing will con vince them while the attitude of society