Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-01

month is $209.68, OF which $159.90 is
for ''mileage"-the taking of his pris-
oners to Los Angeles for trial. He
| Is allowed a fee of 81 for each arrest
and mileage of twenty-five cents a mile
within his township and fifteen cents
mile outside Of 1t. 1t is needless to
say that the railroad companies do
not charge fifteen sents mile, and in
this one item of mileage there is always
and everywhere the biggest kind of a
rake-off.
Take another town, also given in the
latest guide as of 300 population. There
in December last the constable made
104 arrests, surely an enormous number
for SO small a place Seventy-one of
these were for malicious mischief,
fourteen for vagrancy, and sixteen for
evading payment of railroad fare. The
bill against the county was 1852. 80 The
! previous month It had been only $123.10
and the month before that only So. In
fact, If one were to judge by the offt-
! GERS returns, this village is visited by
extraordinary waves of crime. In a
| single month the constable does busi-
ness that brings him in $362.S0, and
there are three months in which he
does not make cent. But an ex-
planation lies In the fact that the sal
aries made by many country con-
stables became such q scandal that the
board of county supervisors limited
the amount any one could draw to $1,000
year. 1t is permitted, however, to
lump the entire twelve months, so that
the returns for a few active months
may make up the total that can be
charged for the year.
Makes His Full Allowance
Here Is another town, In the same
district, on the same line of road, prac-
tically under the same conditions as
those prevailing in the one just con-
sidered. But it has exactly four times
the population. Yet the constable's bill
for December was only $92.90 as against
S362.80 in a neighboring town of only
one-fourth its size. But he also man
ages to draw his full amount from the
! county, the bill rendered for the year
being $1201.3 .35.
Is 1t necessary to multiply examples
| Everywhere and always it has been
| understood that the country constable,
often, If not always, in collusion with
the justice of the peace, has feathered
his nest from his mileage. One cannot
| imagine q more direct inducement TO
run men in and convoy them to the
county Jail, regardless of their inno-
| cence. And constables have been known
to help a friend who wanted q trip to
town by making a convenient arrest
and putting him in charge.
San Bernardino county is a good IL
i
on straight salary some fourteen years
ago, but the mileage charges were re-
| tanned. The amount that certain con-
stables were making became public
scandal, such towns as Victorville,
Barstow, Daggett and the Needles be-
came known as hobo mills" and at
one town the justice of the peace was
familiarly known as "Ninety-day"-
| having the reputation of running In
every possible stranger and passing one
! invariable sentence. Last August the
grand Jury, after investigating the
claims sent In by desert constables,
recommended that they should be al
lowed to charge only such mileage as
they had actually paid for, and at pres
ent every constable's account contains
an affidavit to that effect. What has
happened? The constables have united
and brought q test case, seeking to
have thei action taken by the county
declared Illegal.
since the mileage rake off has been
| stopped these constables have general
lv gone into the service of the railroad
companies as salaried detectives.
Testimony Is Universal
We have given the evidence of sworn
! statements on file in the Los Angeles
courthouse, but newspaper men know
we'll that there Is a class of evidence
that, If possible, is even stronger than
this-universal testimony Every
newspaper man who has investigated
this field knows that the testimony or
| the men who, often from choice but
also often from necessity, pack their
blankets will support unanimously our
| charges, and there is in Los Angeles
more than one reporter and curious
amateur who has gone on the tramp
to verify for himself the general re-
port. An article by one of these is
] Inc hHy uu vi n q
! that the man in search of employment
| has nothing to fear from the railroad
detectives or the city policemen who
are on salary, but that the tramp
catchers "for revenue only" will arrest
the sick and crippled without mercy.
| The reporter in question carried gold
watch and had too prosperous an ap-
pearance for the part, with the result
that almost the first country constable
he met after leaving Los Angeles fra
| ternized with him and asked him to
his office. The story proceeds:
Entering, he invited me to be seat
ed, and then he inquired about differ
ent persons employed at the Pacific
| Electric company. Just then a fellow
carrying a big roll of blankets passed
the depot. The constable almost
Jumped out Of his seat, stopped the la
| Dorer and after he found that this
harmless fellow who had been peace
fully counting the ties toward Los An
geles, where he expected to find some
employment on the aqueduct had only
40 cents in cash, he placed him under
arrest as vagrant, in spite of all the
pleadlngs of the poor fellow, who had
proof on his person in the shape of let
! ters and recommendations, that he had
large family and old parents to sup
port"
Saves by Paying Salaries
This simple story could be reproduced
from a hundred different sources, and
is repeated over and over again in the
narrative just quoted from. Occasion
ally it is relieved by touch of humor,
as where a Mexican constable confessed
that "he had to arrest SIS worth of
tramps q month to hold his job as $35
! had to be paid by him to the fellow
who had given him the chance to make
this kind of a living" But perhaps
| the most suggestive part is that which
says: IT discovered that Orange county
| had saved last year $22 900 in county
| expenses by paying cash salaries to its
constables and their deputies. I found
at Orange a total absence of interest
in harmless wanderers, and no one Is
arrested in Orange county on trumped
up charges. The taxpayers are saving
money formerly wasted in feeding
tramping loafers and feeling loafing
officials"
Although this letter will circulate
principally east the illustrations have
| been taken from Southern California
because the letter is written there.
There can be no harm in this, since
the illustrations hold good wherever
the fee system is in operation. The