Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-03-19
NEW YoRK'S DOINGS.
SOMETHING DREADFUL UP THE POLICE
COMMIsSIONER'S SLEEVE.

| sum Df fOLlCE
COMMISSIONERS SLEEVE.
1t is not improbableithat in short
time "We've Some Fine New Crooks
in Town" will be the popular song of
the police in big cities other than New
York, for General Bingham, the head
of our polio department, has got the
big secret service fund which he has
wanted these many months-in fact,
ever since he intimated that within a
mile of Police Headquarters there was
house where men could be hired for
money to commit crimes of any kind.
If there was such place, the detec-
tives knew of it, for what they don't
really know about crime and criminals
isn't worth knowing; the unfortunate
thing is that the criminals know the
detectives..at sight and do no business
in the habit Of picking evil doers at the
right time and place.
No, the fund was not voted to Gen
eral Bingham by thesauthorities. The
board of Alderman, who have consid-
cradle to say.inlsuch matters, made no
attempt in that.direetion, or. if they
did, IL escaped the notice of yours truly
and many others who had hopes. Some
members of that;body aressaid to be as
honest-as the entirelsAmenl Corner"
of church, sbut they would not at
tempt to forcela majority who detest
the Police Commissioner most cordial
ly for reasons best gknownl to them
selves and some of their constituents.
1t is only fair to themsto say that they
would:hate insthe same amanner any
police headswho was. nossrespecter of
persons in the criminal;world,n no mat
ter what..service some of them might
have been to anyialderman or to an al
derman's political or--.business friends,
and wouldsbe no severer to sneak
thief from anotherstown than to an al
derman's personal friend with visible
crooked streak in him.
Besides, detectives. have. e..always been
as well known at-sight.. as barkeepers
or landlords collectors, so any lpolitic-
ian knew whom to gostoswhen..any of
his followers was wanted by the police
or likely to BEL But, give police COM
missioner detective force known per-
sonally only to himself and accounta-
BILE only to him, why, no alderman or
other politician of his grade would
know where he was at or what he was
up against; worse still, he chad no Ger
tainty of knowing what was up against
himself. So the desired fund was not
voted officially. But General Bingham
had been known so long and favorably
to lot of honest and well-to-do citizens
who have never been in politics that
the money was subscribed as free
gift, the misery is about to begin and
we may soon hear, from the men inside
OF politics, that something worse than
the Spanish Inquisitionis is being set up
in New York. 1t is being whispered,
perhaps as sop to Cerberus, that the
"Black Hand" Italian gang is to be
the object of the secret detectives at
tack, but the wiser and greater evil
doers of all kinds have not inhabit
would long ago have been more to
to their liking than New. York, it only
1t offered as good business opportuni-
ties and as many approved hiding
places, and could be got away from, in
case of trouble, at the price of a mere
ferry ticket. fortunately for them
selves, the bigger rogues can always
afford to travel when they must; what
fortune this may imply to other cities
will undoubtedly transpire in the near
future. GARGOYLE.