The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-22
JURISDICTION 0F
 MINOR C3OaTS
Extended Over a Lengthy List of CrimeS-Criticism of
 Bridgeport City Court
CHartford courant. Nov. 21.)


 s@The Courant'' of the law which gives ough and town courts. As the law has been interpreted hereabouts, it was held that judges had the right to sen tence to the extent of the jurisdiction of their courts. in a certain class O cases in which before the law of 1911 they could not take jurisdiction, and had to bind accused over to a court of greater jurisdiction. A press dis patch the other day announced that one of the judges in the police court at Bridgeport, acting under the stat ute, had sentenced an accused to state prison. There are lawyers in this city who are considered as good at inter- preting criminal law as any lawyers in the state, and several of them who were asked about the press dispatch judge exceeded his authority if the dispatch was true, and they declare that court of competent jurisdiction would release the man sentenced on habeas corpus without much hesita- tion.
 The act increasing the powers of these inferior courts, so called, because of their un limited jurisdiction, did not have the unanimous approval of the states attorneys of the eight counties, and those who know something of the fights in the Legislature over these minor judgships feel that these jueges should lot have the enlarged powers which the new law gives them, as there is too much politics connected with some of the jobs. The law gives these minor courts Jurisdiction under about sixty criminal statutes in which they could, not heretofore take final ac- ton, and no doubt some of them who lo1r rxyi. 5,o r,y,yrrSSo1 that fhov are vested with the authority which they now have. Here are few of the important crimes in which they can now take Jurisdiction:
 The wilful throwing or shooting at railway cars; abduction of child by either parent; unia Wful exhibition O; O; employment of child; breaking and entering in the daytime with criminal intent; theft of bicycle; theft of poul- try; wiiful obstruction of navigation; bribing witnesses or preventing their appearances; wilful injury to cars or engines; wilful injury to electric rail way appliance; parent or guardian consenting to prostitution of child; abandonment of wife and cohabitation with another; docking horses; marrf- age of epileptics; promoting or wit messing prize fights; obscene literature and pictures; tramps; joining persons in marriage without authority; break lng CiIy or IOWH lOCkupS, TCIdtluS lO lotteries; misappropriatin sing funds of ec- clesastical society; obtaining money by false pretenses; embezzlement by mag istrate; unlawful removal of vessels by master; defrauding accident or life in- surance companies: punishment for second and third offenders.
 The men who hold down these mi nor judgships generally look for the support of the representatives from their town to get appointment on the job, and why shouldn't they "fall'' If the representatives from the town ask them to deal lightly under the statute with some friend or politician under one of the sixty statutes under which they can now take jurisdiction. No one will deny that the states at torneys, who have heretofore taken this class of cases on the binding over process, are a much more capable lot of men than the men who sit in the courts of limited jurisdiction They do not depend for the jobs upon poli- ticians, but from the judges of the superior court and supreme court, and after once being appointed, the history of this state is that they hold the jobs until they voluntarily quit or die. The new law may relieve the work of the states attorneys. but it will not be taken as an act affording greater pro tection to the public.
 The Legislature of 1911 enacted chap ter 153, which is an,a act providing for the detention of witnesses in criminal scases and the act is virtually re-en- actment of chapter 118 of the public act of 1907. The re-enactment takes up about two pages in the 1911 blue book and lawyers say that the old act is the same as the new one with the exception that the word states at torney," as used in the first act, is, in the act of 1911, made to cover assist ant states attorneys. There is also another new section in the 1911 act, which lawyers say is covered by an earlier provision in the bill and that the provision was in the old bill, but the amended bill made business for the printer, if it didn't do anything else