The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-27

provided for each court, separating the races. A suitable grand jury room should be provided. and we would rec ommend the use of the old and unoe- cupied law library room adjoining the solicitors office with a door communi- eating with the solicitors office, thus leaving the present grand jury room available for petit juries. This would put the grand jury in close communica- ton with all the records and with the solicitors office, and better enable them to handle witnesses. both white and eolored, without mixing the two races.
 Hillman hospital: This institution is overcrowded, rendering 1t necessary to place typhoid and tubercular patients in the same ward with other patients. The sanitary arrangements are poor and anticipated, 1t being necessary io subject an entire floor to infection in the disposition of the waste matter from patients suffering with infectious diseases The general sanitary condi- tjon of the building is unsatisfactory the walls and ceilings need repairing and painting and the floors should be properly treated and rendered more sanitary. In addition to the new build ing contemplated we recommend that the present building be modernized throughout. The fire escapes are in- sufficient, being entirely too small and narrow for carrying sick people to safety in case of fire; and we recom- mend that suitable fire escapes De placed at once. The hospital Is not as clean and as well kept as 1t could be.
 Almshouse: We visited the almshouse
 and unhesitatingly condemn this place as
 unfit for human habitation. The buildings
 are old. insanitary, unelean and unkept-
 yeritable fire traps The beds and linen are old and dirty and the sheets are toe short. The floors are bare and badly
 worn The walls should be cleansed
 painted and rendered sanitary. The straw
 mattresses and bedding should be de
 stroyed and replaced with new cotton mattresses and new blankets at once. The buildings are heated with old fashioned stoves which fall to provide uniform heat. The screens in the windows ano doors are broken and torn, permitting flies to enter the wards, the kitchen and dining room, thereby transmitting dis eases from one inmate to another. Tn, insane ward would be a disgrace to th' savages, much less to civilized com munity This is small building, on, story high dark and dirty and with fou odors-the most reproachful and disgrace full condition imaginable. When old ag' and poverty overtake us and we become the dependencies of community. WI should not be condemned to fire traI and a cess pool where disease and deatf hasten the fast approaching end, w find a particularly pathetic case Of { young hoy confined in the insane ware who for several months has been in ar apparently hypnotic condition It would seem to us that he Is fit subject fol special hospital treatment and We recon mend that the board of revenue talk, such action as is necessary to relieve thii patient. The English language fails to sup ply adequate words to express the condi tions that exist at the almshouse and i any thoughtful person will inspect thi: institution he cannot but exclaim "Goo have mercy upon these poor unfortu
 mates" We recommend new almshous, in high and dry locality where tuber-
 cular patients can be isolated and prop
 ery treated. We condemn the board oi
 revenue for the present existing condi
 tions, and recommend that they take proper and immediate steps to Improve
 these conditions and the efficiency of tho
 management of this institution.
 Justices of the Peace
 We find majority of the justices oi
 the peace are not complying with the law
 in sending in their doclSets for inspection
 by the grand jury. We consider such
 justices of the peace poor examples oi law-abidng citizens. Some of the Jus tices docket and try cases over which they have no jurisdiction. In one instance a justice of the peace keeps as his docket an ordinary paper flexible-baclS book. the leaves of which are ordinary brown paper, and his cases are all docketed in pencil and very crudely kept. Uniform dockets for justices of the peace should be adopt ed, whereon each case doclseted by the justice should be itemized in his book and the same should be examined and passed upon separately. The approval or non approval of the solicitor or foreman Of the grand jury should appear separately The present method of examining the books of a justice of the peace, where the notation is made at the conclusion of the last case docketed, leaves many cases unfinished, by reason of which the justice of the peace could supply fictitious entries and thereby defeat the ends of justice; his cases should be consecutyely numbered on the pages, as provided in thedocket used and approved. We find in our investigations of the books of the justices of the peace that many arrests have been made, and evidences of a di- vision of the fees with outside persons who are obliging enough to swear out the warrants for a division of the spells, and the cases have been allowed to remain unsettled with the costs thrown on the state, thus multiplying the iniquities of the fee system. We deplore the collision of certain justices of the peace with money sharks and loan companies who bleed the unfortunate by adding fictitious costs and fees to the original debt.
 In examining the books of the few jus tices of the peace who have brought their books in. we have failed to discovef a single case docketed for gaming, other than the offense of Sunday gaming. over which latter offense the justice has final jurisdiction. It seems strange to us that the people inclined to gamble in their pre- cincts should be accommodating enough to wait until Sunday to do their gaming We find on an examination of the dockets of J. c. Waldrop, a justice of the peace In North Birmingham, that he has three separate dockets, one for Coalson Brok- craze company, another for J. E. Heffer- nan and the third a general docket. We also find evidence of garnishments and releases as coming from his court that are not shown on his docket and have apparently been issued in blank and signed by J. c. Waldrop as justice OF the peace We also find that he issues gar nishments on persons not within his juris- dict!on.
 We recommend that the law be so amended that the grand jury shall have authority to examine the civil as well as the criminal dockets of justices of the peace We recommend the abolition of the entire system of Justices of the peace in Jefferson county. and the substitution therefor of suitable courts of competent Jurisdiction to dispose of petit cases. and that the court officials and deputies of such courts he placed on a salary basis