The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-09-07
Theodore Roberts, the
Well Known. Actor,
Analyses the Famous
Ludlow Street Jail,
Where Men Are I'm
prisoned for Unpaid
Alimony and Other
Debts, in an Unusual
Article Written from
Six Months Enforced
Intimacy with Its In
terror.
terror.

~ New Years Day this year Theodore
Y Roberts was sent to Ludlow Street Jail
for failure to pay accrued alimony due
TO the wife from whom he separated. Mrs.
Lucy Roberts. She had sued him for divorce.
bu. told the justice that she had changed her
mind. For this change Of mind she received
severe reprimand from the Judge, who warned
her against trfng with the courts of justice.
Because MIR. Roberts owed his wife 500 he
was sentenced to six months in the debtors
Jail at Grand and Ludlow streets the East
Side in New York. Recently Mr.. Roberts. hav.
ing served the full term. discharged from
prison.
For the first time of fame and scholar
~ tastes and attachments and keen. trained
powers OF observation. tells the truth from the
inside about this relic of medievalism. a
debtors prison. Mr. Roberts utters plant
for himself. refers to no injustice wrought
him. but with broad view and judicial manner
analyses and pilories the system of a so-called
justice which sends men and women to prison
for poverty in the twentieth century and in
BY THEODORE ROBERTS,
the Celebrated Actor and Recent "Alimoniac"
PRISON term is usually something to
~ conceal and TO bury among the closet
skeletons Of a life. My prison term in
Ludlow Street Jail for the non. payment OF ALI
mony has been so widely exploited through the
press OF America that any attempt on my part
TO conceal or minimize 1t would be absurd even
though | desired to draw the mantle of forget
fulness over it. am in position. therefore. to
speak without reserve OF Ludlow's Alimony
Club from the standpoint of intimate associa-
ton for six long months-the longest term that
is allowed to Ludlow commitment
During my stay there were never more than
twenty-threo inmates and less than
twelve. OF this shifting population not more
than 80 per aIimony commit
ments, though, owing to the fact that those
committed on almony either stayed for three
or six months. the other prisoners did not rep
resent more than so per. cent OF the inmates
At any one time.
80 per cent OF the inmates at any one time.
The Almony Club, therefore, consisted o.
from six to members. l want to impress
this fact on the reader for future reference.
In allmony commitments no two cases were
exactly alike. They all differed in essential
details. Owing to this fact the courts have
found 1t expedient to boil all different conten-
ttons in matrimonial cases into the one condl
tion-that of fine imposed for non-fulfllment
of an obligation and prison term imposed for
contempt Of court for not paying that fine
Having distilled all the heterogeneous elements
of multiple marital complications into the one
element of an obligation to the court like the
physician who threw all his patients into fits
because he strong on fits, the court finds
itself able to deal quite readily and expedi
tiously with its victims by the dictum PAY
or stay
Judges find 1t very easy to commit victim
20 Ludlow. 1t is not very severe punishment
nor does 1t carry with it the stigma of Grim.
iuality that other imprsonments imply nor are
three months Or even six very long time So
judges sign readily and easily a commitment
to Ludlow. There are fifty reasons for COM
mitment some absurdly trivial; but once in.
there is only one reason for release-there is