Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-06-17
Silver Cleaner

he must have the 80. r." from the
chief and if he is a street fakir he
does not get this 80. K" This will
make your business streets clean and
the public who want to be humbug-
ged Will have to go to the fair grounds
to get it.
The PickpOckct
This is another element that we
should work together to eliminate
from our streets. In reading the DE
tective" | often see where pickpockets
of national reputation have been ar
rested and given hours to leave the
town L want to say that when he is
arrested in Harrisburg we give him
ninety days in Jail under the profess
sional thief act before he can leave
town and when he does leave he is
glad to stay away. We would great
deal rather feed him for ninety days
to give him lesson than to shake
hands with him and tell him to leave
the town, and believe me we have not
had to feed many lately, because you
soon get a reputation among them
that they will be given no chance, and
1t is better than a large corps of de-
tectives to have your town get a bad
name among thieves. We have had
several habeas corpus cases, but the
court allowed the sentence to stand
we are convention city and TO
protect the public we must be severe
on the dip" and this contributes
largely towards a clean city.
Cleaning Up of the Red Lights
"As the storm against the social
evil swept through the country it burst
some of its fury on our city until pub
lie sentiment demanded action.
I'VE had a self-made red light dis
- ~ s,I H.
gated district without police regu-
lations; but nevertheless it was a seq
regated district. We knew where they
were and in consequence we could
keep them indoors and prevented them
from Haunting their business in the
faces of the decent public and we had
very little trouble with them. But
they are gone. The whole district was
put out of business in about weeks
time. Arrests were made in a num-
Der of instances and the balance, with
the owners of the property, were re-
turned to court without arrests and
they closed up at once. A great many
of them left town to go to continue
their business elsewhere and | judge
the question has been asked What
right did l have to dump my dirt on
my neighbour Those that did not leave
town went in to rooming houses;
some changed their names and moved
into respectable districts and had to
be moved again; some of them we find
in the street and arrest, and it is
worse fight now to keep it from the
good people than it was before. 1t
is large problem and l will not say
at this time which is the best method,
but will leave that to the good judg-
ment of the chiefs who have had ex-
periences both ways. l can say, how
ever, that we have closed out our red
light district.
"I want to say for those of you who
have never visited Harrisburg, the
Capital City of Pennsylvania, that it
Is a beautiful little city of $4,000 peo-
pie, situated on the banks of the Sus-
quehanna river with seventy miles of
paved streets, beautiful parks and
good clear filtered water. 1t is rail-
road center and for that reason we
capture quite q number of people
wanted by other departments. We
have q good, live police department,
not yet quite up-to-date because we
lack civil service, but we have an up
to-date Identification bureau with Ber-
tillon and finger-print systems. motor
cycles, autopatrol, dictagraph, game
we'll reporting system and red-light
signals and with the equipment at
hand we stand ready to render any as
in our power to any other de-
partment who may need us.
II have been member of this as
sociation for quite q number of years, |
but this is the first time that l have
imposed upon your valuable time and
1 thank you for your attention and
promise not to infiict you often