The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-10
ANNUAL FARCE OF f1PUTTING ON LID"
 IS STAGED ANEW
Mayor Visits Police Head quarters, Now That E1ec-
 tion is Coming.

The annual farce. called ''Rutting the Lid On'' had a rehearsal, this morning, when Mayor Wilson, visit ed Supt. Eugene Birmingham and dis cussed ways and means of staging the show.
 The city is full of cabarets and pre- tended cabarets. which are the suc- cessors of the old concert halls, sup pressed in Mayor Thomas P. Fay i Ior's time, some two decades ago.
 The newest bit of scenery is a pro posed vice commission, which will go through the form of ascertaining if there is a Red Light district, and what transpires in it.
 Everybody knows there is such district, that it has enjoyed unusual freedom during two three years past. Everybody knows, also, that clements of freedom have been brought to the night life of the city, which had been carefully eliminated in other years.
 Asked, ''It is true there is vice in the city," the mayor replied: There are evidently some who think there is'
 The mayor didn't wink, or give any other physical indication of amuse- nent, but his voice souMded like a. wink. for the mayor perfectly well knows, what is going on in the city, ana IS not Q611G1SnL I CONSEQUENCES of the value of the red light vote.
 Following the visit of Mayor Wilson. to the office of superintendent Of Po- lice Eugene Birmingham, with whom he was c1oseted for a. considerable period of time, arrests began: THae first arrest. made in the crusade. be- heued to be imminent, was James H. Kelly, whose cigar store at Al Fair field avenue was raided by Sergeant James Walker, understood to be acting upon direct orders of his superior of ncers. At the Kelly store a penny slot machine, turing cards in poker hands, was conhscated. The pro prietor was absent. as were Paul Young and Arthur Lieberuna, said by the police to be joint owners in the cigar store at 60 Elm street, which was the second place to faH under the axe Two large gambling machines were confscated.
 The orders came from an almost clear sky, though 1t was expected that Mayor Wilson's recent announcement Of a vice commission, meant that the administrations policy would be elghtIy altered.
 The mayor drove up to the police building q few minutes before II o'clock. He had Director of Public Works Jacob Courtade's handsome Packard car. He walked ja.unti1y into the building and greeted the of fcers at the desk.
 To reporters who inti1nated that his visdt to headquarters was most un- usuaI he smiled and said: '.I sup pose you think it in connection with the appointment of a vice comnds- sion.'' While jocu1ar1y discussing mat ters foreign to his visit with reporters he was notified that Superintendent Birmingham was disengaged and he at once sought tha sactuary occupied TATy %SaA
 When he emerged he hurr1ed1y left the building. Asked by a Farmer re- porter what had transp1red within, he replied, Mot the first word.'
 When asked for the ''second' word, he ran for his car, saying, ''r1o word at a1I!''
 Previously asked about the appoint ment of the vice commission and who had 1nstigated it he said: t'I have been appealed to from many sources
 'sIs it true that there is vice in the city. MT. Mayor?" evoked the an swer:
 s"There, are evidently some in this city who think there is.''
 While there is great uncertainty among the police to what has oc- cas1oned the present visit and it's ac- companying arrests one fact is held to be certaIn-'"The Lid Is On" and the statement, made by Mayor Wilson this morning that the activities of the fcommission will be towards 'tregulat- ing the social evil'' lends itself to the belief that a sharply defined attack will be made upon places of evil re- 'pute and the possible closing of cab arets fn this city.
 In explaining the raid upon KeI1y's cigar store today police officials re- fused to state who made the com plaint, other than that 'f'The rattle of the machine could be heard from the sidewalk