New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-08-11
By Katharine Wright

~1CHTsEERS from other cities,
blase dinner parties, explorers
~ Of the wilds of Greenwich
VILLAGE. will no longer be able to
.,oat over the sordid diversion pro-
s;ded BY the Women's Night Court
- Jefferson Market, for this trl-
sura1 has been abolished in favor
of daylight proceedings.
The Women's Night Court was
established in 1907 by Governor
whitman while a magistrate to de-
Goat the professional bondsman evil,
The regular levying of tribute on
greet women through giving bail
for the appearance in court next
dav Of those arrested during the
NIGHT at a fee of from SO to S25
each Formerly nothing was easier
than for this kind of grafters around
district police stations to clean up
sums said to have run as high as
thousand dollars or so each day. If
one knew policeman or two whose
hands were none too clean of graft
and who would not object to tipping
friend off and then dividing
the spoils, 1t was all the easier to
roke bip "profitso in this unsavOry
fashion. Sometimes signed slips
we're left by the bondsmen at the
various station houses and the fig
ures were filled in at the discretion
Of the officer who made the arrest.
Often these bondsmen were discov-
cred to be Of the straw variety, and
the bonds on which they made such
profits worthless.
And so the Night Court was es-
tablished and the matter Of bail was
regulated less informally and tied
up with red tape.
Bail System
Splendidly Improved
Shortly after something happened
to put fear into the hearts of graft
ing policemen and make the Night
Court less necessary. This was the
beginning Of activities on the part
Of the Committee of Fourteen and
the vice societies following lines
suggested by the Lexow investiga-
ton and the Parkhurst crusade on
behalf of fallen women. What
chiefly disturbed the uniformed
grafters was that not a single vice
crusader owned cops foot" the
size, breadth and general sturdiness
Of which were the usual and infalh-
Bile means of recognizing a detective
in plain clothes The vice crusader
might be lame or one-legged, a
hunchback or a cyclops; how was
the policeman on the street corner,
pickering over his graft, to know.
Thus the cases Of petty graft were
reduced and the bail system was i'm
proved. Nor are the vice crusaders
any less active to-day, and there is
agreement that the danger of a re-
turn to the bond graft is gone. But
other evils grew UP around the
Night Court. and reasons for dis
continuing it presented themselves.
FOR one thing, during the year
1877, 81 per cent of the women ar
rested were unprecedented after the
Nlghc Court was closed Adjourn
ments we're taken in more than so
per cent Of al the cases of women
arralgned in the night session, thus
defeating the object of the court
an immediate trial Of the remain
ing ~ per cent, many were drunken
women, who after SOLDERING up ad
mitted that they did not know what
.aey were saying when they asked
LOT immediate trial, and claimed
'ney were too muddled to under
sSand the proceedings. A night in
jail would help to clarity their men
tal condition.
Then it has been found difficult
lor women wanting immediate trial
" communicate with their friends
and family at night.
Main Evil Was
Slun Publicity
Judges sitting in Night Court try
cases under forced and unnatural
,Oaoitions. They themselves may
se ured and not in the best Of trim.
nours being shorter than those of
we day session, there is less time
I" devote 10 each case.
Perhaps the crowning evil Of the
N'ght Court, however, has been the
1Deesirable publicity.
Chinatown or the Night Court.
"''ch shall It be-" has been a usual
sI'sr-olnner question on the part Of
:. |'''c'atic summers or diners in up
''~h restaurants or Greenwich Vii
se. Motors have stood for hours
-'Aide Of Jefferson Market court