Year: 1878

aSROADBRINE'S NEW YORK


LETTER. ..


No. 81.


! Drunkenness Capital ORense in the State


Of New York--Death in the Cells-Dread-
| full Murder-Reminiseene of Gilman,


the Forger-French Commission, etc.


It is a fortunate circumstance for
our national character that the
New York papers do not circulate
in the interior Of Africa, or in Ter
"a del FQego, for, if they did, the
enlightened. statesmen who guide
the :destinies of those distant en-
pires would have but an Indifferent
opinion Of our American civilization,
1t IS scarcel y a century since Eng
land had on her calendar over thirty
capital ofenses; the larceny of g
pocket-handkerchief under peculiar
circumstances might have secured
the honors Of Newgate or :Ty burn !;
and yet, when an uncivil word to- a
court barrister or an unfortunate
mistake in an autograph, would
have endangered the criminals
neck, England, in her maddest
fanaticism of justice, never dream
ed Of making drunkenness a cap
ital: offence. It is very possible
that a London policeman may
WELD his locust with ;plenary pow
ers and that the broken skulls
Of drunken men are not more un-
common" in London and Paris than
they are in the city Of New York.
But the infamy is reserved for New
York of having made drunkenness
a capital crime, and Of treating the
unfortunate drunkard with cruelty
along side of which the galoWs
would have been mercy itself; not
only drunkenness, but the mere sus-
picion Of drunkenness, is now a
capital ofense. No trial is asked,
no jury is impanneled-a sapient
policeman is both jury and Judge,
and his locust baton saves the
county the expense of a gallows.
You may think I write in bitter
vein, but within the week five men
have died under circumstances that
would have disgraced a nation of
savages. I told you few weeks
ago the story of a man found dead
in the cells Of our police station
hardly q week has gone by since
then but has added to this great
calamity, and this week the horror
has eliminated with five more. 4
young man who never drank at all,
but was accidentally thrown from
his wagon and injured severely by
the fall, on being picked up, the
policeman concluded he was drunk,
and dragged him off to the station.
On, the way they had to pass his
sisters house; bleeding and dazed,
| Re piteously begged to be taken in,
but his prayer was denied, and they
flung him as drunkard in the
cells. On their rounds in the night
| they discovered that he was breath
ing hard, and they carried him out
to the yard and laid him on the
freezing stones and there, for two
hours, the poor wretch lay under
the bitter wintry sky. But it made
no. difference to him, for he was
beyond the reach of sunshine or OF
storm. A corps of physicians, cost
ing this unfortunate city over one
hundred thousand dollars year,
are engaged in our different police
stations for just such cases as this,
yet no aid was summoned. The
police captains are supposed to be
men of at least common humanity
and experience, yet week after week
this infamy goes on, and no poten-
tial voice is raised against It,


eve have supped full of horrors.
| The week has been one Of excep-
tional violence and murder, and if
it we're not for the fact that this
city has been chosen by the actors
as the arena of their crimes, New
York might stand acquitted of any
participation. Chicago, usually pro-
life of sensational horrors, has
given us our latest installment in
the double murder of a villain and
his paramour, in whose taking of,
if it were not for the example, there