Satan's Invisible World Displayed or, Despairing Democracy

ce. The story reads more like a description of an Indian province terrorized by a band of Thugs than a statement of how New York was governed. Wh

ution against you for that offence. In other words, if you sit here and tell the truth, and confess that you have committed any crime of that description, you will be absolutely relieved from any punishment for the commission of that crime. On the other

their duty to swear falsely to conceal the facts about bribery and corruption. If they spoke the truth they would be bounced or persecuted, whereas if they came forward and perjured themselves they would stand high with their supe

aracter of an oath and the reality of a future state were hardly edifying. One woman, Julia Mah

f, "that you would meet your pu

," Julia re

to the State's prison?" persisted Mr. Goff. B

ty-four hours," she remarked. "She has got

the truth from witnesses such as these, who fear not God neither regard

ever mind what is said about this or that system of city government. In Chicago and all the West the police govern the city, and that is all there is to it." In New York it would appear to

f our population they stand as the embodiment as well as the representative of the law of the land. To the average dweller in a tenement-house district, especi

ening Post, who, writing in the North American Review

untry-the police justice of the district, the police captain of his precinct, and the political "district leader." These are, to him, the Federal, State and municipal governments rolled

ture, constitution and town meeting, comprise two-thirds of the population of the city. To the foreign denizen of these districts

the population of the city. The Lexow Committee in its final Report, after commenting on the diffi

d lest failure might result in a still more galling thraldom on the other! It seemed, in fact, as though every interest, e

to the profitable conduct of their affairs. People of all degrees seemed to feel that to antagonize the police was to call down upon themselves the swift judgment and persecution of an invulnerable force, strong in itself, banded together by self-interest and the community of unlawful gain, and so thoroughly entrenched in the municipal government as to defy ordinary assault. Strong men hesitated when required to give evidence of their oppression, and whispered stories; tricks,

off in the concluding stages of the investigation referred to

hat nearly every policeman in the city has his property in his wife's name, it has become a notorious thing that it is useless to bring an action for assault against a policeman.... Mr. Jerome reminds me now of the celebrated case of Mr. Fleming; I think it was a

nding, who had been nearly murdered by a police captain in the cells of the police-s

use going to law with the

ut not less emphatic findi

ss, armed with the authority and the machinery for oppression and punishment, but

N ST. PE

lice have as much p