CRIME UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.
By T.
About four years ago the well-known Lexow committee was doing its work in New York. Upon sworn testimony, it was shown by that investigation that the police in New York City not only protected gambling, prostitution, and other forms of vice and crime, but they were actually in partnership with the criminals, and came in for their share of the proceeds. The police claimed these dividends as a reward for keeping their official eyes closed, and of course would do all in their power to assist criminals to escape arrest. The startling revelations made by that official investigation, together with the comments upon it through the press, have been before the country for quite half a decade. And, notwithstanding the opportunity thus afforded, no one has yet arisen to show that the charges were false or overdrawn. There is something very dark in the picture, when crime can run riot in our land, and instead of the officers of the law suppressing it, they protect it for the sake of sharing in the proceeds of plunder and vice. And now the reports are coming of an investigation of the Chicago police by a committee from the State Legislature. In this examination it has been ascertained that these “guardians of peace and good order” in Chicago have also been in partnership with crime. Indeed, the despatches say that the chief of police was pressed so closely that “he apologized for the thugs and toughs who had been appointed as members of the police force since he was made chief.” And, further, when the investigation showed that some of the police had participated in the holding up of citizens, the chief characterized it as “an indiscretion,” and thought it an injustice that these officers should not “have another chance.” Coincident with this investigation in Chicago a large committee of clergymen in Philadelphia have been looking into the criminal condition of that place. The despatch states that one of the ministers forming the committee said “they had counted 400 disorderly houses, and that they saw more vice in two nights than Parkhurst saw in his whole trip around New York. In nearly all of the places liquor was illegally sold, and plenty of evidence was obtained that the houses were protected by the police.” In the time of Noah “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Gen. 6:5, 11. When “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart” is “only evil,” and when man becomes so corrupt that “the earth” is “filled with violence,” he has reached the very lowest depths of crime and degradation. Such was the condition of things in the times of Noah. And the Master says, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” Luke 17:26. Reader, as you view the situation to-day, and seriously ask the question, What does all this crime and violence in the land mean? how clearly the answer comes from the Word of God! Surely we are in that time when we can be earnestly looking for the coming of the Son of man. And how it brightens up the gloomy aspect to know that Jesus is soon to appear to put an end to all this vice, crime, and violence! T.