By Advice of Counsel | Page 2

was an old-timer who believed in rough methods. He
belonged, happily, to a fast-vanishing system more in harmony with the

middle ages than with our present enlightened form of municipal
government. He remained what he was for the reason that farther up in
the official hierarchy there were others who looked to him, when it was
desirable, to deliver the goods--not necessarily cash--but to stand with
the bunch. These in turn were obligated on occasion, through
self-interest or mistaken loyalty to friend or party, to overlook trifling
irregularities, to use various sorts of pressure, or to forget what they
were asked to forget. There was a far-reaching web of complicated
relationships--official, political, matrimonial, commercial and
otherwise--which had a very practical effect upon the performance of
theoretical duty.
Delany was neither an idealist nor a philosopher. He was an empiricist,
with a touch of pragmatism--though he did not know it. He was "a
practical man." Even reform administrations have been known to
advocate a liberal enforcement of the laws. Can you blame Delany for
being practical when others so much greater than he have prided
themselves upon the same attribute of practicality? There were of
course a lot of things he simply had to do or get out of the force; at any
rate, had he not done them his life would have been intolerable. These
consisted in part of being deaf, dumb and blind when he was told to be
so--a comparatively easy matter. But there were other things that he
had to do, as a matter of fact, to show that he was all right, which were
not only more difficult, but expensive, and at times dangerous.
He had never been called upon to swear away an innocent man's liberty,
but more than once he had had to stand for a frame-up against a guilty
one. According to his cop-psychology, if his side partner saw
something it was practically the same as if he had seen it himself. That
phantasmagorical scintilla of evidence needed to bolster up a weak or
doubtful case could always be counted on if Delany was the officer
who had made the arrest. None of his cases were ever thrown out of
court for lack of evidence, but then, Delany never arrested anybody
who wasn't guilty!
Of course he had to "give up" at intervals, depending on what
administration was in power, who his immediate superior was, and

what precinct he was attached to, but he was not a regular grafter by
any means. He was an occasional one merely; when he had to be. He
did not consider that he was being grafted on when expected to
contribute to chowders, picnics, benevolent associations, defense funds
or wedding presents for high police officials. Neither did he think that
he was taking graft because he amicably permitted Froelich to leave a
fourteen-pound rib roast every Saturday night at his brother-in-law's
flat. In the same way he regarded the bills slipped him by Grabinsky,
the bondsman, as well-earned commissions, and saw no reason why the
civilian clothes he ordered at the store shouldn't be paid for by some
mysterious friendly person--identity unknown--but shrewdly suspected
to be Mr. Joseph Simpkins, Mr. Hogan's runner. Weren't there to be any
cakes and ale in New York simply because a highbrow happened to be
mayor? Were human kindness, good nature and generosity all dead?
Would he have taken a ten-dollar bill--or even a hundred-dollar
one--from Simpkins when he was going to be a witness in one of
Hogan's cases? Not on your life! He wasn't no crook, he wasn't! He
didn't have to be. He was just a cog in an immense wheel of
crookedness. When the wheel came down on his cog he automatically
did his part.
I perceive that the police are engaging too much of our attention. But it
is necessary to explain why Delany was so ready to arrest Tony
Mathusek, and why as he dragged him into the station house he
beckoned to Mr. Joey Simpkins, who was loitering outside in front of
the deputy sheriff's office, and whispered behind his hand, "All right.
I've got one for you!"
Then the machine began to work as automatically as a cash register.
Tony was arraigned at the bar, and, having given his age as sixteen
years and five days, charged with the "malicious destruction of
property, to wit, a plate-glass window of one Karl Froelich, of the value
of one hundred and fifty dollars." Mr. Joey Simpkins had shouldered
his way through the smelly push and taken his stand beside the
bewildered and half-fainting boy.
"It's all right, kid. Leave it to me," he said, encircling him with a

protecting arm. Then to the clerk: "Pleads not guilty."
The magistrate glanced over the complaint, in which Delany, to save
Froelich