The Man in Court | Page 3

of pink stockings. They have hair of that

disagreeable butter color which speaks of peroxide. There has been a
raid on a west-side street of a house of ill repute. Some testimony is
given and the older woman, the "Madam" is held in bail for the action
of the Grand Jury while the rest are held for further evidence. The
judge tells us there will probably not be enough testimony and they will
be released in the morning. But unless bail is found they will spend the
night in cells.
A nervous, excited woman comes in--two policemen are with her. She
has been arrested for disorderly conduct on Sixth Avenue near
Thirty-first Street. She has been fighting with a man who has also been
arrested and taken to the men's Night Court. Hers is a hard, tough face
of the lowest type.
"Why should you try to scratch the man's face? What did he do?" the
judge asks. "Is he your husband?"
"My husband, your Honor? Yes, I guess you can call Al that. We lives
up town and when I went out he says to me, 'Hustle, kid, you got to
hustle, the rent's due and if you don't get the money I'll break your
neck.' The slob won't work. Well, a night like this you couldn't make a
cent and I only had half a dollar and I wanted to get a bite to eat. I
hadn't had a thing since four o'clock, and then I met Al going down
Sixt' Avenue an' he tries to swipe me fifty cents off me and I was that
wild I wanted to tear him. I'm sorry; I guess it was my fault. I don't
want to see him jugged, so please let me off, your Honor, and I won't
make no trouble."
"Take her record," said the judge, "and hold her as a witness against the
man."
A string of women are brought in for sentence who have been having
finger prints taken in the adjoining room. The judge proceeds to impose
sentences according to the previous records which are shown. Some of
the women are those who have passed in front before. The little
bedraggled woman with the red feather has been arrested seven times in
sixteen months. Another has spent eight weeks in the workhouse out of
a period of seven months; another has been sent already to the Bedford

Reformatory; another has been twice to houses of reform. Before the
judge gives his sentence he refers the prisoners to the probation officer,
who talks with them in a motherly way.
After talking with the little prisoner she addresses the judge. "She says
its no use, your Honor, she does not want to reform--it will not be
worth while to put her on probation."
"Committed to the Mary Magdalene Home," says the judge, and the
name brings a startling surmise as to what He of Galilee would have
said.
The foregoing is only a typical session of the court. Night after night,
from eight o'clock until one in the morning, the scene is repeated. The
moral effect and its reaction upon those who conduct the
proceedings--the judges, officers, and the police, cannot but be
deplorable; the evil done to those forcibly brought there could not be
over-estimated.
Substantially the law is that the women may not loiter in the streets nor
solicit in the streets, or in any building open to the public. They may
live neither in a tenement house nor in a disreputable house. The law
makes it a crime for the women to walk abroad or stay at home. Their
existence is not a crime, but only in an indirect way the law makes
them outlaws. Anyone wishing to prosecute or persecute finds it easy to
do so. The worst enemies of these unhappy women are to be found,
curiously enough, among both the best and the most evil people in the
community. The unspeakably depraved are the men who, either as
procurers, blackmailers, or the miserable men who live on a share of
their earnings. The excellent people who oppose any remedial
legislation which might relieve the situation, seem equally responsible
for the present condition, however well-intentioned they may be.
One effect of the present system is the practically unchecked
transmission of disease. A reform in this direction would not solve the
basic problem, for there would remain full opportunities of blackmail
and extortion, but it might still remove a menace to the health of the
community which is probably more serious than tuberculosis.

A statute to this end was enacted in New York State a few years ago: an
act for the medical examination of the women. It was declared
unconstitutional because of one word. It should have read, "the judge
may"; instead, it read, "the