Better Try Again

New York, 1895

Any decision in a matter of law made by Judge Cullen is entitled to confidence and respect. His Honor has decided against Queens county in the action brought by the Supervisors to compel the Warden of the Kings County Penitentiary to receive all tramps under commitment from this county and charge their maintenance to the state. Judge Cullen's ground for so deciding is that the law does not apply to persons roving about in the county in which they reside.

Judge Cullen's interpretation of the law is perfectly sound. It would seem from the decision that Counselor Wallace did not present the issue to the court in correct form. The decision indicates that the court was asked to compel the Penitentiary authorities to receive residents of Queens county who conduct themselves as tramps. By law and by right all such resident tramps are a county charge and can only be received into the Penitentiary under the terms of a contract between the two counties. Both in fact and in law the tramps who infest this county are not residents of the county. They come from all over the country and from Canada. It is these non-residents the Supervisors have sought to get into the Penitentiary at the expense of the state, and rightly so under the law, and if this point had been made clear to the court we think the decision would have been in favor of the Supervisors. They should try again.

It is a gross outrage to compel Queens county to provide a refuge in jail for thousands of these vagabonds at an expense of about $5 per week. They come here because they are wanted. The same tramp is committed to jail by the same officers from three to six times in a season. There are deputy sheriffs who make a business of arresting tramps, and there are tramps who make a business of seeking out the same officers for a bribe of tobacco and whisky. When the people reflect that there have been 300 of these vagabonds in jail at a time, costing about $1,500 a week, and that not one of them belongs in the county, they will see the magnitude of the load the Supervisors have been trying to shake off, and the seriousness of the blunder that has apparently been committed in presenting the case to the court.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 22, 1895, p. 4.