Disgraceful

New York, 1895

Three Hundred Prisoners in the Jail.

FOUR-FIFTHS ARE TRAMPS.

Liberated in Gangs Before Sentence Has Expired.

TO MAKE ROOM FOR OTHERS.

Are Justices Bribed to Send Vagabonds to Jail?

SHERIFF DOHT'S SHARP GAME.

Trying to Make the County Pay for Deputies' Badges that He Sells for $5 Apiece and Pockets the Money.

SOME OTHER IMPOSITIONS.

A disgraceful state of affairs has arisen in this county since Henry Doht became Sheriff.

Tramps have been taken out of the county jail, appointed deputy sheriffs, invested with the badge of office, armed with revolver and club, and sent to Maspeth and Ridgewood to do duty as policemen.

The county has been charged, and has paid, $3 per day for the services of these tramps as peace officers. Sheriff Doht broke the law when he liberated these vagabonds. He disgraced civilized methods when he made them officers of the state. What right had he to charge the county for the services of convicts?

Here is another disgraceful state of things. There are 300 or more prisoners in the county jail. That is 200 more than the jail can properly accommodate. Four-fifths of the number are tramps. Certain Justices of the Peace are making as many as 50 commitments a month. They show as much ardor in crowding the jail as if they were getting an extra fee. It was once the practice in this county for a certain Sheriff to give justices a private fee of 50 cents for each tramp committed. We have no proof that that is being done now, but never were so many tramps committed as now.

Only the other day the Sheriff, it is alleged, turned a lot of tramps and disorderly persons out of the jail before their terms had expired. Some had been in jail but a few days, it is said. Some had been sentenced from Jamaica. They came right back to this town, and sought to be committed over again. Doubtless the same thing happened in other towns. No doubt many of them were recommitted. Why should Sheriff Doht turn these prisoners out to let in others? He broke the law when he did so.

It costs $8 to $12 for each tramp committed. If the tramps that to-day are committed for 30 days should be let go one week hence, and should then be recommitted for another 30 days, and this practice should be continued, the county would be robbed of thousands of dollars. It does seem as if this is what is being done.

The late Grand Jury in the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Judge Bartlett presiding, made an investigation of the jail, and presented the following strong condemnation of some things that astonished them. The organs that are bribed by patronage to make excuses for the Sheriff and abuse THE FARMER will have trouble to get around this. The Grand Jurors say:

COURT HOUSE, Queens County, Jan. 28, 1895.

To Honorable Willard Bartlett, Presiding Judge:

DEAR SIR — We, the undersigned Grand Jurors, drawn and empanelled to serve at a Court of Oyer and Terminer held at the Queens County Court House, Long Island City, Jan. 7, 1895, do make the following presentment as to the sanitary condition, management, &c., of the county jail, as instructed by the court and as the law directs:

First — We have carefully gone through the jail and inspected the different wards, cells, corridors, kitchen and yards, and find them in as clean and good sanitary condition as the over-crowded condition of the jail will allow, and do so report.

Second — We also find that there are now confined within said jail nearly THREE HUNDRED PRISONERS, committed either for criminal offences or vagrancy. Fully four-fifths are able-bodied vagrants. We find it the practice of the town constables to arrest them, take them before a justice, who commits them to the County Jail for terms varying from thirty days to six months, where they are boarded and lodged at a weekly expense of three dollars per head to the county. When their term expires the same process of commitment is repeated at a cost to the county of about $8 for each commitment. To keep this army in good health, the Supervisors of the county provide crude rock for them to break into fragments, suitable for builders or roadmakers' uses, which, when duly prepared, is sold for a less sum per cubic yard than the crude rock cost the county delivered at the yard.

Third — In view of the fact that this county is now taxed heavily for the purpose of building new roads and repairing those already constructed; also for building and repairing the various county institutions, and the average taxpayer has to labor hard and practice the closest economy to meet this tax, while these lazy drones are reposing in this public hive in idleness, it is the opinion of this body that the board of Supervisors should devise some measures to correct this growing evil, and to provide some employment whereby vagrants may be made to contribute to their own support, and benefit the county, and if not within their powers to do so, to try and devise some legislation that would cover the ground, clear this county of this horde of tramps, who terrorize the inhabitants during the summer months, and then have to be supported by this county during the winter months in idleness.

JAMES MALCOLM, Foreman.
JOHN T. WOOLLEY, Clerk.

What the Grand Jury say about the stone breaking abuse is precisely what THE FARMER said several weeks ago. The Grand Jury might have gone farther and stated that very much of the broken stone was stolen from the county. Contractors who got the stone said they had paid certain Supervisors for it. The Supervisors denied it. The county never got a dollar for the stone.

At the last meeting of the board of Supervisors a bill was presented for audit for making Deputy Sheriffs' badges. The county has no right to pay such a bill. Sheriff Doht sells badges to Deputy Sheriffs at $5 apiece and puts the money in his pocket. If the county must pay for making the badges, then the profits, about $4.60 on each badge, should accrue to the county. No other sheriff ever sought to make the county pay for his badges. The bill should be thrown out.

If the badges were needed for the tramps who were made policemen, the county should not pay the bill. The Sheriff charged the county $3 per day for the services of these convicts, therefore the Sheriff should pay the badge bill.

Sheriff Doht has had a bill audited in his favor for $3,000 for the services of deputies at Ridgewood and Maspeth during a part of the strike on the city railroads. If some tax-payer would bring an action to restrain the payment of this bill the court would knock a big chunk out of it. The sum of $3 per day is charged for the service of these deputies. It is a notorious fact that most of them received but $2.50 a day. The sheriff is not entitled to a profit of 50 cents a day on each deputy. He is simply entitled to have what he pays out returned to him, and to be personally compensated for his services.

In another matter the county was made to pay $194 for services to the sheriff that the county was not liable for at all. The sheriff got the benefit of it personally. The tax-payers are being imposed upon unlawfully and unreasonably, and the Supervisors should make a stand against it.

We see it stated in the Long Island City Star that the Sheriff wants the board of Supervisors to pay out of the public treasury for an inside watchman, an outside watchman, and a jail keeper. There is not a jail in the state of New York where the Sheriff does not pay these expenses himself. In Mr. Norton's time two watchmen were employed for a time, and later but one, and the county paid them, but it was all wrong, and THE FARMER said so at the time. Sheriff Norton did not ask the county to pay his jail keeper, nor has any other Sheriff ever asked such a favor. As well might the county pay the Under Sheriff, and the Chief Clerk, and it may come to that, under Mr. Doht.

The board of Supervisors should stand as a barrier between the tax-payers and the greed of the Sheriff's office.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 8, 1895, p. 1.

Tramps As Policemen

New York, 1895

The Sheriff Throws Open the Doors of the County Jail.

THE FARMER has received information of a serious kind respecting Sheriff Doht. It is to the effect that after the Deputy Sheriffs went on strike for $3 a day, Sheriff Doht took a number of tramps out of their cells in the County jail, made them Deputy Sheriffs, and sent them to do duty as officers at Maspeth and Ridgewood. THE FARMER prints the information for what it is worth.


(From Tuesday's Brooklyn Eagle.)

The strike for more pay by Sheriff Doht's special deputies, who were appointed for service in protecting the trolley cars in Queens county and were detailed to duty at Ridgewood takes a ridiculous turn when it is asserted that the sheriff is selecting men from the vagrant cells in the jail to act as deputies. Three men who took a train for the field of action wearing deputy sheriff badges were recognized as vagrants who had recently been sent to jail by Judge Wallace of Rockville Centre. The fellows, who were thinly clad, were heard to remark that it would be necessary for them to fight to keep warm.


(From the New York Sun.)

The deputy sheriffs employed by Sheriff Doht of Queens county to protect the Ridgewood power house and depot of the Brooklyn, Queens County and Suburban road joined the strikers last night and took their night sticks with them. The regular pay of a deputy sheriff is $3 a day.

The railroad company paid the men yesterday and gave them only $2 a day. The day force quit, and when the night force under Capt. Baker heard of it they said they'd quit too. Sheriff Doht read the riot act to them without avail.


(From Tuesday's Brooklyn Times.)

Yesterday afternoon forty of the special deputies on duty at the Maspeth stables on Grand street decided to go out. They marched to the County Court House in Long Island City and presented their grievances before the sheriff, complaining that the pay was too small for the number of hours' work. The men were getting $2.50 per day. They demanded $5 for every day and night they were on duty. The men said they had been kept on duty twenty-four hours at a time, and wanted pay for that time.

Sheriff Doht declined to accede to the men's demands, and stripped them of their clubs and badges of authority. Some refused to give up the badges until they were paid for the work already done, and were unmoved by the sheriff's threats to imprison them.

Officer Gildersleeve was around Hempstead village last night in search of twenty deputies to fill the places of those who struck for $5 a day at Maspeth. He had numerous applications, but when they learned of the mission only six were willing to take the positions. The amount offered was $2.50 per day and meals.

If it is true that the tramps in the county jail were taken out, invested with police authority, and sent to Maspeth to preserve the peace, it is easy to understand why the officers showed so much sympathy with the strikers that the railroad company notified Sheriff Doht that he would be held personally accountable for damage to the company's property.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 1, 1895, p. 12.

Deputy Sheriff Is Peeved At Pink Pajamas

1915

Does Not Appreciate Thoughtfulness of Hotel Proprietor for Late Transients

Oakland, Cal. — Trouble reigned in the Hotel Crellin — and all because of a pair of pink pajamas. If Proprietor Louis Aber hadn't invented a new way to accommodate transient guests, or if he had made the pajamas blue or green, perhaps all would have been well — but Edward Squires, deputy sheriff from Nevada, will not wear 'em pink, that's final!

Aber had started a new scheme. Many belated dwellers in the outskirts of Oakland had appeared at his hotel, after missing their last cars, for night accommodations. Aber thought that it would be a clever concession to provide them with all the comforts of home — so he ordered that pajamas be furnished along with pillow cases and the rest of a hotel room's adornment.

Squires appeared to announce that he had missed a last boat to San Francisco. He wanted a room. Dash Katona, chief clerk, showed him to a room and left.

A few moments later the Nevada sheriff appeared in the office, red and angry, and with a pair of pink pajamas suspended scornfully from thumb and finger.

"Say," demanded the deputy sheriff, "isn't it bad enough to put me in another man's room, without putting me in a room with a pair of pink silk nightpants? I'm sore!"

The matter was explained, and the sheriff returned mollified, to sleep. But he didn't wear the pajamas!

The Insane Fighting Farmer Taken Through Disguise

Harlan, Iowa, 1903

The Fighting Farmer Taken

Sheriff Stewart and Aids Garbed As Farmers, Capture Arthur Sherlock Near Harlan

Harlan, March 14. — Sheriff Stewart, Ed Parker and Stod Wick went out to Polk township and nabbed the fighting insane man, Arthur Sherlock. He did not know Parker and Wick, who dressed as farmers and made him a proposition to purchase his cattle. Watching their chance the young men overpowered the insane man and put irons on him. He struggled so hard that he broke the first ones put on him. A revolver was found on his person. After the man was taken he laughed about the matter, saying that he had suspected the boys, but that his suspicions were a little too late. Sherlock has been at large on his place for some time, heavily armed and anxious to put cold lead into the sheriff and his deputy, whom he knew. He was taken to the state hospital at Clarinda.