That part of the city south of Jackson boulevard to Sixteenth street, and from State street on the east to the river on the west, embraces the tough part of the second precinct of the second police district. In the year 1897 of the total number of arrests of women and girls in the city, 17,624 in number, 8,957, or over 50 per cent, were, as the police term it, "run in" from this police district. How often the same women were arrested and re-arrested it is impossible to say, or whether they were "pinched" oftener than once in the same night. Of this latter number 7,364 were discharged by the magistrates, but the larger number contributed one dollar each to the justice for signing a bail bond for their appearance for trial. In addition, 300 women, known as "women lodgers," were also "run in" in this district in 1897. Of these unfortunates 1,746 were fined; 140 held to the criminal court; 193 released on peace bonds; 209 sent to the house of correction; 10 held as witnesses; 10 were insane; 7 destitute, and 23 were sick and sent to the hospital. Of this total number of arrests of women and women lodgers, 9,257 in number, in this police district in 1897, only 2,288, or about 39 per cent were convicted of offenses by police magistrates, while 61 per cent of them were discharged. Of the total number of persons arrested throughout the city in 1897, 83,680 in number, 55,020 were discharged by the police courts, 18,017 were fined, 4,138 held on criminal charges, and 2,947 bound over to keep the peace. The remainder were sent to various homes, refuges, asylums and humane societies. Over 50 per cent of those arrested were discharged. The percentage of those who furnished bail for their appearance, it is difficult to ascertain. That the practice exists is too well known to be proven, that a division of these bail bond fees is made between the magistrate and the police; the police furnishing the victims, the straw bailor his signature to, and the justice his approval of, the bond. The latter collects his fee and divides with the officers, while the straw bailor exacts his compensation in proportion to the ability of the victim to pay, then hands over a share to the arresting officers. That such persecution should exist in a civilized community is a disgrace to its civilization, that public officers should, for one moment, be permitted to engage in such hideous traffic in the liberties of their fellows, is a scandal upon the administration of justice, and that executive officers of the law, sworn to its enforcement, should be ignorant of the infamy of such arrests, or knowingly permit them to be made, is malfeasance in office, and subversion of civil rights.