Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago; Political corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago
Some of these institutions are to be found in the rear of bakeries, in the
costly barns of the wealthy classes with coachmen as bartenders, and at
the gates of the silent cities of the dead.
They are a fruitful source of revenue to the police, and, consequently,
difficult of discovery, since their patrons must be well known as
non-squealers, and the police are too loyal to turn informers.
They exist in surrounding country towns and in classic neighborhoods, in
Evanston and Hyde Park particularly. Both of these localities are the
seats of institutions of learning; the Northwestern University at the one,
and the University of Chicago at the other.
A Lieutenant of Police was arrested for extorting money for protection
from the keeper of a blind pig in Hyde Park. It developed, in the course
of his trial, that he was to pay part of the insurance premium to a
brewery company. To such an extent has this blackmailing scheme gone, that
its proceeds are distributed not alone among patrolmen and superior police
officials, but also to brewing companies united in a trust affecting the
price and the quality of the poor man's beverage.
The national pastime of the Filipinos is of common occurrence in Chicago,
and escapes the watchful eyes of the police, although its uniformed
members pass the door of the saloon with which the principal pit is
connected. The entering crowds, and the crowing of "birds," never fail to
announce the on-coming of the main, except to sightless eyes and deafened
ears. No underground or out of hearing place is selected for these
exhibitions of cock fighting. They are held in the rear of saloons, or in
barns or stables connected therewith by covered ways of approach. One
geographical division of the city is generally pitted against the other.
Usually the indignant police, even with early information of the time and
place where and when this inhuman amusement is to be held, arrive upon the
scene when the fight has ended, the lights extinguished, and the sports
scattered. Although the city council possesses the charter power to
prevent these disgraceful combats, that power remains unacted upon, and
the offense falls within the definition of disorderly conduct, the penalty
prescribed by ordinance, upon conviction for that offense, being a fine of
from one to one hundred dollars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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