The beneficent provisions to be found in most codes of criminal procedure, and particularly in that of the State of New York, while highly valuable under some circumstances, are of no avail to a defendant who has never heard of them. These are to the effect that the police must convey a message free of charge to the family or lawyer of every person arrested, that each prisoner is entitled as matter of law to a reasonable delay before being compelled to submit to a hearing, that he has the right to the services of counsel, and the further right to have a stenographic report of the evidence taken before the magistrate. The ordinary petty criminal is arrested without a warrant, often illegally, hustled to the nearest police court, put through a species of examination composed largely of invective and assertion on the part of the officer, found guilty, and “sent away” to the Island, without lawyer, adjournment, or notice to his family. “Off with his head!”—just like that! He isn’t presumed to be innocent at all. The “cop” tells him “to shut his mouth or he will knock his block off.” “I caught this feller doin’ so-and-so! He’s a lazy loafer, judge,” he says to the magistrate. The latter takes a look at the defendant, concludes that the officer is right, and off goes the prisoner to the workhouse. When it comes to the more important cases the accused is usually put through some sort of an inquisitorial process by the captain at the station-house. If he is not very successful at getting anything out of the prisoner the latter is turned over to the sergeant and a couple of officers who can use methods of a more urgent character. If the prisoner is arrested by head-quarters detectives, various efficient devices to compel him to “give up what he knows” may be used—such as depriving him of food and sleep, placing him in a cell with a “stool-pigeon” who will try to worm a confession out of him, and the usual moral suasion of a heart-to-heart(!) talk in the back room with the inspector.