"What should you two be fighting for?" another judge, another morning, says to two very battered women, one white and one colored, who come before him in court. And talking kindly to both, but with greater seriousness to the Irish offender, his own countrywoman, he sends them away with a reprimand. How much of this unequal treatment comes from color prejudice or caprice or temperament, the Negro is unable to decide, but he soon learns one curious fact: while his black skin marks him as inheriting Republican politics, it is the Democratic magistrate, the Tammany henchman whose name is a byword to the righteous, who is the more lenient when he has committed a trifling offence. "Didn't I play craps with the nigger boys when I was a kid?" one of these well-known politicians says, "and am I going back on the poor fellows now?" Of course, the Negro is assured such men only want his vote, but he believes real sympathy actuates the Tammany leader, who is too busy to bother whether the man before him is black or white. The reformer, on the other hand, big with dignity, at times makes him vastly uncomfortable as he lectures upon the Negro problem from the eminence of the superior race. But whether Republican or Democrat, the Negro learns that it is well to have a friend at court; that helplessness is the worst of all disabilities, worse than darkness of skin or poverty. So he soon becomes acquainted with his local politician, and if his friend is in trouble, or his wife or son is locked up, pounds vigorously at the politician's door. It may be midnight, but the man of power will dress, and together they will turn from the dark tenement hall into the lighted street and on to the police-station or magistrate's court to seek release for the offender. That too often the gravity of the offence weighs little in the securing of lenient treatment is part of the muddle of New York justice. The Negro finds that he has taken the most direct way to secure relief. As far as we have followed, we have found the municipality of New York generally ready to treat her black citizens with the same justice or injustice with which she treats her whites. Exceptions occur, but she does not often draw the color line. Perhaps, in this connection, it might be well to stop a moment and see what return the black man makes, whether by his vote he helps secure to the city honest and efficient government.