In 1888, the attempt to exclude three colored men from a skating-rink at Binghamton, N. Y., led to a suit against the owner of the rink, and his conviction. The case[9] reached the Court of Appeals, where the constitutionality of the civil rights bill was upheld. "It is evident," said Justice Andrews in his decision, "that to exclude colored people from places of public resort on account of their race is to fix upon them a brand of inferiority, and tends to fix their position as a servile and dependent people." But despite the law and precedent, the civil rights bill is violated in New York. Occasionally colored men bring suit, but the magistrate dismisses the complaint. Usually the evidence is declared insufficient. A case of a colored man refused orchestra seats at a theatre is dismissed on the ground that not the proprietor but his employees turned the man away. A keeper of an ice-cream parlor, wishing to prevent the colored man from patronizing him, charges a Negro a dollar for a ten-cent plate. The customer pays the dollar, keeps the check, and brings the case to court. Ice-cream parlors are then declared not to come under the list of places of public entertainment and amusement. A bootblack refuses to polish the shoes of a Negro, and the court decides that a bootblack-stand is not a place of public accommodation, and refusal to shine the shoes of a colored man does not subject its proprietor to the penalties imposed by the law.[10] This last case was carried to the Court of Appeals, and the adverse judgment has led many of the thoughtful colored men of the city to doubt the value of attempting to push a civil rights suit. Litigation is expensive, and money spent in any personal rights case that attacks private business, whether the plaintiff be white or colored, is usually wasted. The civil rights law is on the books, and the psychological moment may arrive to insist successfully on its enforcement.