Within a few days from my going into this court, I was confronted with the problem of what to do with violators of the city laws who had others dependent upon them for support. To impose a fine upon such persons would, if the fine were paid, ordinarily deprive the family of some of the necessaries of life. On the other hand, if the fine were not paid and the offender were committed to the House of Correction to work it out at the rate of fifty cents a day, not only would the family be deprived of their means of support during his imprisonment, but the defendant, when released, would be without employment or the ability then to provide for his family. I observed that frequently women whose husbands had been fined for beating them would go out and borrow money with which to pay the fine. It was very apparent that such proceedings operated most harshly upon the poor. A person able to pay a fine had comparatively little to fear if he violated the city laws, while inability to pay meant the loss of liberty twenty-four hours for each fifty cents of the fine and costs, which was nothing more or less than imprisonment for debt. _In the Homes of the "Repeaters"_ Persons were often brought before me who had been imprisoned many times and who were no better but obviously much worse as a result of such treatment. I found upon investigation that the city contained a very large number of these persons, who were known as "repeaters," and that the time of the police and the courts was much occupied in re-arresting and recommitting them to the House of Correction. Upon examining the records of this institution, I found that of the nine thousand persons imprisoned the previous year because of their inability to pay the fines imposed, _nearly one-half had been there from two to two hundred and one times each_. _Eighteen women had each served one hundred terms._ I was therefore convinced that this method of "correction" was not only harsh and unjust to the families of such persons, but was of no value as a corrective to the defendants themselves. Startled by such disclosures, I resolved to study conditions at close range and went into the homes of some of these offenders against the law, taking with me interpreters, for the great majority of them were foreigners. In many of these homes poverty had done its worst. Every surrounding influence favored undesirable citizenship; every turn presented flagrant violations of the law; the tumble-down stairways, the defective plumbing, the overflowing garbage boxes, the uncleaned streets and alleys, all suggested that laws were not made to be enforced. Many of the unfortunates whom I saw there regarded the law as a revengeful monster, a sort of Juggernaut that would work fearful ruin upon any one who got in its way, but otherwise was not a matter of concern. When I explained to them that the law was their friend and not their enemy, they did not appear to comprehend.