A shyster who practices at Jefferson Market secured $75.00 from a prisoner on the strength of a promise to get him out of prison in two days. After he received the money he never came near him again. This is very common police court ethics. When this same prisoner came to the Tombs he fell into the hands of another legal shark, who on the strength of a solemn promise to get him free within forty-eight hours, or at the furthest in a few days, made him sign over $80 cash which he had in the savings bank. When this last lawyer secured all his money he left him in the lurch like shyster No. 1. I know all about this case and am of the opinion that both of these lawyers should have been sent to prison and the defendant set free. A man charged with murder and afterwards sent to the death house was given a lawyer through a “steering policeman.” The prisoner had just come out of the coroner’s office when the cop informed him that a lawyer would be sent to him by one of his friends, although he did not have a friend in the country. In less than an hour a young East Side “shyster” came to the Tombs, had him sign a paper retaining him as his attorney, and in this way secured the State’s allowance of five hundred dollars for the prisoner’s defense. This was the man’s ruin. The policeman doubtless shared the profits of iniquity with the lawyer when he fastened him on his victim. When the case came to trial the poor fellow was convicted by his own lawyer. A poor Sicilian named Antonio fell into the clutches of a young Italian “shyster.” It was a homicide case, but the prisoner was only guilty of assault or at most manslaughter in the second degree. “For a hundred dollars,” said the “shyster,” “I will get you clear.” Antonio paid the money—all he had in the world. In a few weeks his lawyer brought him to court and made him plead guilty to murder in the second degree, so as to get rid of the case, and he was then and there sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then the lawyer disappeared. Such frauds ought to be disbarred and also jailed. Another prisoner now in Sing Sing gave a hundred dollars to a lawyer with an unsavory reputation who frequently does business in Yorkville Court. The money was all the man was able to raise among his friends, and it was given with the full understanding that it would pay for his examination in the police court and his trial in General Sessions. That was the last the prisoner ever saw of that shyster. The prisoner wrote to him a number of times, asking him to fulfill his promise and defend him, but he paid no attention to his letters. Finally the prisoner in his desperation was compelled to ask a charity lawyer to defend him. The shyster got his money and that was all he cared for. If anybody else had swindled a man in such a manner he would be sent to the penitentiary for a year, but lawyers are allowed to rob people at will and nothing is done to them.