Yet in the case of every person thus arrested
and driven out of the town he has undoubtedly violated
constitutional rights and taken the law into his own hands.
What redress can a penniless tramp secure against a stout
inspector of police able and willing to spend a considerable
sum of money in his own defence, and with the entire force
ready and eager to get at the tramp and put him out of
business? He swallows his pride, if he has any, and ruefully
slinks out of town for a period of enforced abstinence from
the joys of metropolitan existence. Yet who shall say that,
in spite of the fact that it is a theoretic outrage upon
liberty, this cleaning out of the city is not highly
desirable? One or two comparatively innocent men may be
caught in the ruck, but they generally manage to intimate to
the police that the latter have "got them wrong" and duly make
their escape. The others resume their tramp from city to
city, clothed in the presumption of their innocence.
Since the days of the Doges or of the Spanish Inquisition
there has never been anything like the morning inspection
or "line up" of arrested suspects at the New York police
head-quarters.
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