[City documents, 1847-1867]

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City Document — No. 3.

REPORT

COMMITTEE

POL ¢ he ¢ OUR

ROXBURY:
NORFOLK COUNTY JOURNAL PRESS.
1855.

CITY OF ROXBURY.

In BoarRD oF ALDERMEN, January 29, 1855.
Read, laid upon the table, and ordered to be printed.

JOSEPH W. TUCKER; City Clerk.

The Joint Committee of the Board of Aldermen and Com-
mon Council, to whom was referred so much of the
Inaugural Address of his Honor the Mayor, as refers to
the establishment of a Police Court, respectfully

REP ORE:

TxHat they have duly considered that subject, and are
unanimously of the opinion, that public good and private
interest, so far as the latter is connected with a speedy
and intelligent administration of the law, require the estab-
lishment of a Police Court in this city.

To such tribunal would be committed jurisdiction over
criminal and civil cases. And in each of these departments
it is highly necessary that a uniform practice should pre-
yail, that the interpretation of the law should also be.
uniform, and that parties, often in their character and in-
terests most deeply interested in its decisions, should feel
assured that their fate or their property is dependent on a
tribunal, combining with integrity of purpose, talent, learn-
ing in the law, judicial sagacity and discrimination.

The Bill of Rights of this Commonwealth recognises the
claim of the citizen to speedy administration of justice. Of
the abuses which have made the ministry of the law obnox-
ious to criticism and reproach, a prominent one has been the
delay of the courts on whose action depends the acquittal
of the innocent, or the conviction and punishment of the
guilty. A Police Court, open at all times, and vested with
criminal jurisdiction extensive, or nearly so, as that of the
Court of Common Pleas, would at once determine cases

£

which are now subjected to lone delay, awaiting the regu-
lar session of the Court of Common Pleas. Persons
charged with crime are now held for trial by order of a
justice of the peace, and in want of bail for their appear-
ance at Dedham, are confined in jail; and thus, whether
guilty or innocent, are subjected to penalty before trial.
The intercourse thereupon had with persons already under
sentence, cannot fail to demoralize the young: the confine-
ment is unjust to those who may be found innocent, and
even to the guilty it may be deemed hard, if not unjust, as
not being an adjudged penalty for guilt. The prompt
action of a court sittmg in our midst would obviate this
inconvenience and wrong.

It is deemed, too, that the convenience of parties and
witnesses would be greatly promoted, and the expense to
- individuals having business in the court would be reduced
by the proximity of the tribunal to the place of their resi-
dence. Such a court as is proposed, having cognizance
not only of violations of the criminal law, but also having
jurisdiction to the amount of one hundred dollars in civil
cases, and of some forms of action affecting title to real
estate, ought to be convenient of access to a population
of nearly 20,000 people, over whom its jurisdiction would
reach.

The proximity of our city to Boston makes it the ready
retreat of the dissolute and the reckless from that
place: foreigners, who constitute a large part of our pop-
ulation, and whose names are found in rank luxuriance and
disproportion on the records of all our criminal courts,
afford the same materials for disorder and punishment in
our community, that they do in every other in the land.
An efficient, learned and dignified court would do much to
repress and to prevent the commission of crime by this
class of our population.

The experience of other cities in which city courts were
early established, has been satisfactory; and where there

5

has been discontent, it has been caused by personal consid-
erations, sometimes narrow, rather than by any radical de-
fect in the system. Police Courts now exist in Salem,
Newburyport, Lawrence, Milford, Haverhill, Lowell, Cam-
bridge, Worcester, Blackstone, Springfield, Adams, New
Bedford, Fall River, and perhaps some other towns and
cities.

Upon looking te the question of expense, your commit-
tee is of opinion, that the change proposed would be of no
cost to the city, and probably would be the means of con-
siderable saving. The returns of the last year, in the
office of the Secretary of State, show 591 criminal procced-
ings in the city of Roxbury. Estimating the magistrates’
fee at $3 in each case, the amount of justices’ fees during
the year would have been $1773, not including fees in eivil
cases.* Perhaps it would not be desirable that the Justice
of the Police Court should be paid by the fees received in
his office. The usage seems to be in favor of an honorable
and fixed salary. But as it is not probable that the amount
of it would be so high as $1700, and as the costs taxed
for the magistrate in civil as well as criminal cases would
then be paid into the city treasury, it is obvious that there
are no economical objections to the measure.

Your Committee are aware of a feeling in the commu-
nity opposed to the creation of offices, and to increasing
the machinery of the law. This is a laudable feeling; it
is a healthy jealousy. It is one of the safeguards of lib-
erty. Let it always be respected: in its healthy action let
it be cultivated. But although the maxim that “power is
daily stealing from the many to the few,’ should set us
ever on our guard against abuses, still it must be admitted
that it is for the benefit of the many that power is en-

* Besides those cases which are included in the returns, there has been
a large number of prosecutions for violation of the liquor law, instituted
elsewhere. In ascertaining the amount of business, these should be con-
sidered, as they would be brought before a Police Court.

6

trusted to the few. To this complexion must it come at
last. i

In uncivilized or despotic countries the people have but
few rights, and there is but little law. The forms of
the latter are simple, its ministers are few, its practice
summary. As popular rights are developed and acknowl-
edged, laws increase, and the officers and apparatus for an-
nouncing and enforeing them likewise increase. Civilization
and commerce advance, the ingenuity of enterprise projects
new forms of business and nicer subtleties in contracts.
The law must keep pace with this progress of the chang-
ing community: and so, that arrangement for ascertaining,
defining and enforcing the rights of the citizen, whose sim-
plicity was well enough adapted to the wants of society
in its primitive form, having accomplished its mission,
ceases to be further appropriate or useful, and should give
way to something more in harmony with the progress of,
and corresponding to the wants of modern times.

In conclusion, your Committee would say, that they have
examined a law for the establishment of a Police Court in
the city of Roxbury, passed by the last General Court, but
which, not having been accepted by the citizens of Rox-
bury, did not go into effect, and they recommend that the
Mayor be requested to procure the passage of a similar
act by the Legislature now in session.

For the Committee,
CHARLES BUNKER, Chairman.

In BoarD oF ALDERMEN, Jan. 29, 1855.

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