"SO FAIR AND FOUL"

New York City may be, perhaps, trying to create a reputation for naughtiness which will vie, in attracting visitors, with Paris in summer. At any rate another of those periodic dust clouds about immoral plays has ascended on the zephyrs of Manhattan where jaded country business men, both far and near, may see it. Apparently there has been no official statement of which plays are naughty and whether they are really naughty. In spite of this, the city is filled with a mighty hustle and hurly-burly of reformers, and a general movement of those who might be responsible to get out from under. With the first delicious whisper of sin, there came the sound of drums and whirring grindstones and lo, some seven self-constituted investigating agencies appeared in full panoply of war, headed by that battle-scarred veteran, John R. Sumner, the superintendent of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

But the District Attorney of New York is not dazzled by this array of flashing, pin-point eyes and whetted consciences. Nor is he to be caught entrusting his city's character to a body of plain civilians like the Play Jury. No people except the New York Police are proper stuff for cleaning out the theatres, nobody but the Grand Jury is capable of judging and handling this rottenness in the body politic. The explanation for this stand is plain; the city government means to recruit more policemen, whether by fair means or foul.