livered, y'understand, in
which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by
the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that
a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and
the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that
the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to
work and committed crimes."

"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't
misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.

"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even if the newspapers
wouldn't of printed the information, Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan
assume that burglars don't write each other letters occasionally, or,
anyhow, once in a while meet at lunch and talk over business matters?"

"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor Thompson, and a lot of other
Mayors, Senators, and people which is all the time getting into the
public eye in the same sense as cinders and small insects, Abe, always
blames the newspapers for everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked,
"because such people is always doing and saying things that when it gets
into the newspaper sounds pretty rotten even to themselves, understand
me, so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper is doing it
deliberately, and consequently they get a grouch on against all
newspapers."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse the police for not finding
out who sent them bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe said.
"It is now beginning to look, Mawruss, that the American police has
begun to act philosophically about crooks, the way the American public
has always done, and they shrug their shoulders and say, 'What are you
going to do with a bunch of crooks like that?'"

"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for not catching them
bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris said. "They've been so busy arresting people
for violations of the automobile and traffic laws that they 'ain't
hardly got time for nothing else, so you see what a pipe it is for
criminals, Abe. All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles
and stick to street cars, and they can rob, murder, and explode bombs,
and the police would never trouble them at all."

"But considering the number of people which gets arrested every day for
things like having in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss, or
smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree, or against the peace and
digni