In reality, the Police under Tammany abetted crime and
protected the vicious. This they did, not because they had any
special hostility to Virtue--they probably knew too little about
it to form a dispassionate opinion any way--but because Vice paid
better. They held the cynical view that human nature will always
breed a great many persons having a propensity to licentious or
violent habits; that laws were made to check and punish these
persons, and that they might go their pernicious ways unmolested
if the Police took no notice of them. So the Police established a
system of immunity which anybody could enjoy by paying the price.
Notorious gambling-hells "ran wide open" after handing the
required sum to the high police official who extorted it.
Hundreds of houses of ill-fame carried on their hideous traffic
undisturbed, so long as the Police Captain of the district
received his weekly bribe. Gangs of roughs, toughs, and gunmen
pursued their piratical business without thinking of the law, for
they shared their spoils with the supposed officers of the law.
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