POLICE HOLDOVER WAS
EMPTY FOR ONE HOUR.
For First Time in Memory of the
Captain in Charge There.
For one hour, between 4 and 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, the holdover at police headquarters was empty and the doors unlocked and opened wide. Never before in the memory of Captain Walter Whitsett, in charge at the station, has such a thing happened, and the captain was both joyful and sad.
The large cell rooms had a deserted and almost dejected appearance themselves. Lying on the floor of one of the cells was a battered derby hat, brown once, but black now. Close by it lay two paper bags which contained some remnants of sandwiches, and in another cell was one old shoe pointing towards the open door.
The jailer picked up a broom and with a quick stroke, brushed all of the trash out into the corridor and the place made neat, if not clean, for the next batch of prisoners.
As the officers on day duty stepped into the station to report, they were told of the wonderful happenings, and straightway endeavored to find someone to arrest, even if it was only a plain drunk. Officer Robert Hoskins was the lucky man, for just as his watch was pointing to five minutes of 5 o'clock, he heard a woman's screams come from a house at 9 East Seventh street. Upon investigation he found a man, drunk and disturbing the peace.
Exultantly the patrolman marched his prisoner to the nearest call box and summoned the patrol wagon. When it arrived he asked the driver to make the trip to the station as quickly as possible, for there was a chance that his was the first arrest since the jail cleaning. And so it was. At 5 o'clock the arrested man had been books as "drunk and disturbing the peace" under the name of Cole McCormack. After that the officers began bringing prisoners in two at a time, until the old holdover resumed its normal appearance and the inmates, rejoicing over the neatness of the place, whistled and sang and made music on frenchharps to their hearts' content, and the dismay of the police officers.
