- pealed all laws prescribing different punishment for
Negroes.
The following interesting bit of news is taken from an Associated Press report of July 21, 1909: "Mobile, Ala.—The commissioners to-day established a curfew law for Negroes. Commencing to-night, all the blacks must be at home or in bed at 10 P.M. Any of them caught wandering at large will be locked up. This action is due to an epidemic of hold-ups perpetrated by Negroes."
A recent instance of race distinction in the court room seems to come from New York. A Pullman porter, named Griffin, was arrested in Montreal, charged with stealing a pocket-book, but the charge was not substantiated and he was released. He thereupon brought suit against Daniel F. Brady, who caused his arrest, and obtained a verdict for two thousand five hundred dollars in damages. The Supreme Court of New York reduced the damages from two thousand five hundred dollars to three hundred dollars. Upon an appeal by Griffin, the appellate division of the Supreme Court sustained the order reducing the damages. The following is a part of the opinion of Judge Drugo of the Supreme Court[72] whose order was sustained: "You cannot say that he [Griffin] is just the same as a white man, when you come to say how much his name will suffer. He might suffer more. But, after all, what are the probabilities about it? Is it likely that when a colored man is arrested and imprisoned he feels just as much shame as a white man of any circumstance might?
"I think if you were to take the Mayor of the city and arrest him he would feel very much more humiliated than
