214 Urdahl—The Present Fee System in the United States. 
to continue the life which he has begun. Public charity and 
philanthropy are all well and good, provided they accomplish 
their purpose, but that does not justify a system which takes 
thousands out of the public treasury without benefiting a single 
vagrant. The tramp is simply used as an instrument for tak¬ 
ing money in the shape of fees out of the pockets of the public, 
and putting them into the fee-paid officer’s purse. 1 But a very 
small part is used to feed the tramp, and this small part does 
him and the community more harm than good. 
B. FEES IN POLICE COURTS, AND CRIME. 
Until quite recently both the police force and the municipal 
courts in most of our large cities were supported more or less 
by fees and fines, under the mistaken idea that the main func¬ 
tion of police officer was to catch criminals, and that the func¬ 
tion of courts was to pronounce sentence on them when caught. 
It was also supposed that these public officials would perform 
their duties more efficienty if impelled by self-interest. This 
conclusion seems reasonable enough at first blush, but the 
trouble is that it is based on absolutely false premises. The 
great and primary function of a police officer is not the appre¬ 
hension of criminals, but the repression of crime. Paying a 
police office according to the number of arrests made, is about 
like paying a teacher according to the number of floggings he 
has inflicted. 
Not only that, but we have a large body of men whose “ bread 
and butter ” depends on having the laws violated, although they 
are themselves its ministers. The idea never seems to have oc¬ 
curred that there was any danger of over-officiousness on the 
part of any official. The more criminals caught, the better, it 
is said. True!—but have we any guarantee that the police will 
catch only actual criminals? What is to prevent him from mak- 
1 Prom counties having tramp workshops come reports that they are 
empty most of the time, because the justices are pecuniarily interested in 
the vagrant, and thus fail to sentence them to the work-house. Thus the 
fee-system becomes, indirectly at least, the cause of the failure of this so¬ 
lution of the tramp problem. 
