Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/129

 tall young girl by that time, came to tell me that her mother was dead. Maria had started down town with her husband, on Christmas Eve, to buy the gifts for her children, and in the heavy snow that was falling a defective sidewalk was hidden, and Maria was thrown to the ground and so hurt that she died. Her last words to her daughter had been, so the girl said, "See Mr. Whitlock; he'll do what should be done." Her heirs had a clear case against the city, but I had just been elected mayor that autumn and could not prosecute such a claim. Another lawyer did so, and got damages for the children, and even for the husband, and with these funds in a trust company's keeping the shoemaker educated all the children. And he wore about his hat the thickest hand of heavy crêpe that I ever saw.

It seemed to annoy, and in some cases even to anger, those whom I told of my resolution not to prosecute anyone any more. They would argue about it with me as if it made some real difference to them; if every lawyer and every man were so to decide, they said, who was to proceed against the criminals, who was to do the work of purifying and regenerating society? It has always been, of course, a most interesting and vital question as to who is to do the dirty work of all kinds in this world; but their apprehensions, as I could assure them, were all unfounded, since there are always plenty of lawyers, and always plenty of them who are not only willing but anxious to act as prosecutors, and to put into their work that energy and enthusiasm which the schools of efficiency urge upon the youth