The Judge and the Philosopher in the Tank
A local drunk arrested for public intoxication offers a colorful, philosophical defense to the judge, arguing that his lifestyle is a necessary pillar of the city's economy.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
I have seen some hard-looking cases here,' began his Honor as Abner Schofield limped out, 'but I think you cap the climax.' 'What ails me?' innocently inquired Abner. 'Well, you have a black eye, you are lame, ragged, unkempt, disconsolate looking and evidently all broke up. You are evidently a tough case.' 'Am I to blame cause I hain't adaisy?' queried Abner with a tremble in his tone. 'I'd like to be pretty and neat and all that, but how can I?' 'You can't be,' said his Honor in an absent way. 'There's got to be homely folks as well as pretty ones,' continued the prisoner, 'and if we were all eminent citizens there would be no eminent cellar-diggers. I know just how mean I look, but that's my natural gait. Besides, it doesn't look as bad for a man like me to get drunk and fall into a mud-puddle as it would for some of your local Catos and Platos.' 'I see, prisoner; but no one is obliged to get drunk.' 'Well, perhaps not; but if there was no demand for whisky the distilleries would go to the wall and there would be no business for your court. The farmer raises the corn, the distiller makes the whisky, the government gets its tax, I drink the stuff and you fix the fines, and in this way you run a free public library and make your workhouse pay a profit of $40,000 a year. See?'
“The farmer raises the corn, the distiller makes the whisky, the government gets its tax, I drink the stuff and you fix the fines.”
Abner's cynical argument—that the city relies on the 'vice tax' collected from its most vulnerable citizens—is a sharp critique of municipal finance. His words echo contemporary debates about how Seattle funds public services through sin taxes on alcohol and cannabis.
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