The Mayor's Quick Cash Scheme
A satirical look at a Western town's mayor who used the city marshal to arrest citizens solely to collect court fines and fund his poker game.
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.
The mayor of a Western town was playing a small game of draw in his office with the city marshal, the editor, the hotel keeper and a councilman. At first the mayor was in great luck and piled the chips up around him a foot thick; then he began slipping. The other fellows were in to clean him out, and wouldn't lend him a cent. 'Boys,' he said, 'will you allow me fifteen minutes in which to make a raise?' Tom, the marshal, skipped out on the street and arrested somebody quick and brought him here. The mayor looked the man over. 'What's the charge Mr. Officer?' he said, sternly. 'Drunk and disorderly, your honor.' 'Ten dollars and costs,' decided the mayor. And the prisoner pulled out a tenner and rolled out of the room. 'Gentlemen,' said the mayor to the company, 'I have a few minutes left, but I shall not ask your further indulgence. Give me ten dollars' worth of chips.' And the mayor, gently but firmly, swiped the pot.
“Give me ten dollars' worth of chips.”
While presented here as a light, satirical anecdote about political graft, it highlights the historic reality of 'fee-based' policing, where municipal budgets and official pockets were often lined by predatory arrests. It reminds us of how the machinery of the law can be weaponized against the vulnerable for the benefit of the powerful.
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