TABLE NUMBER XVIIIShowing the Number of Married and Single People Arrested; Also Showing the Sex.TotalNo.1914-15Male FemaleTotalNo.1916-17Male FemaleTOTAL1914-15 1916-17Single1024194226925612182525Married3951614281395565671419355269739517743092
TABLE NUMBER XVIII
Showing the Number of Married and Single People Arrested; Also Showing the Sex.
That there should be a big increase in the visitation of disorderly houses is to be expected. As we have seen, the migration is as yet largely that of single men and of men who have left their families behind them. As with the other foreign groups who have migrated to America, there is an entire break up of the normal family standard. It is therefore inevitable that with higher wages and with the prevailing housing and rooming congestion vice should flourish. The fact that in spite of the tremendous increase in disorderly houses there is some decline in arrests on charges of prostitution can be interpreted only in terms of the laxity and tolerance of the police department. This also accounts for the fact that while during the seven months of 1914-1915 five gambling houses were raided and thirty-one persons were arrested for gambling, there were no raids or arrests during the same period this year.
The big increase in arrests on charges of felonious cutting, pointing firearms, and carrying concealed weapons, may be explained in a variety of ways. Since the post bellum days, the carrying and handling of arms in the South was sanctioned socially. The whites have carried, and in some places are still carrying these weapons with them. The Negro, whether because of his habit of imitating the whites or because he has learned the lesson of protecting and defending himself, has also acquired the habit of carrying weapons. Being too poor or too timid in the South to purchase a revolver or similar dangerous weapon, he had to content himself with a knife or a razor.
Immediately upon the Negro’s arrival in Pittsburgh, and as soon as he gets off the train, his attention is called to these means of defense which are profusely displayed in the show windows of second hand stores near the stations. These arms are tempting to his primitive instinct of display, and being unfamiliar with conditions in this city—still thinking in terms ofthe Southern environment—he considers these things a necessity. As they can be obtained easily, he manages to purchase one of these weapons at the first opportunity. That the lynchings, riots and mistreatments should not teach him a lesson of self-defense and the need for such weapons would be incredible. It may also be added that the Southern Negro does not consider cutting another Negro an offense against the law. Such cutting was frequently practiced in the South and arrest did not follow. It may therefore not be strange to learn that on several occasions, when arraigned on charges of felonious cutting, these migrants expressed great surprise when they learned that their offense involved a jail or workhouse sentence.