“Oh, Brown,” says the magistrate, as if a bright thought struck him, “was the woman sober?”
“Well, I can’t swear that she was drunk,” said Brown, reluctantly.
This by no means helps to soothe the poor woman’s nerves, but it drives her to speak in her own behalf.
“Your worship,” she exclaims, “I was as sober as you are now”—she might have added, but she did not, “and a good deal more sober than policeman Brown.” “I did go to Phil. Bird’s, but it was to fetch my husband out, who had been inveigled in there, and had been led
into spending all the money he had, and getting drunk.”
“Well, my good woman, the publican must be protected. You should not have created a disturbance. I shan’t inflict a fine, but you must pay the costs. You may go down.”
And so the time of the magistrate is taken up; not one case out of ten comes to anything; but the officiousness of the police is shown; the lazy and good-for-nothing part of the public have a gratuitous entertainment provided for them, and the criminal class get an initiation into the secrets of the law, which robs it of its terrors, as in such matters it is especially true familiarity breeds contempt. Most of the lads and girls—especially the latter—placed at the bar, rather seem to like the excitement, and go before the bench in their best clothes and with their best looks, as they go to the gallery of the Victoria or the Sunday tea-garden.
THE EAGLE TAVERN
Is situated in an appropriate locality in the City-road, not far from a lunatic asylum, and contiguous to a workhouse. From time immemorial the Cockneys have hastened thither to enjoy themselves. Children are taught to say—
“Up and down the City-road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.”