"What's the charge?" he inquired of the officer, who presented himself as prosecutor.
"Soliciting."
"All right, prefer it."
"Your honor, Judge. I found these young women hanging around Dewitt and Carlton streets this morning about one o'clock, and advised them to 'beat' it. They disappeared for a spell, but at a quarter past two they were out again, and I heard them and saw them accost several men who happened to be coming from work. Presently a couple halted, and a few minutes later the four disappeared within a rooming house. I had been watching this house, and was positive it was crooked. I followed them a little later, and when I was inside, I looked about for a clerk and register that I did not find. Then I overheard talking in low tones in a couple of the rooms. When I knocked on the door, all was quiet and the doors were not opened. I then demanded the doors be opened in the name of the law. A scrambling followed, I heard windows go up, and a little later men hit the ground below. When I entered the rooms I found these young women alone, and put them under arrest."
The court room was very silent. All eyes were upon the prisoners. The fact that the girls were both beautiful seemed to provoke the judge, and he was very cold of demeanor.
"What excuse have you to offer for such acts of indiscretion?" he inquired presently, and eyed them severely.
They both burst out crying and clung to each other, which made a very pathetic picture. "We wasn't doing anything, Mr. Judge. Not anything. We lived there and the men were our husbands," said one, while the other cried woefully. The recorder eyed them critically, before speaking in a tone of extreme severity:
"Why, then, did they jump out the windows and run away.... Don't you think that was very cowardly for husbands?"
"O-oh," they cried now like two poor souls about to enter purgatory. They almost made others cry, too. But the judge was unbending. He looked forbidding, and as cold as steel as he said:
"Young women like you two should exercise more discretion. If you must conduct yourselves to the disgrace of the community in such manner, you should keep off the streets with your men at such ungodly hours. I am, therefore, going to impose a fine of $10 and costs upon each of you for delinquency. Next!"