“Nature you going to do with me?” she demanded.
“I'm going to lock you up. So come along. Have had enough of you about here. Always drunk and in a row with somebody.”
Her resistance was making the policeman angry.
“It'll take two like you to do that,” returned the woman, in a spiteful voice, swearing foully at the same time.
At this a cheer arose from the crowd. A negro with a push-cart came along at the moment.
“Here! I want you,” called the policeman.
The negro pretended not to hear, and the policeman had to threaten him before he would stop.
Seeing the cart, the drunken woman threw herself back upon the pavement and set every muscle to a rigid strain. And now came one of those shocking scenes—too familiar, alas! in portions of our large Christian cities—at which everything pure and merciful and holy in our nature revolts: a gray-haired old woman, so debased by drink and an evil life that all sense of shame and degradation had been extinguished, fighting with a policeman, and for a time showing superior strength, swearing vilely, her face distorted with passion, and a crowd made up chiefly of women as vile and degraded as herself, and of all ages, and colors, laughing, shouting and enjoying the scene intensely.
At last, by aid of the negro, the woman was lifted into the cart and thrown down upon the floor, her head striking one of the sides with a sickening thud. She still swore and struggled, and had to be held down by the policeman, who stood over her, while the cart was pushed off to the nearest station-house, the excited crowd following with shouts and merry huzzas.
Mr. Dinneford was standing in a maze, shocked and distressed by this little episode, when a man at his side said in a grave, quiet voice,