CHAPTER XII.
THE POLICE COURT.
My experience as a police court reporter is considerable, and in this sketch I propose to give the readers of The News a sketch of the Magistrate’s morning levee, in which those of the night who hawks come to grief during the hours of darkness appear to explain their shortcomings.
In the first place a description of the surroundings of the Police Court might, and doubtless will, be of interest to those who have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to visit the place and inspect it for themselves. The court room is not unlike court rooms all over the world. There is the raised dais for the presiding magistrate, there is the little pen in front and immediately below it for the clerk of the court. There is the table in front of that for the lawyers, the table for the reporters, the prisoners’ dock facing the magistrate, and the railing through the center of the room to keep back the great unwashed. To the right of and below the magistrate, behind a little screened desk, sits the deputy-chief or the inspector on duty, with the prisoners’ docket before him. And that is about all. The court opens with the regularity of clock-work at ten a.m. precisely, but the doors are unlocked at about half-past nine. Shortly afterwards
THE REGULAR HABITUES
of the court begin to arrive. People slip in by degrees and take their seats in that portion of the room reserved for the public. Here comes a poor, pale-faced woman, meanly clad and sick-looking, who with her thin, trembling hand vainly tries to conceal the mark over her eye dealt by her husband’s brutal fist. She has come to appear against him. There, as she sits nursing her griefs and wrongs, she unconsciously falls into that swaying motion peculiar to a woman who is nursing her child to sleep. Here comes a middle-aged man, whose hairs are already white, and whose face is seamed with lines. The sorrow and shame that he feels does not obliterate the expression of stern justice on his face. He has come to see what can be done for his rascal of a son who is charged with burglary. He would not have come of his own accord, he would have let justice take its course, but the cries and moanings of the nearly-crazed wife and mother, whom he has left at home, has driven him here. He has come for her poor sake. Here comes a plainly dressed and modest looking girl, who is sueing for her wages that she earned in the mean kitchen of some meaner man. The quarter to ten rings out and as Micky Free’s father would say “now the pop’lace” comes pouring in. They have been feasting their eyes on the Black Maria, which has just discharged its contents into the station below. They are white, speckled, saddle-colored and black. They are well and poorly dressed.
ALL OF THEM ARE UNSAVORY.
Meanwhile a more interesting class of habitues are fast arriving. The deputy chief walks in with a dignified mien with his docket under his arm, lays it on his little table, opens it, scrutinizes it, makes an alteration here and there, and then sits down. A few lawyers come through a side door in a great hurry, fling their bags down on the table, glance at the clock, look very much relieved, give the crowd behind the rail a sharp, shrewd glance which takes them in one and all, even to the gurgling baby in the arms of that woman with the wet red mouth and the big moist eye. The reporters come rushing in, glance over the docket, nod to the lawyers, whisper with a policeman, fling their paper on the table, borrow somebody’s knife and set about industriously sharpening their pencils. A couple of sergeants from the other stations arrive and consult with the deputy-chief. Three or four detectives come in briskly and confer with them. Then an inspector and some more sergeants and police come in and, standing erect, look about them with solemn and dignified air. The deputy critically compares his watch with the clock. A couple of policemen are immediately on the alert. It is four minutes to ten.
“Bring in the first two prisoners!”
The alert policemen go out and in an incalculably short time bring in two drunks, who are planted in the dock and told to sit down.
Says the deputy, “Is that John Smith and Reuben Robertson?”