Scenes in a Police Justice’s Court Room
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SCENE IN A POLICE JUSTICE'S COURT ROOM.—
It was Dickens, we think, who first became known as an author by his graphic delineations of life in the police-courts. And truly there is “ample room and verge enough” in these places for the exercise of the largest powers of wit and pathos and the rarest descriptive talent. Life’s drama is played there, on a miniature scale, and tears and laughter succeed each other just as they do on the larger stage. A morning spent in “looking on” at Clarry’s, or Feeks’, or Cornwell’s, or Blachley’s, or any of the city police-courts is time well bestowed, even though nothing were sought beyond the amusement of an idle hour.
Justice Cornwell, we believe, disposes of more business in this line than any of his brethren. Let us then look in, for a moment, at his quarters in the City Hall, and see what is going on. It is Monday morning, and there is an unusual number of cases to be gone through with. The room is crowded with spectators, some of them witnesses, some friends of the prisoners; and the atmosphere is close and anything but fragrant. Passing within the railing we come to a large space where the unlucky “arrests” are seated in melancholy array, facing the Justice and Clerk. Strolling about, or lolling in arm-chairs, are the policemen detailed for the Court, and hovering about like birds of prey are the regular legal habitues of the place, always on the look-out, with the sharpest kind of a scent, for anything in the shape of a fee, from a second-hand silver watch to a $25 “mint-drop.” This class answers to the “Tombs Shysters” of Gotham, but we will do them the justice to say that they are on the whole much more respectable and not half so unscrupulous. They are uniformly fluent in speech and make up in glibness what they lack in legal acquirements. However, no very complicated cases come up in these precincts, so that it does’nt matter greatly. One thing is certain, the business is a paying one for those who “know the ropes” and keep on the right side of the officials.
The prisoners, as they sit ranged in order before the Rhadamanthus on the bench, present every possible variety of size and complexion. Here are some half-dozen bull necked, low-browed rowdies who have been arrested for participating in a “free fight” in a porterhouse. These have evidently been up before, and care nothing for it. Next to them sits a poor, brutalized Irishman, an habitual drunkard, who has been fetched up for beating his wife. The sodden wretch, with blinking, blood-shot eyes and matted hair, sits shaking and shivering with suffering at the unwonted deprivation of his morning dram. Next him sits an old woman, denominated in the classic language of the police courts, a “Bummer,” who has just gone off, probably from the same cause, into a fit of what may be either hysterics or incipient delirium. The officer runs and brings a cup of water, and it is good to see that even here the spirit of womanly sympathy and kindness is not quite extinct, for two females who sit immediately behind the poor creature, support her head and bathe it with a pitying care—true women and good Samaritans they! Beside her a spruce and flashy youth is seated. He has been arrested for passing counterfeit money, and by his cool and self-satisfied air and the grin into which he occasionally breaks, in his whispered conversation with his counsel, it is easy to see that the proof against him is small and that he fully expects to get off, this time, to renew his depredations. Next to this chap, on whose sallow visage “thief” is written in legible characters, are perched two little boys whose ragged shoes, low as the bench is, do not touch the floor. These are fair specimens of the thousands who run about the streets, destitute, uncared for, and who are training for the State Prison and the gallows. The juveniles in question have been brought up for stealing brass and iron fixings from unoccupied houses, a very common theft among the youngsters who figure at these places, and who are encouraged in it by the junk-shop keepers. These are the staple of the cases brought up for disposal—assaults and batteries, wife-beatings and small thefts. Most of the business is done in a routine manner and disposed of in double quick time—and the rapidity with which $10 fines are inflicted upon the unfortunate “drunks” is only equalled by the rapidity with which they are not paid. But sometimes through this dreary, monotonous course of sin and crime, a ray of merriment will break, “something rich” will turn up, and Court, and spectators will grin as delightedly as did ever audience in Burton’s parquette. Of such a nature, invariably, are the rows among the women, in which scratching and hair-pulling are the most prominent features. Most of these feminine rows occur in “tenant houses” and cheap boarding establishments, and more merriment is sometimes to be extracted from these real-life affairs than from the most screaming farce.
Police Justices ought to be capital judges of human nature, for they certainly see it in all its imaginable varieties. We believe, in fact, that they are so. Whether the constant contemplation of such misery, degradation and wickedness tends to humanize and soften the character, is another question. But however that may be, a visit to one of these places is not without its lessons, and one will be apt to depart, not thanking God that he is “not as these Publicans,” but cherishing a wider charity and a deeper sympathy with the short-comings and frailties of our common humanity.