The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-09

thAt may happen between the hearing OF cases
In the afternoon. The Herald, indeed, always
has reporter there all the time; but then the
Herald is the only newspaper that keeps a
reporter stationed at each of the four police
courts. viz:-The Tombs, Essex Market, Jeffel-
son Market, and Yorkvllle At the Tombs,
as indeed at all the police courts,
the Herald, the Tribune. the Tines the World,
the EtentnD Post. the EUe1linO Express, and the
Commercial, generally OBTAIN substantially the
same account of whatever has been transacted.
The police reporters OF these respective papers
form a ring of themselves, and micsbly assist
each other. am sure the veteran reporter for
Il 9 Herald at the Tombs is too well disposed
not TO assist any one, although IL is the maxim
enforced by the journal he represents-it Is the
ext ress command of the ruthless j. G. B. him
self-LhRt no reporter or correspondent con-
nected with the Herald is TO give any assis anoe
to the reporter or correspondent OF any other
newspaper, on pain of instant dismissal. 1t Is
the representatives OF the smaller papers who
are excluded from this ring, and who often
obliged to travel a very hard road not to be
beaten, and yet find themselves beaten at last
The ring" meets in little room of its own
over the Coroner's office, and there exchanges
notes.
Bthiud the Justices desk, at the Tombs, is a
door leading TO small private examination.
room, where cases are Investigated which are
of too dark. or delicate, or indellcate nature
to bear treatment in the general court. room, or
which, having been deferred from time to time,
have grown tedious with long delay. Some.
times W. eks pass by without any case OF more
than ordinary interest transplring either In the
large courtroom or the private ex-
aminRtion-room beyond. Then, every
crime that can be conceived of
under heaven puts In an appearance, and keeps
magistrate, and clerks, and reporters equally
busy. Yet much that is painful may be seen at
q chance visit. Such faces of sick mothers car
rying sick babies without the power to nourish
them. Such dreadful expressions of precocious
sin on the features of girls and boys scarcely in
their teens! Such mournful pictures of servile
hypocrisy and hoary gloating over evil c0urses
such repeated indications that this world OF
ours, in the boastful nineteenth century, is no
better in some things, than in the days of old,
when the Lord repented him of the evil, aud
sought to purge his new creation by floods of
water and showers of fire!
AS you stand facing the Justices desk, there
is a fence OF twisted iron on your left hand,
some twelve feet square, 1t is furnished with
wooden benches without backs, and on these
benches sit the men and women awaiting trial
the sexes being separated by a twisted iron par
tition. This stronghold is frequently the scene
OF combat between prisoners, the women espe-
cially seeming utterly unable to withstand the
temptation to jeer at one another's tonsorial
arrangements. and finally to attempt the
mutual Gemoishment of water
Women with bound and bleeding heads
pleading with the judge in behalf of the hus-
bands who have thus misused them, are among
the most frequent petitioners at his bar. Girls
who have been found by their parents at i'm
proper houses and who seem utterly hardened
10 the exhibition OF aIenial grief, also
among the most frequent visitors. But think
the most painful sight ever saw there, was
the agony of a grey h aired father, whose son, q
singularIy prepossessing boy of scarcely seven
tee IL, had been convicted of obtaining money
under false pretenses. To see that old man
with tears in his eyes pleading first
with the magistrate that the boy
might be discharged, ald then with reporters,
one after another, that the names might be
suppressed, was less painful, In its way,
than the brilliant disregard of the young scape-
grace himself who, with the wit and selEpos-
session of scamp of sixty, artfuIy represented
TO the newspaper people that, after all, it was
only q matter OF rivalry between them, and
that sooner or later his innocence would be
established, and their injustice shown up in
giving credence to his guilt The picture of
that artless old man, and that artful boy, has
haunted me from then TIL now, though have
passed more than one day at the Tombs since
ALI ABA.