Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-20
At the Police Court.

{By w. D. Howe1ls in the January Atlantic.l The witnesses were generally more inter esting than the parties to the suits, thought, and could not get tired of my fellow spec times I liked to consider the hungry grav- | ity of their countenances, as they listened to l the facts elioited, and to speculate as to the ultimate effect upon their moral natures-or | their immoral natures of the gross and pal pablo shocks daily imparted to them by the I details of vice and crime. have tried to treat my material lightly and entertainingly, as true reporter should, but would not have my reader suppose that did not feel i the essential cruelty of an exhibition that | tore its poor rags from all that squal1d shame, and it's mask from all that lying, covering guilt, or did not suspect how it must harden and deprave those whom it daily entertained. As dwelt upon the dull vis- ages of the spectators, certain spectacles vaguely related themselves to what saw; the women who sat and knitted at the sessions of the Revolutionary tribunals of Paris, and overwhelmed with their clamor the judges feeble impulses to mercy i; ish bull-fght and the Roman arena. Here the same clements were held in absolute siIence,-debarred even from icon versation, but it was impossible not to feel that here in degree were the conditions that trained men to demand blood, to rave for the guillotine, to turn down the thumb. This procession of misdeeds, passing under their eyes day after day, must leave miasm of moral death behind it, which no prison or workhouse can hereafter cure. We all kno W ] that the genius of our law is publicity; but ! it may be questioned whether criminal trials may not be as proftably kept private as hangings, the popular attendance on which was once supposed to be bulwark Of rellg- ion and morality.
 Not that there was any avoidable brutality, or even indecorum, in the conduct of the trials that saw. A spade was necessarily called a spade; but it seemed to me that with all the waste of time and foreign alloy the old Puritan seriousness was making itself felt even here, and subduing the tone of the procedure to 8 grave deceRcy consonant with the inquiries of Justice. For it was really justice that was administered, so far as I could see and justice that was by no means blind, but very open-eyed and keen-slghted. The causes were decided by one man, from evidence usually extracted out of writhing re- luctance or abysmal stupidity, and the judg- ment must be formed and the sentence given where the magistrate sat, amid the confusion of the crowded room. Yet, except in the case of my poor thief, I did not see him hes itate and did not doubt his wisdom-I an far from pronouncing his sentence unjust even in that case. His decisions seemed to me the result of most patient and wonder fully rapid cogitation, and in dealing with the witnesses he never lost his temper amid densities of dullness which it is quite impos- sible to do more than indicate. If it were necessary, for example, to establish the fact that handkerchief was white, it was not to be done without some such colloquy as this
 .ssWas it white handkerchief ?"
 ssSor ?''
 ssWas the handkerchief white 2n
 'sWas it white. ser ?''
 'sYes, was it white p
 stWas what white, sor ?'
 .'The handkerchief, was the handkerchief white 2'
 ssWhat handkerchief, sor ?"
 ssThe handkerchief you just mentioned,- the handkerchief the defendant dropped"
 sI didn't see it, sor."
 tsDidn,t see the handkerchief? ?"
 seDidn,t see him drop it, sor."
 s.WelI did you see the handkerchief ?"
 ssThe handkerchief, sor? Oh, yes, sor I saw it-I saw the hG7sdEeschsef.
 stWeIl was it eolsite ?''
 ssIt was. sor.n
 A boy who complained of another for as- saultine him said that he knocked him down.
 aHow did he knock you down ?n asked the judge. t'Did he knock you down with his fist or his open hand p
 ssYes, sor.n
 (Which did he do it with ?"
 ssPut his arms rounds me and knocked me down.