The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-01-18
At the Police Court.

interesting tnan tine partleS 20 the suits,
1 thought, and could not get tired Of
my fellow-spectators,. 1 suppose, If 1
went q great many times. I liked to
consider the hungry gravity of their
countenances, rs they listened to the
fasts ELECTED, and to speculate as to the
ultimate effect upon their moral natures
OR their immoral natures-of the
gross and palpable shocks daily impart-
ed TO them by the details of vice and
crime. l have tried to treat my material
lightly and entertainingly, as true re-
porter should, but would not have my
reader suppose that did not feel the
essential cruelty of an exhibition that
tore its poor rags from all that squalid
shame, and its 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 visages of the spectators, certain
spectacles vaguely related themselves to
what l saw: tho women who sat and
knitted at the sessions of the Revolution
ary tribunals Of Paris, and overwhelmed
with their clamor the judges feeble i'm
at the Spanish bull-fght and the Roman
arena. Here the same elements were
held in absolute silence even
from ''conversation"-bu it was i'm
possible 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 process
sion of misdeeds, passing under their
eyes day after day, must leave 3 miasua
of moral death behind it, which no pris-
on or work-house can hereafter cure.
We all know that the genius of our law
is publicity; but it may be questioned
whether criminal trials may not be as
profitably kept private as hangings, the
popular attendance on which was once
supposed to be bulwsrk of religion and
morality.
Not that there was any avoidable bru-
tality, or even indecorum, in the con-
duct of the trials that saw. A spade
was necessarily called . 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 pro-
cedure to grave decency consonant
with the inquiries of Justice. For it was
really justice that was administered, so
far as could see (; and justice that was
by no means blind, but very open-eyed
and keen-sighted. The causes were de-
cided by one man, from evidence usu-
ally extracted out of writhing reluctance
or abysmal stupidity, and the judgment
must be formed and the sentence given
where the magistrate sat, amid the con-
fusion of the crowded room. Yet, ex-
cept in the case of my poor thief, did
not see him hesitate; and did not
doubt his wisdom-I am far from pro-
nouncing his sentence unjust-eyen 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 tenn
per amid densities of dullness which il
Is quite impossible to do more than in
dicate. If it were necessary, for exam
pie, to establish the fact that a hand
kerchief was white, it was not to be
done without some such colloquy as
, this:
Was it white handkerchief"
"Sor2''
Was the handkerchief whitea"
"Was it white, sor?"
+" Yes, was 1t whiteP"
Was what white, sorP"
"The Observation-Disclosures the hano.
kerchief whiteP"
"what handkerchief, sorp"
The handkerchief you just men
tioned-the handkerchief that the de-
fendant dropped"
J &c didn't see it, sor."
, "Didn't see the handkerchief"
"Didn't see him drop it, sor"
swell, did you see the handker-
, chiefPn
"The handkerchief, sorp Oh, yes,
, sorI Isaw i'll saw the Handkerchief y
, swell, was it tchite?"
4" 1t was, sor."
A boy who complained of another fol-
: assaulting him said that he knocked
! him down.
SHOW did he knock you downr'
J asked the Judge. Did he knock you
I down with his fist or his open handp"
Yes, sor.n
(which did he do it withP"
"Iput his arms round me and knocked
8 me down."
: "Then he didn't knock you down.
1 He thret0 you down."
1 Yes, sor. he didn't t'row me down
: Put his arms round me and knocked me
down"
;. 1t would be impossible 10 caricaturs
3 these things, or to exaggerate the char
: table long. suffering that dealt with such
4 cases. Sometimes, as II in mere de
n spair, the Judge called the parties
a him and questioned them privately; a
b ter which the case seemed to be settle
t without further trial.-W. D. HotoeHs