The Evening post. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1888-1889, 1888-12-10
Six o'clock.

DIX o Clock.
The station.house is full Of busy,
orderly hustle, The day platoon of pc.
llcemen is just coming off duty and the
dog watch" is just going on.
Those who have just come in are hurry
ing up stairs. after answering their
names as the roll is called. They arc on
what is known as the reserve, and have
to stay in the station. house; and in case
of serious fight or a big fire, or any
event that the force then on duty cannot
handle, the reserves will be called out.
Up on the upper floor is a big room
full of iron cots. This is where the po-
licemen composing the reserve, the per
sonnet of which is different each night,
sleep.
The platoon go out to their beats, the
platoon that have Just come off duty go
up stairs 10 bed, and the station-house is
for, perhaps, an hour, as quiet as a
graveyard.
Then few minutes before o'clock
the ringing buzz of IN electric bell breaks
the silence. The station-k eeper presses
q button, listens at the telephone sec
ond, and then shouts musical 80 X"
into the transmitter and marks the exact
time the bell rang on the patrol sheet.
II is policeman turning i'm from
the patrol box on his beat as he has to
each hour. As he pulls the lever in the
box that rings the bell in the station
house a little instrument, like little
ticker beside the telephone on the station
Keepers desk runs out small tape on
which the number Of the box at which
the policeman turns in is registered by
a series of dots. For the ten minutes
nearest o'clock the turning-in con-
tinues until each policeman on duty in
the precient has done this part of his
duty and notified the stationkeeper that
he is not asleep.
In the rear part of the station house
are the eight cells. Perhaps half of
them have occupants--two or three
DRINKS negro woman of the town
charged with vagrancy and respectable
looking white woman who has been
brought in by n cab driver, who had
driven her from saloon to saloon, until
she had become drunk and had spent
all the money she had, and locked up,
as. the law directs, for refusing to pay
hack hire. She laughs and cries with
hystCrical alienation, and from time to
time one of the DRINKS will shout to hel
a sulphurous imprecation coupled with d
vicious request to 'shut up"
Again the buzzof the patrol telephone
is heard.
The driver of the patrol wagon, which
! is always ready for service any minute
until 10 o'clock, looks at the clock and
then starts to put on his overcoat. 1t i,
too late for one of the policemen to turn
in for o'clock and too early for eight
and he rightly guesses that one of then
wants the wagon. The stationkeeper an
swers the ring and notes the location o
the box where the wagon is wanted anC
tells the driver.
In half minute the wagon, drawn by
a big gray horse, is rafting up the stree
at an almost breakneck speed, liberia
use Of the gong warning pedestrians L
getrUut OF the way. and, at the SAM
time, attracting a. crowd of street boy
and loafers. Half an hour later tn,
wagon comes back and the driver report
that drunken man had fallen down ant
cut his head on the edge OF curbston
and that he had taken him to tn
Emergency Hospital.
SOME OF THE UNFoRTUNATEs.
Then policeman brings in whit
haired old man. He is limp and has t.
be carried back to the cell too DRUM
TO give his name. Then a negro
woman is brought in for swearing on tn
street. She stands up in front of the
railing behind which is the station
keepers desk, and gives her name, age
and tells whether she can read OF writ
glibly, answering the last question il
the negative. No need to ask her occu
patton for it is shown as plainly in he
face as is her color.
Then well-dressed man, at the stag
of incipient drunkenness that makes hir
obstinate, comes in and with him is
tough looking cabman. He has riddei
about in the Jarvey's cab for a couple O
hours and disputes the Jarvey's bill
They appeal to the stationkeeper VIII
decides that both of them are PARTIAL
wrong, and the fare and the Jarvey CON
promise and part on good terms throug
the arbitration of the stationkeeper.
A ragged negro boy comes in an
breathlessly demands that policema
be sent around to his house to make hi
father stop beating his mother. Thei
is no policemen around the station
house, except those in bed, and til
station-kcepcr tells the boy that whe
the policeman on that beat turns in h
will tell him.
Eight o'clock and o'clock, marke
with the din of the patrol telephone an
the station keepers oft-repeated 80 X
pass and the reporters begin 10 drop
and ask for news. They pass throug
into the room back of the front one an
sit about the round table with their fe,
on it and swap stories of their experience
and items of news.
THE FIRE-ALARM STRUCK.
The solemn boom of fire.bell rol
down from the nearest church, who
bell is connected with the fire-aar
, wires and rings the number of the bC
from which the alarm is turned in, an
in an istant every reporter has his fl
. card ont and is counting the strokes
the bell. The fire is in the same pr
! cinct and the horse Is hastily hookt