The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-25

ly, that the police department has now,
 alas, little enthusiasm for such cases. | But where the magistrates show to | better advantage than in undertaking | police evidence against vice, is in their | uncommon defence of working men
 against charges of lettering and in the way in which they sometimes come to l the rescue of hapless souls in reference 1 to whom sudden faintness has passed | muster with the constable and the busy l police surgeon as a case of too much i liquor. At the Guildhall a man was up for standing with others on the side- walk, without reasonable cause, to the obstruction of pedestrians. Defence, waiting for work near by. But he needn't have stood there" said the po- l liceman, there was plenty of room." "But in that part of London" said the magistrate there isn't plenty of roorn.'
 And when the inspector interposed to
 say that this policeman had been placed on special duty at that point, the mag istrate shut them both up by saying, "l don't care straw about that. Poor,
 respectable working men should not be brought here like this, and I dismiss the case" In the same way MT. Flow den, sitting at Marylebone police court, went plump against officer, sergeant and police doctor in a case of alleged drunkenness. "You say" said the
 magistrate, "that you had not been
 drinking at all-do you still say it?"
 Prisoner--"Yes, sir, and that is on my
 honor" And you are an officer in the
 army?" Yes, sir" MT. Plowden-"1f
 you tell me that on your honor, it Is
 quite as good as any mans oath. You
 are discharged"
 MT. Plowden, by the way, is one of the
 testers of the magisterial bench. To at
 tend his court is often as good as a
 show A woman complained that an
 other woman had slapped her face
 what could she do? MT. Plowden-
 What can you do? Why it's all over.
 The question is, what did you do? The
 woman-I did nothing. MT. Plowden-
 Then you behaved very nicely; and that
 ended the case. Another woman came
 with black eye and a bare patch on
 her scalp--damages inflicted by one of
 her own gentle sex "I don't mind the l black eye so much" she told the mags trate, "but I can't stand this scalp dis
 figurement for life" "Oh," said MT.
 Plowden "let me reassure you The | first hairdresses you meet will mend 1t | all for half crown, and you'll probably, | with false hair, look better than ever" Everybody laughed at this including the ferocious creature at the bar But | MT Powden said, It's no laughing matter for you. You're a regular say age" and at once inflicted the full pen atty
 To see how often women figure in the docks of London police courts is de- pressing almost to the point of despair. Some morning they pop up one after common trunks, and often they have grin on their faces. One laughed so persistently that MT Plowden said. Why, how happy you seem. If you're only as happy when you're sober as when you're drunk, what a blissfu life you must lead.'' At this she chuckled all the more. But she was not so we'll known in that court as some are, and it really seemed as though she won the over by her jolIity. At any rate, he let her go, with reprimand.
 Many are the cases in which young women come to complain of recreant lovers who under promise of marriage, have gotten possession of the girls hard earnings and then decamped. | 'When will women learn wisdom?" asked magistrate recently and he didn't wait for an answer, but went on to say-''Day after day cases of this sort are exposed in the newspapers, and vet you women continue to allow your- selves to be swindled and duped." Be- fore MT. Plowden prepossessing young appeared, saying that she was ,o have been married next Sunday "Oh, indeed" said the mag strate, " and which do you want, my or sympathy? Sunday lasn't come yet" And neither, it would the Sunday of her marriage to that young man ever come or he had left her for another, she said )ffering thirty pounds as solace, MT olowden-What an excellent offer. Ap- he won't give it to me, he ,eeps putting me off, Mir. PloWden-