Los Angeles herald., 1909-04-04

esquired by policemen and metal-badged detectives
and chaperoned by the immortal Cavanagh, long
ininitude of misdemeanor and petty crime. There
came the lately taken roysterer with matted hair
and flmy eyes-a mass of CRIME and half dried mud
stains; there the tattered, abject remnants OF
mendcancy, who mostly sent to the workhouse
till benefcent comes with the promise of its
job Afterward came, perhaps, the waitress, who
had of waters other than those of the Perian
spring. with fatal consequences to her clothing and
her homecoming.
"And please, Judge, Your Honor" she pleaded,
with real note of apprehension in her voice, IF
don't get off I'll lose my job-Ive got to be at work
at nine in the morning"
you're discharged then; but let 1t be lesson to
you" said the kindly natured Magistrate.
"Yes, Judge, Your Honor, sure WILL" replied re-
pentant frailty and vanished into outer shades
And so they continued in succession, continually
tragic, sordid, pathetic and humorous. After little
experience learns to recognize the type of case at
glance. Here is disorderly conduct-that swollen
eye, at once a mixture of conflicting crimson and
green could represent nothing else There is the cum
ming, crafty eye and hashy clothes of the patry swim
der. The lady who has had slight misnnderstand-
ing with her husband shows it in every line of her
deeply injured face and in the alert expression and
nervous bridng you recognize the lady who has had
a little falling out with another lady across the way.
"Well madam, what can do for you this morning?
beat you, didn't he? And suppose
The little faded woman in the pnched dark cloth
ing smiled in sheepish painful embarrassment.
swell, wel we'll have to what do for
you"
"And what's this-ths other lady has been abus
ing you, madam? Now, what did she say? Oh. dear,
dear! What?-(to the other)-she called you names
first, did she? I'm! Bind you both in $1,000
verbal bonds to keep the peace. Now, be carefu
you're both bound, remember" Both ladies retire in
a panic. The end had come for verbal bonds are
binding, terrible things when they are visited upon
ladies who don't know what they and are pro-
nounced through the awful instrument of magis
trate's lips.
The procession moved immutably Here is
woman whose worn features and rouged cheeks tell
of her pitiful ways of life; here is little yellow
understood fellow who another of crapulous
underlip with causing him inconvenience by dancing
overhead in the tremuous midnight hours. "And
am Inconvenience Y'r Honor" said the first under
sized man, "me bein student" He then added that
he was studying the embalmng and that he intended
to take a flyer at the undertaking presently "He
don't like live ones remarked the other with shaft
of wit, which might have him his case before a
humorst, but Magistrate Kernochan, being very seri
GUS, advised him to desist and permit the yellow
young man to pursue his weird researches.
Stamped with Crime.
But while there may be distinct types of a very
varied range in the Night Court, there is a deeper
character underlying all. 1t is stamped more strong
y than the marks of any for the brands of crime
seem to make all faces strangely alike. The eyes of
many of the and here appear to look out
from different focus the mouths repressive-
y or loosely uneven; the cheeks are always sunken
and the heads show grotesque and horribly in their
varying shapes, perhaps abnormally followed upon
this side, excessively overdeveoped on the other.
They deeply lined faces, but one will notice that
the lines downward and not generally across.
They streaky ugly lines-broken and uneven lines
and show the stress of quickly alternating hopes and
fears-the heritage of evil Down they rundown,
down.
Thus then, these creatures sit who not full
men and women but possess quality of the
underworld within them. Here their dshevelled OBJ
scure colored figures crouch the benches stand
before the Magistrate greasy, with shrunken, sicky
skins and tousled hair-creatures many of them be-
You'd hope.
And the routine goes on till midnight, when an
intermission Of hour and the Magistrate
bustles off to get something to eat perhaps at his
club and Cavanagh and his compatriots retire to the
reporters and produce TASKS filed with liquids
which cheer but do not inebrate and undo packages
from napkins and become good, unofficial reminiscent
citizens to whom it is a Joy to listen. They discuss