Mornings at Bow Street. J. Wight
on by the free consent of the owner, and he would keep it on long enough, unless the owner stood a drop of summut short.[8]
"If that's the case, Sir," observed the magistrate, "I shall instantly commit you for the robbery."
This seemed to have a considerable effect upon Mr. Joseph Arnold, for he instantly, though slowly, began to peel: and having so done, he handed the benjamin over the bar, sulkily observing, "This comes of keeping company with tailors, your worship, and I can't say but it sarves me right. Howsomever, he mought have had it before, if he had not been so d——d tall and consequential about it."
Mr. Peter Guy thanked the magistrate for his kind interposition, and the parties withdrew.
PAT LANGHAM'S LOGIC.
Mr. Patrick Langham was charged with having assaulted Mrs. Bridget Finnagen, by spitting in her face.
His worship told him he was a dirty fellow, and asked him what he could say in excuse for such an unmanly and disgusting trick.
"Well, your honour," replied Patrick, "I should not have done it by no manes, but she put her nose in the mouth of me."
"Nonsense, man! How could she put her nose in your mouth?"
"Well, your honour, she did that same, any how; an I can bring a witness to the fore that'll testify to your honour."
The magistrate told him he did not believe him. Mrs. Bridget Finnagen said it was a grate lie invented by Patrick to bring shame upon her—the mother-in-law to the brother of him, and oun mother to four children—barrin one that's dead.
Patrick persisted in his nose story, and being desired to show the manner of it, he placed himself in the attitude of a scolding woman—with chin poked out, and arms a-kimbo.
"Why, you foolish fellow," observed the magistrate, "you mean that she put her nose in your face—not mouth."
"Your honour'll call it what ye plase," replied Patrick, "but me mouth's in me face any how; and so me face and me mouth's all one, your honour, in that shape."
His worship could not but smile at this explanation of the matter, and told Mrs. Bridget Finnagen that he thought Patrick was a harmless fellow, who would conduct himself better in future if she would forgive him his past offences.
Mrs. Bridget Finnagen, however, refused to be pacified; she implored his worship "to bind him down to the law," and declared that upon one occasion lately, he told her if it was not for the law, he would put all the teeth in her head into her stomach; but as Patrick declared he had no ill-blood to the cratur, and promised never to molest her again, the magistrate dismissed the complaint.
MANGLING AND MATRIMONY.
Mr. Thomas Turner was brought before the magistrate on a peace warrant, issued at the suit of his wife, Mrs. Eleanor Turner. There was a world of arguments pro. and con.; but we must content ourselves with a simple narrative of the principal facts.
Mr. and Mrs. Turner were married in September last, at which time he was not much more than seventy-three years old; and she was only fifty-six, the very day they went to church; consequently their experience was not so great as it might have been, had they been older. Nevertheless, they managed to get over the first six weeks, as Mr. Turner said, "pretty tightish." But after that time, his business began to fall off; and then Mrs. Turner, who was by profession a mangler, insisted on his turning the wheel of her mangle for her. Well, he did turn it; and turn it, and turn it, again and again, from six o'clock in the morning till nine at night; and if he did not turn it fast enough, Mrs. Turner boxed his ears; and often, when she had boxed his ears till fire flashed from his eyes, as it were, she would tell him, "though he was a turner by name, he was a poor turner by nature." On the other hand, Mrs. Turner alleged that he had "married her out of a kitchen, what she had lived in eleven long years;" that she had brought him as excellent a character as any man could desire; that she thought she could have done as well with him as she could with a man of twenty or twenty-five years old, but that she was sadly disappointed: for though she found him good for nothing in the world but to turn her mangle, he refused even to do that; or, if he did do it, he did it clumsily, and with grumbling; and he often left off doing it to beat her. Moreover, he had latterly threatened to sell her mangling apparatus; and, because she begged of him not to sell it—as his doing so would be their ruin—he "kicked her shins till they were all manner of colours."
The magistrate asked Mr. Turner what he had to say to this last part of the business.
He said, with his worship's permission, he would tell him.—"He had often promised Mrs. Turner, that he would make her a handsome present at Whitsuntide, if she would only keep her fingers to herself; and as Whitsuntide was now fast approaching, he went out one Monday evening and spouted[9] his watch, to raise funds for that purpose. With the funds so raised, he purchased a spick-and-span new straw bonnet, with ribbons all up a-top of it, quite beautiful to see—so beautiful, indeed, that the ribbons alone cost him a clear five shillings. And with this bonnet, so beautiful, he went home, rejoicing in his heart to think how pleased Mrs. Turner would be, and how happy they should live—for a fortnight at the very least. But he was mistaken. When he got home, he uncovered the bonnet, and, placing it on his hand, he held it up before her, nothing doubting but that she would be delighted at the sight of it; and he had no sooner done this, than she snatched it from his hand, and threw it on the ground, trampled its beautiful ribbons under her angry feet; and, seizing him by the scuff of his neck she bent him down towards the floor, whilst she pummelled him about the head and shoulders, till his very ears sung again. In this dilemma, he had nothing left for it but to kick backwards—donkey-fashion as he called it; and it was by the kicks so given in his own defence, that Mrs. Turner's legs were discoloured."
When Mr. Turner came to this part of his description, in order to show his worship more particularly the manner of his kicking, he kicked out behind with all his might, and in so doing he kicked an officer on the leg with such violence, that the poor fellow was obliged to go limping to a seat, and sit rubbing his shin for half an hour after.
Mrs. Turner strenuously denied having pummelled her husband in the way stated, or in any other way; and eventually he was ordered to find sureties to keep the peace towards her and all the king's subjects.
BATTLE IN THE BOXES.
Among the watch-house detenus brought before the magistrates one morning, to answer for misdoings on the preceding night, there was a little, fat, round, well-dressed, comfortable-looking personage, named——; but his name can be of no interest to the public, as the offence laid to his charge amounted only to an assault and battery, caused by the boiling over of his anger at a supposed invasion of his right and title to a particular seat in one of the boxes at the English opera—he having set his heart upon that identical seat from the very beginning of the evening.
His opponent was a young gentleman named Dakins—a thin, genteel youth, solemn and sententious in delivery, far above his years, and backed by a host of friends. There was a world of oratory displayed on both sides; but we have no room to report it: all we can do is, to give a bare narrative of the facts.
Young Mr. Dakins occupied a front seat in one of the boxes till the conclusion of the first piece. Then, having nothing else to do, he looked round the house. Suddenly he espied a party of his friends, male and female, in the very next box. They occupied the front seat and part of the second; and he, perceiving that there was a vacant