Alexandria Gazette

A Political Scene in the Police Court.

If a man had time, he could not find in the broad world, so queer a school of poor humanity, as is daily taught in the City Police Court, in the Hall of Justice. Police Courts in Europe have their drolleries, but here there is something sui generis, the peculiarity of our institutions. We happened to be in the Egyptian Hall the other day when an Irishwoman was in, who had been complaining of her spouse for beating her with a cowhide; and her neck and shoulders upon examination were most savagely mutilated,—scarred all over indeed with the bloody stripes, inflicted by her brutal husband, so that she seemed even then to be in an agony of pain. An officer was sent for this monster of a husband, and the brute was brought in. As he caught the eye of his wife, he gave her a savage look; as much as to say, "if you have done this, I'll beat you to death when I get hold of you again." Whereupon she was withdrawing her complaint; and—"la me!" says she, "it was all my fault, your honor."

The Justice (Merritt,) however, did not choose to surrender such a husband, now under the grasp of the law, and he ordered him to find bail for his good behaviour to the amount of $300. He (the prisoner) then asked one of the officers of the Court to be his bail, who replied the Justice would not take an officer. "Then Alderman Brady," says he, "will be my bail;" and he boo-hoo-ooed piteously enough as his eye was directed to the door leading to the cell. His tears, however, soon dried up, and he burst forth in a rage, with his eye upon the Justice. "You'll repent; you will—of this," says he, "the next election. I'll put you off the way of putting a Democrat in prison." And he shook his fist in tempest of rage, as the officer dragged him to a cell, and as he roared out again, "I'll put you off the way of putting a Democrat into a prison."—N. Y. Express.