Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

POLICE OF LONDON.

Sept. 5—This day a dowager, about fifty-six, named Martin, who exhibited one conspicuous black eye, charged a Mr. M'Glouglin, a foreign gentleman, who lodged in the same house, with knocking her down at her lodgings on Thursday night, beating her unmercifully, and giving her the black eye.

The charge was corroborated upon the venerable testimony of her mother, a lady whose age seemed converging to the termination of her first century.

Mr. M'Glouglin being called on for his plea of defence to this charge, stated that it arose from jealousy, not indeed of an amorous kind. He was in his own apartment opposite that of these ladies, retiring to rest with his wife, when he suddenly heard a most obstreperous volley of eloquence at his door, discharged by the junior dowager, in which she greeted him by all the opprobrious epithets which her fancy, aided by the inspiration of her dusty bottle, could suggest. He opened the door to entreat a parley, and inquire into the cause of the good lady's ire; but she flew upon him like a lynx, tattooed his visage with her claws, which immediately brought the purling streams of blood meandering down his cheeks. He endeavoured to retreat from the attack, but the lady followed up her first essay, and in endeavouring to make a second spring at her object, missed her pounce, and fell flat on the floor, when she immediately seized Mr. M'Glouglin by the legs, made a desperate attack on them unguibus et rostro, and brought him down. He endeavoured, in vain, to extricate himself from her clutches, and declared he was obliged to strike her in order to force her to let him loose—The only reason she assigned for her violent attack, was, that he had one day the audacity to tell her, that he liked the manners and deportment of her mother better than her own.

The Lord Mayor very patiently remanded the unusual circumstance of striking a woman, in any case, but much more so a woman of the plaintiff's advanced years; and insisted upon satisfaction being made to her.