THE SEAMY SIDE.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1926, Page 4

THE SEAMY SIDE.

TALES TOLD TO THE MAGISTRATE (By R. E. Colder in “Daily Mail”). Triumph came to a street singer who now has to pay the penalty of success. His voice caught the car and took the fancy of somebdy with influence, and now the street singer lias a profitable engagement. Anyhow, that was the. story told by his wife at Clcrkcnwell Police Court on Saturday. “ITe owes mo £l6 arrears on an order of 15s a week,’’ she told Mr Gill, the magistrate, “and now I see in the papers lie is making money by his voice.” So long as liis stage was tho gutter and his audience passers-by she was content to work for her living, but now that be is a real artist, with bis name on a programme, she is determined that some of the notes from his golden voice shall make muisc for her home.

A factory-band wearing a shade over her left eye demanded a summons against a fellow-worker. “She was under the impression that I got her the sack, and I would never think of such a thing,” said she of the shaded eye. “She brought lier mother and sister to wait for me. Then she took her hat and coat off and struck me with something in her hand, and then her mother and sister ——” “Very well, take a summons,” broke in Mr Gill. “Then her mother and sister ” persisted the girl. “Tliat will do." '-ni'l the usher firm-

“But I haven’t told you about her mother and sister,” insisted the girl. “No. hut. you will do when the ease comes on.” prophesied the -warrant officer as he detached her from the queue.

“I want two summonses,” declared a matron importantly. “One against a man and another against his sister. Tt’s an old grievance, and we were discussing it outside a police station when the man punched me in the face, and when he had finished his sister started.”

“What did lie hit you for?” asked tho magistrate. “It’s a long story,” answered the woman, settling herself comfortably in the witness-box. ‘Aon see, they summoned me and——” “All right,” remarked Air Gill hastilv. “Take your summonses.”

“I want two summonses also,” said a young wife “against my husband and my lather-in-law. If "as all because my husband bad to go to work without a smoke. He’s terribly touchy when he hasn’t got a smoke, and wo had a few words about it the night before. In the morning lie was worse. When I came home in the evening, after shopping with my mother, he was still without a smoke, and ho made a blow at me on the doorstep, and his father hit me in the eye because I told him be was inciting lii.s son to drink And so lie is. I went to stop with my mother ami she said

“Next please,” requested the warrant officer, and another young wife stepped forward, and, speaking rapidly, began: “He left me on Thursday and said lie was going to stay with liis male, but my relatives have boon watching him, and they told me bo was carrying on with a girl he met in the hospital. And bos lelt mo with three little children, and L want n summons for desertion.” She stopped to take, breath, but before she could get her second wind she was dismissed with a summons.

An apprentice who works for a glassblower had a mysterious grievance ah, mu. 10s. which nobody in court, including himself, could understand. “.My employer stopped 10s out of m.v wages ibis week.” lie complained. “Why?” asked the magistrate. “Because lie paid me 10s too much host week." answered the youth. AH Gill blinked and asked where was the grievance. “They made a mistake in the office. ' declared the youth, “and he had no right to stop it out of my apprentice wage.” Air Gill gave it up, and requested Air Watts, the court missionary, to wrestle with the problem in private.

Harriet Cook sat down heavily in the dock, lurne down with the knowledge of .six previous convictions since April for drunkenness. “She came out of prison only yesterday after doing .six weeks,” announced the gaoler. Harriet howled at tho memory, and she was remanded for a week.

A combination of the “pictures” and public-houses produced hallucinations in the mind of a young man who, being arrested for making drunken revelry, gazed with deep and abiding scorn on the policeman who requested him to take a walk.

‘‘Know you not.” be exclaimed dramatically, “that t have been a member of the North-West Atounted Police, and I have always got my man? Do von think I would let an ordinary .Metropolitan policeman arrest me?” “Yes,’’ said the constable. And it

was so. “Have you been in the North-West Aloimtcil ?" asked Air Gill. “This is the first I have beard of it.” replied the young man ruefully. “To tell the truth. I can’t remember a. tiling I said.”

“Yes, I was very drunk,” candidly confessed the next arrival in the dork, “and I wish to thank the constable for locking me up. T might have been run over, I might have been killed, 1 might have been “Fined 10s’ 1 interpolated Mr dill.