The other day, in the police court, a girl was put into the
witness-box, whose native graces of this sort impressed me a good deal.
She was coarse, and her dress was none of the cleanest, and nowise smart.
She appeared to have been up all night, too, drinking at the Tranmere
wake, and had since ridden in a cart, covered up with a rug. She
described herself as a servant-girl, out of place; and her charm lay in
all her manifestations,--her tones, her gestures, her look, her way of
speaking and what she said, being so appropriate and natural in a girl of
that class; nothing affected; no proper grace thrown away by attempting
to appear lady-like,--which an American girl would have attempted,--and
she would also have succeeded in a certain degree. If each class would
but keep within itself, and show its respect for itself by aiming at
nothing beyond, they would all be more respectable. But this kind of
fitness is evidently not to be expected in the future; and something else
must be substituted for it.
These scenes at the police court are often well worth witnessing. The
controlling genius of the court, except when the stipendiary magistrate
presides, is the clerk, who is a man learned in the law. Nominally the
cases are decided by the aldermen, who sit in rotation, but at every
important point there comes a nod or a whisper from the clerk; and it is
that whisper which sets the defendant free or sends him to prison.
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