f silent preparation at the desks follows the loud
announcement that its session has begun. The perky clerks and smirking
pettifoggers move apart on tiptoe, those to their respective stations,
these to their privileged seats facing the high dais. The lounging
police slip down from their reclining attitudes on the heel-scraped and
whittled window-sills. The hum of voices among the forlorn humanity that
half fills the gradually rising, greasy benches behind, allotted to
witnesses and prisoners' friends, is hushed. In a little square, railed
space, here at the left, the reporters tip their chairs against the
hair-greased wall, and sharpen their pencils. A few tardy visitors,
familiar with the place, tiptoe in through the grimy doors, ducking
and winking, and softly lifting and placing their chairs, with a
mock-timorous upward glance toward the long, ungainly personage who,
under a faded and tattered crimson canopy, fills the august bench of
magistracy with its high oaken back. On the right, behind a rude wooden
paling that rises from the floor to the smoke-stained ceiling, are the
peering, bloated faces of the night's prisoners.

The recorder utters a name. The clerk down in front of him calls it
aloud. A door in the palings opens, and one of the captives comes
forth and stands before the rail. The arresting officer mounts to the
witness-stand and confronts him. The oath is rattled and turned out like
dice from a box, and the accusing testimony is heard. It may be that
counsel rises and cross-examines, if there are witnesses for the
defence. Strange and far-fetched questions, from beginners at the law
or from old blunderers, provoke now laughter, and now the peremptory
protestations of the court against the waste of time. Yet, in general,
a few minutes suffices for the whole trial of a case.

"You are sure she picked the handsaw up by the handle, are you?" says
the questioner, frowning with the importance of the point.

"Yes."

"And that she coughed as she did so?"

"Well, you see, she kind o'"--

"Yes, or no!"

"No."

"That's all." He waves the prisoner down with an air of mighty
triumph, turns to the recorder, "trusts it is not necessary to,"
etc., and the accused passes this way or that, according to the fate
decreed,--discharged, sentenced to fine and imprisonment, or committed
for trial before the courts of the State.

"Order in court!" There is too much talking. Another comes and stands
before the rail, a