Mornings at Bow Street — Page 182-194

There was a pretty, though homely Irish girl, named _Kitty Kavanagh_, brought before the magistrate on a charge of having stolen a small piece of coarse calico from a Mrs. Dermody.

Kitty Kavanagh is the daughter of a watchman; and she and her father lodge in the same house as Mrs. Dermody.

The piece of calico formed "the _canopy_" of Mrs. Dermody's tester bed.

One day lately, Mrs. Dermody missed the canopy--it was taken away even whilst Mr. Dermody was in the bed; and, in a day or two after, she found it on Kitty Kavanagh, in the shape of an apron!

Mrs. Dermody displayed this apron before his worship, and told him she could swear to the hemming of it--"because it was very _confident_ to be seen by any one."

Mr. Dermody offered his evidence; and, being sworn, he said, "Your _wortchip_, it's true, every word of it, what Mrs. Dermody was after telling you, for myself was fast asleep in the bed at that same time."

His worship now asked Kitty Kavanagh what she had to say to it; and she replied, in the richest brogue that ever rolled through the red lips of an Irishwoman--"It's herself and her husband comed home _bastely_ drunk, your honour; and her husband _bate_ her, and _kilt_ her your honour; and your honour sees Mrs. Dermody could not get to the bed by herself any how, _bekase_ of the liquor that night, your honour; and Mr. Dermody lay down in the bed by himself, your honour's honour, and Mrs. Dermody lay down in the coort."

"But what has all this to do with the stolen linen?"

asked his worship;

"what have you to say about the piece of linen?"

"Is it the bit o' linen your honour's _spaking_ about?"

asked Kitty, with infinite _naivete_--"Och!

I found that same at the stair-foot when all the bother was over!"

His worship shook his head, as much as to say he feared Kitty was adding falsehood to theft.

Her father, the watchman, presented himself; and having expatiated upon the excellent _carackter_ himself and his daughter had hitherto borne in the world he next attacked the reputation of the Dermodys; which he said was all that was "bad and _bastely_;" and then he called two witnesses, who would tell his honour "all the rights of it."

His witnesses came forward; they were Patrick Doole and Michael Sullivan.

But all that _Misther_ Doole could prove was the drunkenness of the Dermodys on the day of the robbery; and Mr. Sullivan had nothing to say to it at all, only that Kitty Kavanagh was a nice young _cratur_, and her father was just like her for all the world.

This was of course all nothing in the face of the fact so distinctly sworn to, and the prisoner was committed for trial.

--So the interesting Kitty Kavanagh was sent to gaol, and perhaps lost her character for ever, for a bit of old calico, not worth sixpence.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH MIXTURE.

Mons.

Gaspard Jacques Hercule Flament, a French gentleman with one eye--"_degraisseur extraordinaire_ to the British public;" was brought before the magistrate to show cause why he should not be committed to prison for neglecting to maintain his wife in that style of elegance and comfort to which she was entitled--or rather, for neglecting her maintenance altogether.

The lady, Mrs. Flament, was a pretty, little, black-eyed, sprightly Englishwoman; who, "by some odd whim or other," as she said, fell in love with, and married Mr. Flament, about six years ago.

But they never could agree very well; and after five years of connubial misery, they determined to separate--Mr. Flament undertaking to allow her a separate maintenance of ten shillings a-week; with which she was very well content, as she had "a good comfortable mother to fly to."

Mr. Flament, however, was not a man of his word; for, though he paid the ten shillings a-week pretty regularly at the outset of their separation, he afterwards reduced it to seven, and latterly to three.

This, she humbly submitted to the magistrate, was an income upon which no lady could exist; and, as Mr. Flament was the very best _scourer_ at that moment out of Paris, she did hope his worship would compel him to make her a more suitable allowance.

Mr. Flament could speak no English, and so he was attended by a "professor of languages" in a military cloak; and this professor took great pains to convince the magistrate that Mr. Flament was a very poor man, and that Mrs. Flament was a very naughty woman.

"She has robbed her husband three times," said the professor,--"shut him up in _de prisonne_ vonce, and made _seex_, seven hondred _grands faux pas_!

--Monsieur Flament had better broke de best of his two leg, dan marry such hussey!

hussey!

as madame his vife!"

Mrs. Flament was about to recriminate, but the magistrate prevented her, by observing that, whatever faults she might have, she was the defendant's wife; and by the laws of this country, he was bound to support her.

The only question, therefore, was, what sum should be fixed upon; and he thought _seven_ shillings a-week would be an equitable allowance.

The professor said Mr. Flament would sooner quit the country than pay any such sum.

"Will he?"

said the magistrate, "but I will take care he does not; for unless something is agreed upon before he leaves this office, I will commit him to prison; and then we shall see how he will manage to leave the country."

The professor asked ten thousand pardons for offending his worship; and begged to observe that madame could earn seventeen shillings a-week for herself, by her own hands.

Madame replied, that it was _hat binding_ to which the professor alluded;

but she was sorry to say, she was not so far _accomplished_ in it at present, as to be able to earn half that money.

After some further conversation, it was agreed that _six_ shillings a-week should be the stipulated allowance; but then the parish must be indemnified.

The professor said there was not the least danger that Mons.

Flament would run away-- "Then why did you threaten that he would?"

asked the magistrate.

"I did not mean, Sare, that he should leave the country--the England," replied the professor, "only this town, Sare--that he should go out--into--the country, is all what I mean."

The magistrate observed, that it was not the custom in this country to say one thing and mean another-- "Vera true--your worship," replied the smiling professor with a low bow--"but John Bull say many things he does not mean, for all that."

His worship smiled also, and did not take the trouble of refuting the slander; and the matter ended in the professor and another friend of Mons.

Flament becoming sureties to the parish on his behalf.

UNREQUITED LOVE.

Mr. Peter Twig--a venerable, rosy-gilled Greenwich pensioner, was charged with having created a great riot and disturbance in and about the attic residence of Mrs. Margaret Muggins; and with having threatened to beat the said Margaret Muggins to a mummy, under pretence of being _in love_ with her.

It appeared that Mrs. Muggins--having lost her husband, and being short of money and one leg, was some time an inmate of the parish workhouse; and there she was first seen by Mr. Peter Twig, who no sooner saw her than he felt he was a lost old man, unless he could make Mrs. Muggins his own.

He therefore determined to get himself admitted an inmate of the workhouse--for even the walls of a workhouse cannot hold love out; "and what love can do, that dare love attempt."

He succeeded in getting into the house, and he succeeded in getting into the good graces of Mrs. Muggins.

He told her of the battles in which he had fought--all on the roaring sea: he spoke to her of land perils, and water perils; of fire, and smoke, and grape-shot, and the miseries of six-water grog; and he expatiated on the splinter that knocked off a piece of his nose; and Mrs. Muggins was moved.

"She loved him for the dangers he had seen, and he loved her"--because, as he said, he couldn't help it.

So they eloped together from the workhouse, and took shelter in a three-pair back,[25] and there they fostered their venerable loves with gin and jugg'd jemmies[26] for three entire weeks.

But, before the end of the fourth week, Peter's pension-money, and Mrs. Muggins's love, were all exhausted, and in spite of his tears and entreaties she left him, and went to reside with her married daughter.

Poor Peter was inconsolable.

He tried to drown his sorrows in max-upon-tick,[27] but it would not do; for his credit was little, and his sorrows were large, and at length he resolved to move Mrs. Muggins to pity him by casting himself at her _foot_.

But Mrs. Muggins had a heart as hard as any rock, and she would not see him; and he laid himself down at the threshold of her apartment, and wished the door at the devil!

So he-- "Built him a willow cabin at her gate, And called upon his love within the house-- Making the babbling gossip of the air Cry out--Meg Muggins!"

And all this gave great offence, not only to Mrs. Muggins and her daughter, but to all the gossips of the neighbourhood; and they insisted upon his bundling himself off, and he would not.

Then they attempted to bundle him off themselves, and then he flew into a great rage, and swore he would beat Mrs. Muggins to a mummy and mollify her heart with his _fistes_, since he could not soften it with sighs; and then they gave him into custody of a constable for fear he should do so.

These things having been detailed to the magistrate by the daughter and neighbours of Mrs. Muggins--for Mrs. Muggins herself was too much alarmed to appear--his worship asked the forlorn old swain what he had to say to it.

"Your honour," replied Peter, "I have been desperately ill-used.

She--she knows she has ill-used me: and yet I can't forget she, for the life of me!

When a man's in love, your honour, it's of no use talking to him!

They may punch me and knock me about, but they can't knock the love out of me; and your honour may send me to quod, but quod won't cure me.

What is it I would not do for _she_?

--(_Mrs.

Muggins_, he would have said, but Mrs. Muggins stuck in his--gizzard).

What is it I wouldn't do for she?

And yet you see how she uses me.

Your honour, I've served my king and country many a long year, and have seen hard service in all parts of the world, and have seen many places took by storm, and it's desperate hard to be used a _thisns_ after all!"

His worship admitted that it was very hard; but as it was evident the lady was determined not to yield, it behoved him to raise the siege and go into quiet quarters, for he certainly would not be allowed to take _her_ by _storm_.

Peter declared he had no intention of taking her by storm; and said if she would only write him an answer to the letter he had _shoved_ under her door, he would try to be content.

His accusers undertook that the letter should be answered--if it could be found; and eventually Peter was discharged, with an admonition to cease from pestering Mrs. Muggins, on pain of imprisonment.

A DUN AT SUPPER TIME.

Mr. John Dunn appeared upon a warrant to answer the complaint of Mrs. Amelia Groutage.

Mrs. Amelia Groutage is an elderly lady of some sixteen stone or thereabout, and short in proportion--or, more properly speaking, out of proportion; for it is a doubt whether her breadth is not nearly equal to her height.

We are thus particular in her admeasurement, because it materially influenced the decision on her complaint.

She deposed, that upon her going to Mr. Dunn's house to demand payment of some money he owed her, he took her _round the waist_ with _one_ arm, whilst he gave her a violent blow on her shoulder with the other, and then turned her out of door.

The magistrate expressed some doubt whether so small a man as Mr. Dunn could encircle her waist with _one_ arm; but she assured him it was the fact; and so Mr. Dunn was called upon for his defence.

Mr. Dunn had such a multitude of words at his command, and used them so lavishly, that we cannot pretend to give his defence _verbatim_; but we gathered, that he and Mrs. Groutage lived within seven or eight doors of each other, and that the account between them is a disputed balance.

Nevertheless, they had lived upon good neighbourly terms with each other up to last Tuesday night.

On that night, Mr. Dunn had a little supper party at his house, to which Mrs. Groutage was invited, and she came among the rest.

After supper, Mrs. Groutage "got very _glumpish_;" and nobody could imagine what ailed her, till at last she was rude enough to ask Mr. Dunn when he meant to pay her what he owed her; and threatened that if he did not pay her that very moment, she would summon him to Court next morning.

The company were, of course, quite shocked at this sort of conversation; and Mr. Dunn, determined not to have the harmony of the evening destroyed in this manner, went quietly behind the angry and ill-bred Mrs. Groutage, threw _both_ his arms round her waist, fairly carried her out of the house, and set her down at her own door!

This was the only violence he offered to her; and any injury she had received was entirely owing to her own kicking and plunging, and clinging to the door-posts as he carried her along.

[Illustration: A DUN AT SUPPER TIME.

] This statement was confirmed by a host of witnesses, and Mrs. Groutage was _nonsuited_.