Mornings at Bow Street: A Selection of the Most Humorous and Entertaining Reports which Have Appeared in the 'Morning Herald'Wight, J. (John)
General
Mornings at Bow Street: A Selection of the Most Humorous and Entertaining Reports which Have Appeared in the 'Morning Herald'
Wight, J. (John)
Crime -- England -- London
An elderly man, brown as a fresh-roasted coffee-berry, a poll that bespoke
him of the race of wandering gipsies, and "the darkness of whose Oriental
eye accorded with his _gipsy_ origin," advanced towards the table, bowing
at every step, and said, "May it please your vorship's honour, I'm Mister
Lovell, your vorship (_another bow_), knife-grinder and chair-bottomer,
your vorship." Having so said, he smiled and bowed again; and then,
shading the lower part of his brown shining visage with his rusty hat, he
stood smiling and bowing, and bowing and smiling; but whatever else he had
to say, refused to be said.
At length, seemingly to his great relief, the magistrate asked him what he
wanted.
"Your vorship, I am Mister Lovell, the knife-grinder, your vorship, and I
_vantz_ you to give me a little bit of 'sistance to get me back my _vife_,
_vot_ I _vere_ lawfully married to last Monday _vere_ a _veek_, at
_Soreditch_ Church:--that's _vot_ I _vantz_, your vorship."
"Yours is a very unusual application, indeed, friend," said the
magistrate; "I am frequently requested to _part_ man and wife, but I do
not recollect that I was ever once asked to bring them together."
"Vell, your vorship," replied Mr. Lovell, "but mine's a werry hard case--a
werry hard case, indeed! Here's the certifykit, your vorship."
His worship told Mr. Lovell he wanted no voucher in proof of what he said.
He opened the certificate, however, and found it fairly set forth therein,
that on a certain day specified, "Solomon Lovell, bachelor, and Desdemona
Cocks, spinster," were duly married by banns in Shoreditch Church.
"And pray, what is become of the 'gentle Desdemona?'" asked his worship,
as he returned the certificate to Mr. Lovell, who instantly crammed it
back again into the sow-skin purse from which he had taken it; and then
having deposited it safely in the very bottom of his left-hand
breast-pocket, he proceeded to lay open his entire grievance. It was a
lengthy, and rather unconnected narrative, but we gathered from it that
Mr. Solomon Lovell absolutely loved the gentle Desdemona; and but for
that, "he would not his _unhoused_ free condition have put into
circumscription and confine,"--"not on no account whatever." But the
friends of Desdemona, who were in the _costermongering_ line, thought the
match too _low_ for her; and they had not been united more than three
happy days, when those friends cruelly contrived to _inwiggle_ her _away_
from his arms, and shut her up in a garret in Charles Street, Drury Lane,
where they still continued to detain her, in spite of her unceasing tears,
and his most earnest remonstrances.
"Of what age is the lady?" asked the magistrate.
"Your vorship, she'll be _forty-three_ come a fortnight a'ter next
Bart'lemy fair."
"Then she is no _chicken_! and she certainly could come to you, if she was
inclined to do so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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