With this exception everything is changed, everything but the humanity that stands in the dock or sits in the cells, and that continues ever the same--the same old sins and the same old sorrows, the same old difficulties and worries for individuals, and the same everlasting problems for the State. Tramp! tramp! tramp! goes this procession of humanity through our police courts. Tramp! tramp! tramp! goes the army of the dead. Tramp! tramp! tramp! go the thoughtless ones or vicious ones with eager feet hastening to join that army. Tramp! tramp! goes poverty with whining voice and suppliant look. Tramp! tramp! go the bewildered ones, the victims of circumstance. Tramp! tramp! go the afflicted ones. Day after day, year after year, a never-ceasing tramp of the wronging or the wronged. In time the repulsiveness of the procession wears away, the evil smells do not so much offend, and one is able to make a close acquaintance with the procession. Then a field for the study of human nature is opened up, and nowhere in the wide world is there a field equal to it. Does anyone want to study the drink question?--here’s the chance; the social evil?--here’s the opportunity; causes of crime?--here they may be found. Every vice and every virtue, and every source of strength and every cause of weakness incidental to humanity are found here. Every phase of every social problem has its place here. The joys and pleasures of life, the sorrows and difficulties of life, the comedy and fun of life, the tragedy and despair of life, are illustrated here. Rich and poor, old and young, bond and free, refined and coarse, intellectual and idiotic, unite in this procession, strange specimens of humanity, provoking wonder, disgust, or mirth; pathetic bits of humanity, provoking sympathy and deepest pity; good and evil jumbled up; love and cruelty side by side. The ‘devil’s own’ and the ‘children of God’ blend in this procession. A tangled mass of humanity, a glorious hugger-mugger of confusion, goes tramping, ever tramping, through our London police courts. Clergymen and ministers of religion might do well if sometimes they forsook the study, put away their books of theology, and as followers of the Son of Man came into our courts to learn from the sons of men. Here would they find texts for many a sermon, illustrations to give point to many an appeal. Members of Parliament might sometimes come here to learn their country’s wrongs and wounds, and, inspired by the knowledge, voice those wrongs and wounds at proper time and place. Students of men, lovers of their kind, specialists in reform, experts in every subject, might learn much and unlearn more from a close acquaintance with police court humanity and police court problems.