“Well,” says the magistrate, addressing the poor washerwoman, nervous and “all of a tremble,” as she afterwards confidentially informs a friend, looking as if she expected immediate sentence of death passed upon her, “what do you say to the charge? Mr Bird says you went and created a disturbance in his shop; now you had no business to do that, you know.” “I know I hadn’t, sir,” said the poor woman; but here she burst into tears. Had she been alone with the magistrate, who is a kind-hearted man, and wishes to do what is right, she would soon have found her tongue, and her warm appeal, told with natural eloquence, because told out of a full heart, would soon have reached his own; but she is frightened—her energies are paralysed,—she cannot speak at all. “Oh, Brown,” says the magistrate, as if a bright thought struck him, “was the woman sober?” “Well, I can’t swear that she was drunk,” said Brown, reluctantly. This by no means helps to soothe the poor woman’s nerves, but it drives her to speak in her own behalf. “Your worship,” she exclaims, “I was as sober as you are now”—she might have added, but she did not, “and a good deal more sober than policeman Brown.” “I did go to Phil. Bird’s, but it was to fetch my husband out, who had been inveigled in there, and had been led into spending all the money he had, and getting drunk.” “Well, my good woman, the publican must be protected. You should not have created a disturbance. I shan’t inflict a fine, but you must pay the costs. You may go down.” And so the time of the magistrate is taken up; not one case out of ten comes to anything; but the officiousness of the police is shown; the lazy and good-for-nothing part of the public have a gratuitous entertainment provided for them, and the criminal class get an initiation into the secrets of the law, which robs it of its terrors, as in such matters it is especially true familiarity breeds contempt. Most of the lads and girls—especially the latter—placed at the bar, rather seem to like the excitement, and go before the bench in their best clothes and with their best looks, as they go to the gallery of the Victoria or the Sunday tea-garden. THE EAGLE TAVERN Is situated in an appropriate locality in the City-road, not far from a lunatic asylum, and contiguous to a workhouse. From time immemorial the Cockneys have hastened thither to enjoy themselves. Children are taught to say— “Up and down the City-road, In and out the Eagle, That’s the way the money goes, Pop goes the weasel.”