In these sketches our readers may hope, not for cooked reports to support any particular view of life and its relations, but for actual facts witnessed by our own staff, or else the views of people having knowledge or experience of the things whereof they speak. It is better in these things to speak so plainly that everybody may see where the disease lies, and thereby form a better idea of how a remedy may be applied. CHAPTER XI. ALL NIGHT IN THE CELLS. The numerous police stations of the city, and especially the Central station are on account of the news and incidents which surround them, favorite fishing grounds for the reporters. There is scarcely an hour of the day or night, that a reporter alert, watchful and ever ready for business, may not be found in the Central station ready to pick up the slightest item of news and bear it in all haste to the paper he represents. The reporters know the working of each station almost as well as the officer on duty. I was standing one night on the corner of Jordan and King streets when I observed four young men coming from the direction of Bay street. They were all more or less intoxicated, but one of them, a young man whom I knew well and who I was aware seldom touched liquor was the drunkest of the lot. He was quarrelsome and very noisy, and it was not long before I saw the dark figures of two policemen crossing from the corner of King and Yonge towards the group. One of them expostulated with the young man, but he became indignant, then abusive, and was finally arrested and taken to No. 1 station. I followed the party, and when we entered the inspector’s office I could see by the bewildered look in the unfortunate young man’s eyes that he had never been there before. He was led to the railing round the inspector’s desk, and that officer studied him coolly for a moment through the little wicket, and then demanded his name. The young man gave it mechanically, and in the same way told the place of his birth, his age, religion and employment. Then the orderly on duty went through his pockets, took from him his knife, watch and chain, money, papers, pipe and tobacco, and other articles, and then with a gruff “Come on, here,” led him down. His arrest, his march through the gaping crowd in the brightly lit streets, his search upstairs, the subdued remarks of the police on duty, and the bitter clang of the iron door behind him had evidently sobered him. His heart is like water in him, and he feels his blood course chilly in his veins as he stands aghast, gazing about him in the strange place. The concrete floor, the row of iron doors, and oh, horror! worse than all, the battered old drunk, who comes reeling towards him with a “Hello, old feller, you in too? Shake!” fills him with a convulsive dread, a nameless terror that sets the cold sweat oozing from every pore in his clammy skin.