In the various chapters that make up this volume I have made no attempt to deal with the whole of the humanity that finds its way into London Police Courts: I have but selected a few individuals who strikingly illustrate human or social problems. Each of those individuals was well known to me, and many of them have cost me anxious thought and prolonged care. It is in the sincere hope that the knowledge I have slowly gained of these individuals, of their characteristics and environments, may lead

It would ill become me to allow a new edition of this book to go forth without expressing my grateful thanks to the public for the kind manner in which the book has been received. Public and Press seem to have vied with each other in showing kindness to me and gentleness to the book, while to its faults they have been more than a little blind. If I judge rightly, this is not because the book has of itself any excellence, but because of the particular work in which I am engaged—a work that appeal

‘You have missed your vocation in life; you ought to have been an actor, or a writer for the Daily Telegraph ,’ so I was assured by an eminent professor of phrenology. The professor had expressed a wish to meet all the London police court missionaries, with a view of ascertaining their fitness or unfitness for the position they hold. Mine was the last head he measured. He had passed all my colleagues, and had found no unfitness among them. Not being sure of my fitness, I waited till last; but wh

It was one Monday morning in May that I first saw the inside of a London police court. It is fifteen years ago, but that day is still fresh in my memory; nay, rather, it is burned into my very consciousness. There was I, up from the country, with great hopes of doing good, and not altogether ignorant of the world or the vices and sorrows of our large cities; but a revelation awaited me. I spent that day in a horrible wonderland, and although dazed and afraid to speak to anyone, I noticed everyth

But a great change came over London police courts about eleven years ago. The description I have given of one court held true of them all at that particular time. If my memory serves me correctly, to Mr. Justice Wills belongs the credit of applying in the House of Lords for a Commission to inquire into the condition of things in London police courts. This brought about a blessed result, for everything that can be done for the comfort, refinement, and decency of the prisoners is now done at all o

These words headed a paragraph of police news in the daily papers one morning in June. But the few commonplace words that told the story gave no idea of the intense suffering. Four weeks before an old sorrowful-faced man had tremblingly stood in the dock charged with a violent assault upon his wife. Four times he had been assisted back to the cells. Four times in the cupboard of the prison van had he been conveyed to the house of detention, for his wife lay hovering between life and death in the

‘Please, sir, I want a summons.’ It was application time, and the speaker who stood in the witness-box was a boy of about twelve, evidently from a comfortable home. He wore a good Eton suit of clothes, and his collar was immaculate. ‘Whom do you want a summons against?’ he was asked. ‘My father, sir.’ The magistrate looked at him and asked: ‘What has your father done to you?’ ‘Please, sir, he has assaulted me.’ ‘That was very wrong of your father. Why did he do so?’ ‘Please, sir, he said that I

A strange being was Jane, or, rather, ‘Miss Cakebread,’ as she loved to call herself. Helpless, homeless, and penniless as she was, I question whether any lady other than the Queen attracted the attention of the public so long, or had so many paragraphs written about her as poor demented Jane Cakebread. For years all England laughed and grew merry over Jane, heedless of the tragedy that attended her, and of the cruel farce, so long drawn out, that was enacted with regard to her. Queen of her dom

Kate was an Irish girl, and there was no beauty about her. I met with her the first day I entered a London police court, and was afraid of her. I met with her many times afterwards, and the fear and disgust wore off. There was nothing of the Cakebread type about her; she loved not the precincts of a police court, and could never take her month philosophically. She would scream like a wild beast, curse the magistrate, and defy the police. Sometimes it required several officers to remove her from

It is commonly believed, and accepted as an article of faith among temperance workers, that there is much less hope of reforming a drunken woman than of reforming a drunken man. My experience of both men and women leads me to the opinion that the chances are about equal. In both men and women physiological and pathological causes very often lie at the roots of their condition, and make it difficult—almost impossible—to deal successfully with the drink habit. Some of the best fellows I know are c

The study of human nature is always interesting, but to study a criminal is an engrossing task. Anyone who undertakes this had better have no preconceived ideas; if he has he will have much to unlearn, for no two criminals are alike. Prison is probably the worst place in which to study a criminal. He is then under control; his actions are not ordered by himself, but by others, and he must obey. He, naturally, wants to make the best of his imprisonment; he, therefore, behaves himself, and his tru

Numbers of people seem to be possessed of a strange kind of mania that only manifests itself in action when they have taken a little drink. It may be, and it frequently is, a very small drop of drink that does the mischief; but it leads to surprising results, for some weak spot, some peculiar trait, or some secret longing is operated upon at once. Poor old Cakebread used to say: ‘It is the argument that does it.’ Inordinately fond of talking when free from alcohol, a very small dose of it made h

That primitive life and manners simple, if not innocent, continue even now amongst us was brought startlingly to light in North London. A man, presumably young, stood in the dock, charged with stealing nine shillings and sixpence. A strange-looking fellow he was, with his upright hair uncut and uncombed for many a day. Unwashed in body, and tattered in clothing, he looked the image of fantastic fear. The prosecutor, not quite so fearsome-looking, was also a strange specimen of humanity, for he w

One hot afternoon in July, in the hottest year of recent times, a man of about thirty-five years of age sat on a chair outside a very poor house in a very mean street of Hackney Wick. There was not a breath of air stirring, and, though the sun shone brilliantly, and the street was redolent with unsavoury smells, the poor fellow found the rays of the sun and the smells of the street preferable to the insufferably close atmosphere of the very little room—first floor back—in which he had lived for

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 1 ‘Aged forty-six, and out of work, a grocer’s assistant named Thomas Harvey hanged himself at a house in Euston Road. ‘On a piece of paper in the suicide’s pocket was written: ‘“I cannot get work, so have to die in a so-called Christian country. Young men only are employed, and the elders shoved aside when too old for the trade, to do what they can, no matter how meritorious their service to their employer may have been.” ‘At the inquest, yesterday, a