"THE INEBRIATES PARADE."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 24, 23 October 1907, Page 10

"THE INEBRIATES PARADE."

A MAGISTRATE'S COURT SCENE.

The Saturday evening lingerer on the ambor-tinted pathway figures conspicuously in, tho preliminary business at the Magistrate's Court each 'Monday, with a monotonous regularity which would indicate that tho police spend a good deal of their Saturday night in ushering revellers who have lapsed from the path of sobriety into the lock-up. Tho week-end and pay-day apparently have a demoralising effect on some men and a , fov; women, and Monday morning sees the, offenders' haled - before the magistrate to answer for tho lapse. Last Monday morning no less than ten persons wore called upon to do the parade and answer the formal impeachment, "You are charged with being drunk in ' Street on Saturday, October 19. How do you plead? " Thero were various typos in the misguided ten, ranging from battered specimens of humanity, .wlio stood tho crowded Court without wincing, to''well-dressed men and women, who seemed to shrink from the gaze of the, loungers herded into the public portion: of the Court-ropm. ..The drunk is frequently profuse hi his professions that, " It will not occur again, Your Worship," as soon as ho reaches the dock, but tho cold judicial exterior of the is not' altered by even the most original of the appeals. Excuses were not lacking in Monday morning's offenders. A well-dressed fomale was the first to endeavour to influence the magisterial mind with a softly-spoken, "If you.,only pardon me this otfence, I'll never offend again.'.' A chilling, expressionless stare was the reply to the appeal, but tho light sentence tended to show that, whatever the-magisterial exterior may have been, the pleading had not fallen on barren ground. A nailorman, with, patches of skin off a gaunt face, remarked that he could not say ho was drunk, but at the same time advanced extenuating circumstances. Ho had just arrived from Liverpool in a sailing ship, and didn't have much drink..." Convicted and discharged " was the verdict, and "Get back to work as soon as possible" the advice. The balance of tho misguided ones included a decrepit old man, a big muscular labourer with a black eye, and a well-defined gravel rash, and a sprucely-dressed young man,.who might have been anything from a carpenter to a clerk; but all bad mot on a common footing for the time being, and paid the. penalty for the week-end excesses. ■ ■ ■ .