THE SEAMY SIDE

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3308, 30 March 1926, Page 13

THE SEAMY SIDE

TALES TOLD TO MAGISTRATE. A COLOURED CAROL. (By R. E. Cordcr in London "Daily Mail.”) “The Coloured Carol; or "The [Negroes at Seven Dials,” is the seasonable title of a thrilling Christmas drama heard before Sir Charles Birou at Bow Street Rolice Court on Boxing Day. Time: Just before the last drinks on Christmas Eve. Scene: A public-house in the Seven Dials. Characters: A coloured variety artist; ills white wife; his friend, a coloured ship’s steward; his enemy, a coloured seaman; "Props," a theatrical property man and a goldenhaired policeman. The curtain rises on a jovial party in the saloon bar. The artist, his wife and friends are wishing each other a merry Christmas to the cheery tinkle of glasses, and the rousing voices of a Bacchanalian chorus. (Enter The coloured seaman with woman friend.) The action of the play now proceeds according to the version of the prosecution. The seaman (hitting his woman friend on the jaw and driving her into the arms of the coloured artist): Now will you be good? The Coloured Steward (protesting diplomatically): You ought not to do it, Charlie. The Seaman (producing a razor with the handle missing, from his hip pocket and brandishing it before the face of the steward): What did you say? The Steward (still diplomatic): Nothing, The Artist (persuasively): Say. Charlie, don’t he silly, and got into trouble.

The Seaman (aggressively): Do you want something for yourself? The Artist (backing towards the door); No, I don’t want nothing.

The Seaman (following him): You are sure you don’t want anything? The Artist (dashing through the doorway): Nothing, absolutely nothing. The scene is changed to Great St. Andrew’s street. The artist is in full flight with the seaman close behind, and an excited crowd bringing up (he rear. The artist pausing in his flight, picks up a flower-pot from outsito a shop and hurls it full in the chest of the seaman. The Seaman; Huh! Closes with the artist, knocks him down, kneels on him, and draws the razor across the artist’s face from right check to right eye-brow. The Crowd (in agonised chorus): He's killing him! The Artist (plaintively): Help! (Enter the golden-haired constable, young, energetic, conscientious.) The Policeman (disapprovingly): What’s all this about? (Grips both coloured antagonists by their coat collars and hauls them to their feet.) The Artist (resentfully): Pie has cut my face with a razor.

The Crowd (frantically): He has cut liim with a razor.

The Seaman (incorherently): B-b----—h-he-ee—s-t-t ???!!! The Policeman: You tell that to the inspector. You both come with me. (Exeunt.)

The action of the play is retarded for a few minutes. (Enter “Props” and friend approaching from Upper St. Martin's lane.) “Props” (halting at a flash and a metallic sound): That must be a knife (searches roadway). Ha, here it is—a razor. An interesting “property,” and over there is the cast — two coloured men fighting in a crowd. But the play’s the thing. We must find the proper stage. (Takes the razor to the Bow Street Police Station.) Again the scene is changed to Bow Street Police Court. The Seaman (from the dock): He hit me first, and his friend has told stories because ho dislikes me. Another coloured fellow cut my wrist with a razor. (Dramatically removes a strip of sticking piaster from his left wrist.) Sir Charles Biron (committing the seaman for trial); Is there any objection to bail? A Detective (emphatically): Yes, sir; he has done a similar thing before, and he lives in the same house as some of the witnesses.

Sir Charles Biron (blandly to seaman): You can make application for bail to a judge in chambers.

Curtain! Among the Christmas “casualties” was a young man whose chief concern was a bowler hat, who got drunk on Wednesday night, arrived in court too drunk to be charged on Christmas Eve, and was brought in drunk again on Christmas morning. Fined 20s, he bowed his face in his bowler hat and told the lining that he was sorry.

This is the season of parlour tricks, and a barman performed a conjuring: feat that startled the manageress of the public-house where he was employed. On Christmas Eve ,shc placed three single shillings and one half-crown, all marked by herself, in the till, and on Christmas morning a detective found they had

been transferred into a drawer in the barman’s room. The barman said ho had made only from 4s to 5s a day out of the trick, but the manageress said the disappearing coins came to 15s to £1 a day. The Magistrate deedided that the barman himself should disappear for two months.

An engineer went to an hotel in Northumberland avenue for a Christmas luncheon at the same time as Patrick O’Brien was looking for his Christmas dinner. He found it in the form of a rug left in the engineer’s motor car, but a commissionaire employed at a neighbouring club requested a policeman to reclaim the rug i and Patrick O’Brien was returned with it. “I acted according to rules and regulations,” said the Irishman. “The rule is that one must live honestly; the regulations make it impossible.”

Patrick O’Brien’s logic was as bad as his reasoning, so ho was remanded for a week to think out a new scheme of life, and then the court missionary will take him in hand.