THE SEAMY SIDE.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16750, 17 March 1926, Page 10

THE SEAMY SIDE.

TALES TOLD TO MAGISTRATE. A COLOURED CAROL. (Bv R. E Corder. in London Daily Mail.) "The Coloured Carol: or. The Negroes al, Seven Dials." is Hie seasonable lille of a thrilling Christmas drama heard before Sir Charlres Blron at Bow Street Police 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; his while wife: his friend, a coloured ship's steward: his enemy, a coloured seaman: "Props." a theatrical property man and a golden-haired policeman. The curtain rises on a jovial party in the saloon bar. The artist, his wife and Mends are wishing each other a merry Christmas to the cheery Hnkle of glasses, and the rousing voices of a Bacchanalian chorus. (Enter Hie coloured seaman with woman friend. 1 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 Ihe handle missing, from his hip pocket and brandishing it. before the face of Ihe steward' : What did you say? The Steward (still diplomatic) : Nothing. The Artist (persuasively) : Say, Charlie, don't be silly, and gel 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 the rear. The artist, pasing in his flight, picks up a flower-pot from outside 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 Hie razor across the artist's face from right cheek 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 What's all this aboul? (Grips both coloured antagonists by their coatcollars and hauls them to their feet.) The Artist (resentfully) : He has cut my face with a razor. The Crowd (frantically): He has cut him with a razor 1 The Seaman (incoherently) : B-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" (baiting 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 Oghling in a crowd. But the play's the thing. We must find the proper stage. (Takes the razor to Bow Street Police Station.) Again Ihe scene is changed to BowStreet Police Court. The Seaman (from the dock): He hit me first, and his friend has lold stories because he dislikes me. Another coloured fellow cut my wrist with a razor. (Dramatically removes a strip of sticking-plaster from his left wrist.) Sir Chartrcs 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 Chartres 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. Tin's is the season of parlour tricks, and a barman performed a conjuring feat lhaf, startled the manageress of the public-house where he was employed. On Christmas Eve she placed three single shillings 'and one halfcrown, all marked by herself, in Hie till, and on Christmas morning a detective found they had been transferred into a drawer in Hie barman's room. The barman said lie had made only from 4s to 5s a day out of the trick, hut Hie manageress said the disappearing coins came to 15s to £1 a day. The magistrate decided 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 lime as Patrick O'Brien was looking for his Christmas dinner. He found it in Hie 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. and Patrick O'Brien was returned with it. "I acted according lo rules and regulations." said Ihe 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 he was remanded tor a week to think out. a new scheme of life, and then the court missionary will take him in hand.