The Inspector has eyed the woman, and
now eyes the fowl. He turns it up, opens it
neatly with his knife, takes out a little bottle
of brandy artfully concealed within it, puts the
brandy on a shelf as confiscated, and sends
in the rest of the supper.

What is this very neat new trunk in a
corner, carefully corded?

It is here on a charge of "drunk and
incapable." It was found in Piccadilly to-night
(with a young woman sitting on it) and is full
of good clothes, evidently belonging to a
domestic servant. Those clothes will be rags
soon, and the drunken woman will die of gin,
or be drowned in the river.

We are dozing by the fire again, and it is
past three o'clock when the stillness (only
invaded at intervals by the heard voices of the
two French ladies talking in their cell—no
other prisoners seem to be awake,) is broken
by the complaints of a woman and the cries
of a child. The outer door opens noisily, and
the complaints and the cries come nearer, and
come into the dock.

"What's this?" says the Inspector, putting
up the window. "Don't cry there, don't
cry!"

A rough-headed miserable little boy of four
or five years old stops in his crying and looks
frightened.

"This woman," says a wet constable, glistening
in the gaslight, " has been making a
disturbance in the street for hours, on and off.
She says she wants relief. I have warned her
off my beat over and over again, sir; but it's
of no use. She took at last to rousing the
whole neighbourhood."

"You hear what the constable says. What
did you do that for?"

"Because I want relief, sir."

"If you want relief, why don't you go to
the relieving-officer?"

"I've been, sir, God knows; but I couldn't
get any. I haven't been under a blessed roof
for three nights; but have been prowling the
streets the whole night long, sir. And I can't
do it any more, sir. And my husband has
been dead these eight months, sir. And I 've
nobody to help me to a shelter or a bit of
bread, God knows!"

"You haven't been drinking, have you?"

"Drinking, sir? Me, sir?"

"I am afraid you have. Is that your
own child?"

"O yes, sir, he's my child!"

"He hasn't been with you in the streets
three nights, has he?"

"No, sir. A friend took him in for me, sir;
but couldn't afford to keep him any longer,
sir, and turned him on my hands this
afternoon, sir."

"You didn't fetch him away yourself, to
have him to beg with, I suppose?"

"O no, sir! Heavens knows I didn't,
sir!"

"Well!" writing on a slip of paper, "I
shall send the child to the workhouse until
the morning, and keep you here. And then,
if your story is true, you can tell it to the
magistrate, and it will be inquired into."

"Very well, sir. And God knows I'll be
thankful to have it inquired into!"

"Reserve!"

"Sir!"

"Take this child to the workhouse. Here's
the order. You go along witli this man, my
little fellow, and they'll put you in a nice
warm bed, and give you some breakfast in the
morning. There's a good boy!"

The wretched urchin parts from his mother
without a look, and trots contentedly away
with the constable. There would be no very
strong ties to break here if the constable
were taking him to an industrial school.
Our honourable friend the member for Red
Tape voted for breaking stronger ties than
these in workhouses once upon a time. And
we seem faintly to remember that he glorified
himself upon that measure very much!

We shift the scene to Southwark. It is
much the same. We return to Bow Street.
Still the same. Excellent method, carefully
administered, vigilant in all respects except
this main one:—prevention of ignorance,
remedy for unnatural neglect of children,
punishment of wicked parents, interposition of
the State, as a measure of human policy, if
not of human pity and accountability, at the
very source of crime.

Our Inspectors hold that drunkenness as a
cause of crime, is in the ratio of two to one
greater than any other cause. We doubt if
they make due allowance for the cases in
which it is the consequence or companion of
crime, and not the cause; but, we do not
doubt its extensive influence as a cause
alone. Of the seven thousand and eighteen
charges entered in the books of Bow Street
station during 1850, at least half are against
persons of both sexes, for being "drunk and
incapable."If offences be included which
have been indirectly instigated by intoxication,
the proportion rises to at least seventy-five
per cent. As a proof of this, it can be
demonstrated from the books at head quarters
(Scotland Yard) that there was a great
and sudden diminution of charges after the
wise measure of shutting up public houses at
twelve o'clock on Saturday nights.

Towards five o'clock, the number of cases
falls off, and the business of the station
dwindles down to charges against a few
drunken women. We have seen enough,
and we retire.

We have not wearied the reader, whom we
now discharge, with more than a small part of
our experience; we have not related how the
two respectable tradesmen, "happening" to
get drunk at "the House they used," first
fought with one another, then "dropped into" a
policeman; as that witness related in evidence,
until admonished by his Inspector concerning
the Queen's English: nor how one young
person resident near Covent Garden,