A dark-haired little French woman is brought in with crimson lips, bold black eyes, and expressive hands.  A detective testifies that he went with her into a tenement house on Seventeenth Street west of Sixth Avenue.  Charge:  Violation of the Tenement House Law.

“Qu’importe,” says the woman.  “I go in ze street.  I am arrested.  I stay in ze house.  I am arrested.  I take ze room.  I am arrested.  Chantage—­Blackmail.  C’est pour rire.”

Who are these women who are brought in a crowd together?  One of them older than the rest is a foreigner plainly dressed in black silk with a gold chain.  She does not seem particularly evil, but rather respectable.  The others are in long cloaks or waterproofs hastily donned and through which are glimpses of pink stockings.  They have hair of that disagreeable butter color which speaks of peroxide.  There has been a raid on a west-side street of a house of ill repute.  Some testimony is given and the older woman, the “Madam” is held in bail for the action of the Grand Jury while the rest are held for further evidence.  The judge tells us there will probably not be enough testimony and they will be released in the morning.  But unless bail is found they will spend the night in cells.

A nervous, excited woman comes in—­two policemen are with her.  She has been arrested for disorderly conduct on Sixth Avenue near Thirty-first Street.  She has been fighting with a man who has also been arrested and taken to the men’s Night Court.  Hers is a hard, tough face of the lowest type.

“Why should you try to scratch the man’s face?  What did he do?” the judge asks.  “Is he your husband?”

“My husband, your Honor?  Yes, I guess you can call Al that.  We lives up town and when I went out he says to me, ’Hustle, kid, you got to hustle, the rent’s due and if you don’t get the money I’ll break your neck.’  The slob won’t work.  Well, a night like this you couldn’t make a cent and I only had half a dollar and I wanted to get a bite to eat.  I hadn’t had a thing since four o’clock, and then I met Al going down Sixt’ Avenue an’ he tries to swipe me fifty cents off me and I was that wild I wanted to tear him.  I’m sorry; I guess it was my fault.  I don’t want to see him jugged, so please let me off, your Honor, and I won’t make no trouble.”

“Take her record,” said the judge, “and hold her as a witness against the man.”

A string of women are brought in for sentence who have been having finger prints taken in the adjoining room.  The judge proceeds to impose sentences according to the previous records which are shown.  Some of the women are those who have passed in front before.  The little bedraggled woman with the red feather has been arrested seven times in sixteen months.  Another has spent eight weeks in the workhouse out of a period of seven months; another has been sent already to the Bedford Reformatory; another has been twice to houses of reform.  Before the judge gives his sentence he refers the prisoners to the probation officer, who talks with them in a motherly way.