A few dilapidated gentlemen of the “learned profession,” with sharp features and anxious faces, fuss about among the crowd, reeking of whiskey and tobacco.  Now they whisper suspiciously in the ears of forlorn prisoners, now they struggle to get a market for their legal nostrums.  A few, more respectably clothed and less vicious of aspect, sit writing at a table inside the bar, while a dozen or more punch-faced policemen, affecting an air of superiority, drag themselves lazily through the crowd of seedy humanity, looking querulously over the railing encircling the dock, or exchanging recognitions with friends.

Some twenty “negro cases” having been disposed of without much respect to law, and being sent up for punishment (the Judge finds it more convenient to forego testimony in these cases), a daughter of the Emerald Isle, standing nearly six feet in her bare soles, and much shattered about the dress, is, against her inclination, arraigned before his Honor.  “I think I have seen you before, Mrs. Donahue?” says the Judge, inquiringly.

“Arrah, good-morning, yer ’onher!  Shure, it’s only the sixth time these three weeks.  Doesn’t meself like to see yer smiling face, onyhow!” Here Mrs. Donahue commences complimenting the Judge in one breath, and laying no end of charges at the door of the very diminutive and harmless Mister Donahue in the next.

“This being the sixth time,” returns his Honor, somewhat seriously, “I would advise you to compromise the matter with Donahue, and not be seen here again.  The state of South Carolina cannot pay your fees so often—­”

“Och, bad luck to Donahue!  Troth, an’ if yer onher’d put the fees down to Donahue, our acquaintance ’ouldn’t be so fraquent.”  Mrs. Donahue says this with great unction, throwing her uncombed hair back, then daintily raising her dress apace, and inquiring of Mr. Sheriff Hardscrabble, who sits on his Honor’s left, peering sharply through his spectacles, how he likes the spread of her broad, flat foot; “the charging the fees to Donahue, yer onher, ’d do it!” There was more truth in this remark than his Honor seemed to comprehend, for having heard the charge against her (Mr. Donahue having been caught in the act of taking a drop of her gin, she had well-nigh broken his head with the bottle), and having listened attentively while poor Donahue related his wrongs, and exhibited two very well blacked eyes and a broken nose, he came to the very just conclusion that it were well to save the blood of the Donahues.  And to this end did he grant Mrs. Donahue board and lodging for one month in the old prison.  Mrs. Donahue is led away, heaping curses on the head of Donahue, and compliments on that of his Honor.

A pale, sickly looking boy, some eleven years old, is next placed upon the stand.  Mr. Sergeant Stubbs, who leans his corpulent figure against the clerk’s desk, every few minutes bowing his sleepy head to some friend in the crowd, says:  “A hard ’un-don’t do no good about here.  A vagrant; found him sleeping in the market.”