Amelia | Page 8

tremendous bar Mr. Gotobed the
constable, on the day above mentioned, brought several delinquents,
who, as we have said, had been apprehended by the watch for diverse
outrages.
The first who came upon his trial was as bloody a spectre as ever the
imagination of a murderer or a tragic poet conceived. This poor wretch

was charged with a battery by a much stouter man than himself; indeed
the accused person bore about him some evidence that he had been in
an affray, his cloaths being very bloody, but certain open sluices on his
own head sufficiently shewed whence all the scarlet stream had issued:
whereas the accuser had not the least mark or appearance of any wound.
The justice asked the defendant, What he meant by breaking the king's
peace?----To which he answered----"Upon my shoul I do love the king
very well, and I have not been after breaking anything of his that I do
know; but upon my shoul this man hath brake my head, and my head
did brake his stick; that is all, gra." He then offered to produce several
witnesses against this improbable accusation; but the justice presently
interrupted him, saying, "Sirrah, your tongue betrays your guilt. You
are an Irishman, and that is always sufficient evidence with me."
The second criminal was a poor woman, who was taken up by the
watch as a street-walker. It was alleged against her that she was found
walking the streets after twelve o'clock, and the watchman declared he
believed her to be a common strumpet. She pleaded in her defence (as
was really the truth) that she was a servant, and was sent by her
mistress, who was a little shopkeeper and upon the point of delivery, to
fetch a midwife; which she offered to prove by several of the
neighbours, if she was allowed to send for them. The justice asked her
why she had not done it before? to which she answered, she had no
money, and could get no messenger. The justice then called her several
scurrilous names, and, declaring she was guilty within the statute of
street-walking, ordered her to Bridewell for a month.
A genteel young man and woman were then set forward, and a very
grave- looking person swore he caught them in a situation which we
cannot as particularly describe here as he did before the magistrate;
who, having received a wink from his clerk, declared with much
warmth that the fact was incredible and impossible. He presently
discharged the accused parties, and was going, without any evidence, to
commit the accuser for perjury; but this the clerk dissuaded him from,
saying he doubted whether a justice of peace had any such power. The
justice at first differed in opinion, and said, "He had seen a man stand
in the pillory about perjury; nay, he had known a man in gaol for it too;

and how came he there if he was not committed thither?" "Why, that is
true, sir," answered the clerk; "and yet I have been told by a very great
lawyer that a man cannot be committed for perjury before he is indicted;
and the reason is, I believe, because it is not against the peace before
the indictment makes it so." "Why, that may be," cries the justice, "and
indeed perjury is but scandalous words, and I know a man cannot have
no warrant for those, unless you put for rioting [Footnote: _Opus est
interprete._ By the laws of England abusive words are not punishable
by the magistrate; some commissioners of the peace, therefore, when
one scold hath applied to them for a warrant against another, from a too
eager desire of doing justice, have construed a little harmless scolding
into a riot, which is in law an outrageous breach of the peace
committed by several persons, by three at the least, nor can a less
number be convicted of it. Under this word rioting, or riotting (for I
have seen it spelt both ways), many thousands of old women have been
arrested and put to expense, sometimes in prison, for a little
intemperate use of their tongues. This practice began to decrease in the
year 1749.] them into the warrant."
The witness was now about to be discharged, when the lady whom he
had accused declared she would swear the peace against him, for that
he had called her a whore several times. "Oho! you will swear the
peace, madam, will you?" cries the justice: "Give her the peace,
presently; and pray, Mr. Constable, secure the prisoner, now we have
him, while a warrant is made to take him up." All which was
immediately performed, and the poor witness, for want of securities,
was sent to prison.
A young fellow, whose name was Booth, was now charged