The Rising of the Court | Page 3

her:
"Oh! for God's sake give it a rest!"
Whereupon Mrs Johnson straightway opens on him and his ancestry,
and his mental, moral, and physical condition--especially the latter. She
accuses him of every crime known to Christian countries and some
Asiatic and ancient ones. She wants to know how long he has been out
of jail for kicking his wife to pieces that time when she was up as a
witness against him, and whether he is in for the same thing again?
(She has never set eyes on him, by the way, nor he on her.)
He calls back that she is not a respectable woman, and he knows all
about her.
Thereupon she shrieks at him and bangs and kicks at her door, and
demands his name and address. It would appear that she is a respectable
woman, and hundreds can prove it, and she is going to make him prove

it in open court.
He calls back that his name is Percy Reginald Grainger, and his town
residence is "The Mansions," Macleay Street, next to Mr Isaacs, the
magistrate, and he also gives her the address of his solicitor.
She bangs and shrieks again, and states that she will get his name from
the charge sheet in the morning and have him up for criminal libel, and
have his cell mate up as a witness--and hers, too. But just here a
policeman comes along and closes her wicket with a bang and cuts her
off, so that her statements become indistinct, or come only as shrieks
from a lost soul in an underground dungeon. He also threatens to cut us
off and smother us if we don't shut up. I wonder whether they've got
her in the padded cell.
We settle down again, but presently my fellow captive nudges me and
says: "Listen!" From another cell comes the voice of a woman
singing--the girl who is in for "inciting to resist, your worship," in fact.
"Listen!" he says, "that woman could sing once." Her voice is low and
sweet and plaintive, as of a woman who had been a singer but had lost
her voice. And what do you think it is?
The crowd in accents hushed reply-- "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by."
Mrs Johnson's cell is suddenly silent. Then, not mimickingly,
mockingly, or scornfully, but as if the girl is a champion of Jesus of
Nazareth, and is hurt at the ignorance of the multitude, and pities
_Him_:
Now who is this Jesus of Nazareth, say?
The policeman, coming along the passage, closes the wicket in her door,
but softly this time, and not before we catch the plaintive words again.
The crowd in accents hushed reply "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by."
My fellow felon throws the blanket off him impatiently, sits up with a
jerk, and gropes for his pipe.
"God!" he says. "But this is red hot! Have you got another match?"
I wonder what the Nazarene would have to say about it.
Sleep for a while. I wonder whether they'll give us time, or we'll be able
to sleep some of our sins off in the end, as we sleep our drink off here?
Then "The Paddock" and day light; but there's little time for the
Paddock here, for we must soon be back in court. The men borrow and
lend and divide tobacco, lend even pipes, while some break up hard
tobacco and roll cigarettes with bits of newspaper. If it is Sunday

morning, even those who have no hope for bail, and have long horrible
day and night before them, will sometimes join in a cheer as the more
fortunate are bailed. But the others have tea and bread and butter
brought to them by one of the Prisoners' Aid Societies, who ask for no
religion in return. They come to save bodies, and not to fish for souls.
The men walk up and down and to and fro, and cross and recross
incessantly, as caged men and animals always do--and as some uncaged
men do too.
"Any of you gentlemen want breakfast?" Those who have money and
appetites order; some order for the sake of the tea alone; and some
"shout" two or three extra breakfasts for those who had nothing on
them when they were run in. We low people can be very kind to each
other in trouble. But now it's time to call us out by the lists, marshal us
up in the passage and draft us into court. Ladies first. But I forgot that I
am out on bail, and that the foregoing belongs to another occasion. Or
was it only imagination, or hearsay? Journalists have got themselves
run in before now, in order to see and hear and feel and smell for
themselves--and write.
"Silence! Order in