MORNINGS AT BOW STREET.

MORNINGS AT BOW STREET:

A Selection

OF THE MOST HUMOROUS AND ENTERTAINING REPORTS WHICH
HAVE APPEARED IN THE "MORNING HERALD."

BY J. WIGHT,
BOW-STREET REPORTER TO THE "MORNING HERALD."

WITH TWENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

"They did gather humours of men dayly wherever they came."
Aubrey MS.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET.
1875.

LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.

This volume consists of certain of those Bow Street Reports which have appeared from time to time, during the last three years, in the columns of the Morning Herald. The very favourable notice which they then met with from the public, has induced the author to select some of the most descriptive and amusing of them, and to present them here again, with some necessary enlargements and corrections, and in a somewhat more finished state than the rapid demands of a daily paper allowed.

In their present form, therefore, they assume the more permanent character which they have been thought to deserve; the convenience of the reader is consulted, and his imagination very effectively aided, by the Designs of Mr. George Cruikshank, whose rare comic pencil has been most successfully employed in illustrating them.

The chief quality of these little narratives is certainly "pour faire rire" in common with all other books of facetiæ; but in some important respects they differ from books of that class, which for the most part consist of fancied and fictitious scenes and characters; and of humour concocted in the brain of the writer: for in the work now presented, the dramatis personæ are actual existences, and the scenes real occurrences; affording specimens of our national humour which is perhaps to be found genuine only among the uncultivated classes of society. In copying these, the author's chief aim has been to preserve the character and spirit of his originals.

The reader is placed, without personal sacrifice, amidst the various and somewhat repulsive groups of a police office, and made acquainted with the states and conditions of human nature, with which, from the sympathy due to the more unfortunate part of the species, he should not be entirely ignorant; it is by such means alone that the prosperous and orderly portion of society can know what passes among the destitute and disorderly portion of it; that they can rightly appreciate the advantages they enjoy, and the value and importance of these particular institutions of their country.

It has been objected to this publication, that it perpetuates the ridicule and disgrace to which individuals have, in an unlucky moment, exposed themselves: to obviate this, great care has been taken that names, which are here unimportant, should be either totally omitted, or so altered as to prevent the possibility of discovery; personal satire being in no degree the object of this work;—the persons concerned have then only to keep their own counsel, to be perfectly unexposed to having their wounds opened afresh by means of this inoffensive, and, it is hoped, diverting volume.

CONTENTS.