Polly's Southern Cruise

“I think I’d prefer to be amused this morning instead of sight-seeing around the country,” answered Mrs. Courtney.

So it was hastily decided that the young people, chaperoned by Mrs. Courtney, were to attend court, while Mr. Dalken took his friends on a tram ride out into the open country of Jamaica.

Jack acted as official pilot of the contingent for the court house; as they came near the entrance door they found a crowd of all sorts of people waiting to see justice administered.

Inside, the good-looking young lieutenant was introduced to Jack’s party, and then he found seats in a desirable row where every incident could be seen, yet they would not be elbowed by the motley gathering.

The court room was nothing more than a large room with a raised platform at one end. Rude wooden benches were placed in rows for the accommodation of the audience and those who would have to report when their names were called from the roll in the clerk’s hands.

Upon the platform was the judge. He sat in an old swivel chair behind a table, and every now or then he leaned back in weary listlessness, but just as surely as he tilted back a bit too far, the treacherous pivot would squeak and the chair went back, being kept from over-turning by the clutch in the swivel. At these tilts the judge would throw out both arms and yank his body upright in order to regain his equilibrium. A deep-seated grunt announced the success of his attempts at balancing, and the trial would proceed as before the interruption. The spectators in the room dared not smile, nor even seem to be interested in the result of the tip of the magistrate’s chair, but each one maintained a serious expression as if life and limb depended upon their dignified attention to the witness on the stand. With the advent of Eleanor to the court room all this was to be reversed.

Jack whispered to the girls: “Is this bench all right for you to see the show?”

Instantly the judge ceased playing with his heavy-rimmed horn spectacles and sat upright. He glared over at the newcomers, but finding that they paid no attention to him he thumped the top of the table with a mallet: “Order in the Court!” shouted he.

The girls were seated now, and Ruth looked up with awe at the man who had just spoken. Nancy glanced around the room and wrinkled her dainty nose at the crowding of whites, yellows, and blacks in one small area. Polly watched the severe judge, but Eleanor was all eyes for the witness on the platform. Jack and Ray stood back of the bench upon which sat the girls, and watched for the fun they had been promised.

The ancient clerk, a picturesque form, now got upon his feet and read from a legal paper the name and crime of one Al Colman. Down in front of the platform sat a black giant. Fittingly his name was “Colman.” But he was not experienced in court manners so he did not answer to the call of his name.

The judge toyed impatiently with the mallet of authority, but he would not so far demean himself as to bring the prisoner to understand his lesson. Rather, he glared at the Clerk, who was a yellow-white, and demanded of him:

“Got the prisoner in the Court?” he could plainly see the nervous Al just in front of his table, but that was not justice as he weighed it out to menials.

The Clerk lowered the paper, stared over his specs at Al, and called impatiently: “Why don’ you answer when I calls yoh name, Al?” The Americans smiled at the first bit of play.

“D’ye want me to?” demanded Al Colman, wriggling uneasily. He was a ragged, ignorant black, who looked too stupid to steal.

“Shore! Got a lawyer t’ defen’ yuh?” demanded the Clerk.

“How come yuh ast me dat? Yuh knows I ain’t got nuff money to git me a moufful to eat?” retorted Al. Eleanor laughed and the judge thumped the table furiously and bawled out:

“Order in this Court!”

“Step up to the chair, Al, and be examined,” advised the Clerk.

Poor Al, getting up from his bench as if it was to be the last act on earth for him, crept up to the platform and shook as he lifted imploring eyes to the severe magistrate above him. This tickled the egotism of the judge mightily and he frowned down upon the trembling prisoner.

“Step up and answer all questions truthfully!” commanded he.

Al obeyed and after he had taken the oath to speak the “truf, the hull truf, an’ nuttin’ but de truf,” the lawyer for the plaintiff began his story.

“’N it please yuh honor, yistiddy whiles I was lookin’ over important papers, I hears a hue an’ cry outside my office window, so I jumps up and looks. Down th’ street went dis niggeh an’ a affer him went a lady of color what sells sweets on the street – she got a genuwine license from you, yuh honor,” the man interrupted himself, suddenly remembering how important such an item would be in influencing justice.

The magistrate bowed with dignity, and the plaintiff continued: “Dis Al Colman held a stick of sweets an’ was beatin’ it foh de open when I steps out and interviews de hull thing. It is a plain case of larceny, yuh honor, an’ my client claims damages an’ costs. I have an important witness to testify to de truf of dis situation, yuh honor.”

The judge glared at poor Al and the self-styled lawyer beckoned to Lieutenant Bray to step up. But Jack had already whispered to Bray to go easy on the poor black man, and call on his friends if he needed any help in dragging Al out of the ditch.

The lawyer next asked Al all sorts of questions, in order to catch him lying or attempting to get out of the claim of theft.

“Whar yuh reside, Al?” demanded the lawyer.

“Anywhar I finds a welcome,” murmured Al, his eyes fixed upon the splendor of the officer’s uniform as he came up to offer his testimony in the case.

“And what yuh works at, Al?” demanded the questioner suavely, satisfied with the reply to his first question.

“Now yuh know I does any odd job I kin git,” said Al.

“How come yuh helped yuh-self to dem sweets, Al?” was the next question.

Suddenly a voice behind Polly interrupted the proceedings: “I object to that question until you have proved that the man took them!”

Every head turned to the owner of the new voice. The girls and Jack and Ray started in surprise to find Mr. Dalken had entered unseen and was watching this unusual trial.

“Order in this Court!” thundered the judge. Then to the sheriff, he said: “Eject that man who interrupts the proceeding of the Law.”

But Mr. Dalken now stepped down to the front and said: “I am the legal representative for this Al Colman. I object to the irregular questions asked of my client.”

Al Colman’s jaw dropped and his whole body slumped in the rickety chair. The judge was so startled that he brought the swivel chair to an upright position with such suddenness that the clutch broke and dropped out, but he never knew it. He stared at the new lawyer and scowled his unwelcome.

“Who are you and why didn’t you step up aforetime?”

“I just managed to reach the Court, your Honor, and now I offer my services to this undefended man on trial for stealing sweets.” Mr. Dalken’s manner was sugary and Jack hugged himself. He anticipated great fun with the renowned New York lawyer taking a part. Even the lieutenant smiled with delight at the turn in events. Only Al seemed overwhelmed and depressed by the aspect his case was taking.

The old woman who sold sweets on the street lifted bleary eyes to her lawyer and grumbled: “I’s is losin’ all de mawnin’ trade wid dis foolin’ bout dat stick of sugar cane! Lem’me go!”

“Order in the Court!” thundered the judge, banging the table. He could let out his spleen on the table and it could not object.

The case first advanced a step, then receded a step, until Mr. Dalken brought his legal experience to bear on his colleague’s legal understanding. Thus matters drifted and were halted over and over, when a suspicious sound from the magistrate in the broken swivel chair announced that he was snoring, while the two lawyers wrangled in front of his platform. Al Colman sat in stupefied wonderment at all he heard but he was not sure whether they were going to send him to the chair, or to jail for life. Every one in the room was tittering at the discomfiture of the lawyer for the old street peddler, when a new phase occurred.

“Now, see heah, all yuh fo’kses! I done gone lost a stick of sugar yistiddy, but I lose all my pence o’ trade to-day cuz, of bein’ hauled in heah agin my will. I ain’t got no cause nohow to git Al Colman inter jail, an’ I’se discharge dis case!” As she rendered judgment in a hoarse voice which was familiar on the street as coming from a full-lung-powered huckster, she turned to leave the room.

Whether the sound of a woman usurping his rights of judgment, or whether the laughter of the crowd in the court room aroused him, cannot be determined, but the judge suddenly let go his balance in the chair in order to get up and demand order. The swivel instantly pivoted, and the clutch being gone, back went the chair, tossing His Honor upon his head behind the table.

Then followed such an uproar that Al made a quick escape without being seen. Out of the side door went he, and away to the open country he fled, as if the hounds of justice were upon his heels. The Clerk of the Court and the Sheriff hastened to assist their superior to an upright position, and he showed his gratitude by getting hold of the mallet and almost cracking the table in his efforts to bring about order in that Court, while he glared at his deputies.

Then scowling fiercely upon the two lawyers who had been the cause of his nap, he thundered: “The case is dismissed! No cause.”

The spectators laughed and jeered, and the two legal representatives shook hands and departed. Once outside, Jack and the lieutenant met again, and the former said to the latter: “The whole thing looked as if it had been staged for our benefit.”

And the army officer replied: “That’s a typical scene of a trial for petty larceny. There is no more apparent justice in the entire proceedings than you would find in having your hen-coop robbed and then have the man come and ask you to give him the side trimmings to his chicken dinner.”

Mr. Dalken now came up and was introduced to the officer. “Did the poor rascal really steal the sugar-stick?” asked he.

“I don’t think so, sir. But a lawyer with no cases on hand has to trump up something to advertise himself. He may have paid the old peddler a little sum to attend the court and demand a bit of justice. He may even have paid Al to permit himself to be tried for stealing, provided Al made the lawyer promise to get him scot free at the last.”

“Well, well! That scene was certainly well worth the time it took to witness it!” added Mr. Dalken, as they all moved away to the tram-cars.

Later that morning Polly said: “I haven’t a very high opinion of Kingston justice!”