will ever witness such pleasant, sparkling, humorous examinations as
those reported in the columns of the papers which matinally grace their
breakfast-tables. The tyro upon town will stare at this. Why, will he
say, cannot I, if I frequent the same place, see and hear what those who
are employed for the press see and hear there? He can; but the fact is,
that our police reporters are by far too clever to set down the words of
other people, without throwing in something of their own. Their plan is
to drop the duller parts of a story or a speech, and to embellish its
livelier portion--to select the tit-bits, and sauce and spice them up
sufficiently high to please the palates of the news-reading public. The
offices afford them an excellent variety of characters, which, like
skilful dramatists, they work up until they become really humorous: many
of the cases afford them capital plots, into which they cleverly
dovetail pleasant little episodes, and adhere no closer to the deposed
facts than many of our by-gone playwrights have done to the sacred page
of history. We allude only to the cases of humour which occur at the
police-offices: those reports which can be interesting only in
proportion as they are correct, are, in general, accurately given; but
the matrimonial squabbles, the Irish farcettas, and the frays between
the Dogberrys of the night and late walkers--albeit they may,
peradventure, contain the leading facts disclosed--are highly wrought up
by the fanciful powers of those who cause the public and feed themselves
at a per-line-age for the daily press. Many cases which, on hearing, are
dull and oftentimes disgusting, under the magic pens of the
police-office scribes become lively and entertaining; they are furnished
with the raw material--the metal in its ore--which they purify and
polish, until it bears little or no resemblance to what it was before it
underwent the process of manufacturing for the paper-market under their
skilful hands. There are many who delight to visit the police-offices
for the sake of seeing those beings who appear there, of whom others