own wounds to the judicial eye. Both prisoners 'had a dhrop taken'
just before the affair; that soft impeachment they could not deny.
One of them explained, however, that she had taken it to help her
over a hard job of work, and through a little miscalculation of
quantity it had 'overaided her.' The other termagant was asked
flatly by the magistrate if she had ever seen the inside of a jail
before, but evaded the point with much grace and ingenuity by
telling his Honour that he couldn't expect to meet a woman anywhere
who had not suffered a misforchin somewhere betwixt the cradle and
the grave.

*The original Pass of the Plumes is near Maryborough, and was
so called from the number of English helmet plumes that were strewn
about after O'Moore's fight with five hundred of the Earl of Essex's
men.

Even the all too common drunk-and-disorderly cases had a flavour of
their own, for one man, being dismissed with a small fine under
condition that he would sign the pledge, assented willingly; but on
being asked for how long he would take it, replied, 'I mostly take
it for life, your worship.'

We also heard the testimony of a girl who had run away from her
employer before the completion of her six months' contract, her plea
being that the fairies pulled her great toe at night so that she
could not sleep, whereupon she finally became so lame that she was
unable to work. She left her employer's house one evening,
therefore, and went home, and curiously enough the fairies 'shtopped
pulling the toe on her as soon as iver she got there!'