the police. The working classes are paid their weekly wages on
Saturday, and having no labor to perform on the Sabbath, take Saturday
night for their periodical dissipation, comforting themselves with the
reflection that if they carry their revels to too great an excess, they
can sleep off the bad effects on Sunday.

From sunset until long after midnight on Saturday, the police are busy
ridding the streets of drunken and disorderly persons. As soon as a
person is arrested, he is taken to the Toombs, or one of the station
houses. It is the duty of the captain in charge of the precinct to lock
up every person thus brought in. He has no discretion, and he is often
compelled to throw those of whose innocence he is satisfied, into the
company of the most abandoned wretches for an entire night.
Drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and fighting are the principal charges
brought against the Saturday night inmates of the Bummer's Cell. Many
visitors to the city, by yielding to the temptation to drink too much
liquor, pay for their folly by an acquaintance with the Bummer's Cell.
They lose their self control in the splendid gin palaces of the city,
and when they recover their consciousness find themselves in a hot,
close room, filled with the vilest and most depraved wretches. The
noise, profanity, and obscenity, are fearful. All classes, all ages,
are represented there. Even little children are lost forever by being
immured for a single night in such horrible company. The females are
confined in a separate part of the prison. No entreaties or
explanations are of the least avail. All must await with as much
patience as possible, the opening of the court the next morning.


THE TOMBS POLICE COURT.