her
head on the cobble-stones.

As if a sorcerer had stamped his foot, a hundred wretched creatures,
mostly women and children, seemed to spring up from the ground. It was
like a phantasy. They gathered about the prostrate woman, laughing and
jeering. A policeman who was standing at the corner a little way off
came up leisurely, and pushing the motley crew aside, looked down at the
prostrate woman.

"Oh, it's you again!" he said, in a tone of annoyance, taking hold of
one arm and raising her so that she sat on the curb-stone. Mr. Dinneford
now saw her face distinctly; it was that of an old woman, but red,
swollen and terribly marred. Her thin gray hair had fallen over her
shoulders, and gave her a wild and crazy look.

"Come," said the policeman, drawing on the woman's arm and trying to
raise her from the ground. But she would not move.

"Come," he said, more imperatively.

"Nature you going to do with me?" she demanded.

"I'm going to lock you up. So come along. Have had enough of you about
here. Always drunk and in a row with somebody."

Her resistance was making the policeman angry.

"It'll take two like you to do that," returned the woman, in a spiteful
voice, swearing foully at the same time.

At this a cheer arose from the crowd. A negro with a push-cart came
along at the moment.

"Here! I want you," called the policeman.

The negro pretended not to hear, and the policeman had to threaten him
before he would stop.

Seeing the cart, the drunken woman threw herself back upon the pavement
and set every muscle to a rigid strain. And now came one of those
shocking scenes--too familiar, alas! in portions of our large Christian
cities--at which everything pure and merciful and holy in our nature
revolts: a gray-haired old woman, so debased by drink and an evil life
that all sense of shame and degradation had been extinguished, fighting
with a policeman, and for a time showing superior strength, swearing
vilely, her face distorted with passion, and a crowd made up chiefly
of women as vile and degraded as herself, and of all ages, and colors,
laughing, shouting and enjoying the scene intensely.

At last, by aid of the negro, the woman was lifted into the cart and
thrown down upon the floor, her head striking one of the sides with a
sickening _thud_. She still swore and struggled, and had to be held down
by the policeman, who stood over her, while the cart was pushed off to
the nearest station-house, the e