Page:The War on the Webfoot Saloon.djvu/12

 The court was packed to capacity and beyond, for the crowd spilled down the stairs and into the street below, where it depended upon rumours and misinformation for excitement. In the court room itself a heavy percentage of the on lookers were women, grim and indomitable, all of them following the proceedings with a savage intensity that bore down upon judge and jury like a leaden weight.

Mr. Mulkey opened with the remark that the defendants, being women, were not accountable beings, a bit of bile which caused heartburnings in more than one feminist breast. Governor Gibbs, when his time came, sharply cross-examined Walter Moffett about the two gongs and the hand organ—a line of question that discomfited supporters of The Trade. What with objections and irrelevancies, and a considerable amount of pettifogging, the trial dragged out for two days. It was not until very late in the afternoon of the twenty-first that the jury retired to consider the evidence. An hour passed. The crowd grew restive. The room was stuffy and the air had a used taste. Here a seat was vacated, there another. At six-thirty began a general exodus. But it was half an hour more before the six good men and true felt the court was sufficiently empty that they might with safety emerge to announce they had found five of the defendants guilty as charged. The sixth had proved an alibi.

Because of the lateness of the hour, sentencing was set over until the following morning. At the time appointed the condemned five stood in a brave little row before the Bench while Judge Denny gave each of them a choice between paying a five dollar fine or spending a day in jail. Lawyer Gibbs hurried up to announce that a number of citizens had come forward with offers to pay the fines. The ladies refused. Mrs. Sparrow, as spokewoman, read a four-hundred word protest which ended: "The jury had kindly recommended us to mercy; we ask no mercy-we demand JUSTICE." After which the Judge handed down the sentences.

The remainder of the day they spent locked up in the third floor jail, holding court for the throng of well-wishers who poured in endless procession through the corridors, drinking