You Probably Punched
Three Or Four Of Them, But Found The Dozen Too Strong For You.
Held
tightly by the sleeves, skirts, and collar of your wide outer garment,
you were hurried away on a plane of about nine inches above the ground,
your feet mostly treading the air.
You were dragged along with a
rapidity which scarcely permitted you to answer strings of questions
concerning your name, nation, dwelling, faith, profession, and self in
general,-especially concerning the present state of your purse. If you
lent an ear to the voice of the charmer that began by asking a crown to
release you, and gradually came down to two-pence half-penny, you fell
into a simple trap; the butt-end of a musket applied a posteriori,
immediately after the transfer of property, convicted you of wilful
waste. But if, more sensibly, you pretended to have forgotten your
purse, you
[p.120]were reviled, and dragged with increased violence of shaking to
the office of the Zabit, or police magistrate. You were spun through
the large archway leading to the court, every fellow in uniform giving
you, as you passed, a Kafa, "cuff," on the back of the neck. Despite
your rage, you were forced up the stairs to a long gallery full of
people in a predicament like your own. Again your name, nation,-I
suppose you to be masquerading,-offence, and other particulars were
asked, and carefully noted in a folio by a ferocious-looking clerk. If
you knew no better, you were summarily thrust into the Hasil or
condemned cell, to pass the night with pickpockets or ruffians,
pell-mell.
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