The Clink

On Friday morning, I went to the New York City Police Museum down on Old Slip Street in Manhattan with my folks. It's a nice place with interesting stuff like cruisers and badges and guns and old radios and uniforms and such. Admittedly, we skipped the 9/11 exhibit on the third floor. I work over the Ground Zero hole, so... thanks anyway. Plus, some glory paintings of the burning rubble with GW and Cheney in the mix were enough to turn us off.

We had the most fun perusing the rogue gallery and the cache of makeshift weapons found over the years in jailroom searches. On the back of these mugshots listed the name, age, occupation and crime of the accused. A good many are Irish and Italian born. All were taken about the turn of the century, when a surge in population, poverty and crime forced the NYPD to get its shit together, and quickly. For example, a rise in females being arrested for crimes meant a need for females on the force. Hence the big battleaxe I'm pictured with above. Scary.

Speaking of crime and punishment, this evening I read about the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, which are essentially hundreds of thousands records of London's criminal court proceedings from the 1600's through the 1800's (101,102 trials, from April 1674 to October 1834 to be exact) Some kind research fellow dudes had the stuff transcribed for modern online perusal, and it's fascinating. My Irish peeps of ye olden tymes are well-represented on the wrong side of the law here as sadly Irish names plaster the Proceedings. You can look a person up by surname, given name, occupation, date, crime or punishment. For example, on this day in 1717, "Edmund Bury Godfrey and Edward Gould allegedly stole 134 pairs of worsted stockings out of Edward Bury's house." I believe they were acquitted.

These guys weren't so lucky, however. Blechh.