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Petty Quarreling and fighting.

--Hardly a day passes at the Mayor's Court that the presiding functionary of that tribunal of justice is not called upon to adjust some petty quarrel or fighting scrape between parties who are much too often, for the credit of the softer sex, women. The quarrelling between the latter is of course affected by the aid of that powerful instrument the tongue, but their fighting is done with a more dangerous if less noisy instrument, the fist. A sacred regard for the person ought to be universally cherished; for, according to holy writ, ‘"the fleshly tabernacle is God's temple,"’ and to despot its fair proportions is at once abhorrent to the duty and against the law of the land. The Mayor, as the adjuster of all domestic difficulties among a certain class of the population, is compelled to frown on the inflictor of those hard knocks that mar the body and despoil its comeliness, even though the contest be one in which the combatants exhibit a willingness to engage, regardless of the fact that they are females.--By means of peace warrants, numbers of women have found their way from time to time to the jail, and remain a burthen to the city treasury. When the new Alms-House is put to its legitimate use, a number of the subjects, both male and female, who now find a lodgment in the city jail, will be sent thither, where, we believe, arrangements have been made for putting them to work. The quarrels and resulting fights between the men who are generally arrested by the police, have always bad or fighting whiskey as a foundation. So, also, with the women who seek his Honor's protection by getting out warrants against opponents. It will be observed by a frequenter of the Mayor's Court that the party beaten in any game of fisticuffs is the one to solicit his Honor's interference to adjust the quarrel, by producing an equality of punishment.

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Alms House (Massachusetts, United States) (1)

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