Three ruffians, named Moran, Foy, and Nock, on Tuesday were
walking fir a Birmingham street, when they saw a respectable woman named Mason standing at her own door. One of them. assaulted her indecently, and on her husband remonstrating, kicked him, severely wounded, into his own house. They then broke open the door, kicked and beat an old woman, flung .a young woman and her baby downstairs, fought the police when they arrived with a poker and a linen-prop, and would have escaped, but that the neighbours turned out and prodded them with linen- poles till they were taken. The police, nevertheless, charged them only with assault, and the magistrates gave Moran thirteen months' imprisonment, and Foy nine, while Nock, who had only" fought the police, was let off with a 20s. fine. The chief blame in this case rests with the police, who seem everywhere afraid to prefer serious charges ; but the magistrates, in letting off men who resist legal authority by force, do their best to reduce the police to a mere mob. Evidence in such cases must of course be most carefully sifted, but a man who has struck a policeman on duty should never escape a committal for trial. These ruffians fear nothing but a "Red Judge."
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