Above an iron-guarded door at the side of the building floats a great globe of light, and beneath its glare, through the iron-guarded door, there passes, every week-day night in the year, a long procession of prodigals.
The guarded door seldom admits any one as important, so to speak, as a criminal.

The criminal's case waits for day.

The Night Court in Jefferson Market sits in judgment only on the small fry caught in the dragnet of the police.

Tramps, vagrants, drunkards, brawlers, disturbers of the peace, speeding chauffeurs, licenseless peddlers, youths caught red-handed shooting craps or playing ball in the streets,--these are the men with whom the Night Court deals.

But it is not the men we have come to see.
[Illustration: MISS MAUDE E.MINER] The women of the Night Court.