POET ARRESTED The defendant, Mr William Blake, was accused of acting in a way liable to cause a breach of the peace. The witness, Police Constable England, made the following statement. "I was proceeding along Mountains Green in a northerly direction at 4 p.m. last Thursday, when the prisoner Blake emerged from a house, looking wild-eyed and dishevelled, and asked me if I had seen some feet anywhere nearby. Suspecting that this might be a torso job, I asked him for more details, but he said it all happened a long time ago, and then asked me if I had seen a lamb in the pleasant pastures nearby. At this moment the witness Bo Peep arrived and accused Mr Blake of stealing her sheep. Blake said something about divine countenances which I did not fully catch, and asked whether Jerusalem was built nearby." "I informed the prisoner that Jerusalem was some distance away, and offered to direct him there. However he rejected my offer of assistance and asked for his bow of burning gold and some arrows of desire. It seemed to me that Mr Blake was becoming violent, and accordingly I cautioned him to behave himself, whereupon he demanded a spear, a chariot of fire, and a sword with insomnia. Fearing that he was about to attack Miss Peep, I took the defendant into custody." The judge, Mr Justice Justice, bound the prisoner over to keep the peace for 12 months.
(From the "Rest" of RHF)