"She put a broom in it with a man's hat on top and a man's trousers in front. It was shocking."

A legal case of great national importance, involving a couple of ninnies, was covered in the June 10, 1887 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt: 

“Miss Monaghan, a delicate refined looking lady, dressed in black, called at Justice Rhinehardt’s court this morning, in company with another lady, evidently her sister, and sought the magistrate’s advice as to how she should proceed in order to abate what she termed a nuisance. The lady, who is over 30 years old, resides in the dwelling 30 South Eleventh Street, and next door is a tenement in which Mrs. Murphy lives.

‘I have been,’ said Miss Monaghan to the magistrate, ‘in rather delicate health for a short time and my physician ordered me to sit in the yard where the sun’s warm rays could reach me. I obeyed instructions. From my position in the yard I had to face Mrs. Murphy’s windows. The latter annoyed me a good deal in consequence. She never ceased in throwing all kinds of missiles and refuse into my yard. The nuisance became so great that I was unable to stand it and wrote her a polite note, asking her if had injured her in any way and expressing my willingness to apologize if I had. I asked her also to call upon me but she did not. She continued annoying me and placed all manner of things in her windows which I could not avoid seeing.’

‘What did she place in the windows?’ asked the magistrate.

‘She put a broom in it with a man’s hat on top and a man’s trousers in front. It was shocking. Well, I tried to settle the matter in some way and have the annoyance stopped. I belong to Father Malone’s church and so does Mrs. Murphy. I waited upon the priest, but he said that Mrs. Murphy had not spoken to him about the matter. I came, to you, Judge, as a last resort.’

Clerk Schleuter, at the Magistrate’s suggestion, addressed Mrs. Murphy a note requesting her to cease her annoyance of Miss Monaghan or a warrant would be issued against her.”