Black Maria The black van which conveys prisoners from the police courts to jail. The French call a
mud-barge a “Marie-salope.” The tradition is that the van referred to was so called from Maria Lee, a
negress, who kept a sailors' boarding house in Boston. She was a woman of such great size and strength
that the unruly stood in dread of her, and when constables required help, it was a common thing to send
for Black Maria, who soon collared the refractory and led them to the lock-up. So a prison-van was called
a “Black Maria.”