Illustration of the Irish horror of hydrophobia—Thomas Palmer, of
Rushhall, Esquire, magistrate and land-agent, &c.—A substantial bill
of fare—Dan Dempsey, of the Pike, is bitten by a mad dog—Application
to the magistrate for legal permission to _relieve_ him of his
sufferings—Mode of relief proposed—Swearing scholars—Permission
obtained—Dan regularly smothered, by way both of _cure_ and
_preventive_—Fate of Mr. Palmer himself—Allen Kelly, of
Portarlington—“New Way to Pay Old Debts.”
Such a dread had the Irish of the bite of a mad dog, that they did not
regard it as murder, but absolutely as a legal and meritorious act, to
smother any person who had arrived at an advanced stage of hydrophobia.
If he made a noise similar to barking, his hour of suffocation was
seldom protracted.
In this mode of administering the _remedy_, it was sometimes difficult
to procure proper instruments; for they conceived that _by law_ the
patient should be smothered between two _feather_-beds,—one being laid
cleverly over him, and a sufficient number of the neighbours lying on it
till he was “out of danger.”
The only instance I am able to state from my own knowledge occurred
about the year 1781. Thomas Palmer, of Rushhall, in Queen’s County, was
then my father’s land-agent, and at the same time a very active and
intelligent magistrate of that county. He was, _gratis_, an oracle,
lawyer, poet, horse—cow—dog and man doctor, farmer, architect, brewer,
surveyor, and magistrate of all work. He was friendly and good-natured,
and possessed one of those remarkable figures now so rarely to be seen
in society. I feel I am, as usual, digressing;—however, be the
digression what it may, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of depicting
my old friend, and endeavouring to render him as palpable to the vision
of my reader as he is at this moment to my own.
Palmer was one of that race of giants for which the rich and extensive
barony of Ossory, in Queen’s County (now the estate of the Duke of
Buckingham), was then and had long been celebrated. His height was
esteemed the _middle_ height in that county—namely, about six feet two
inches; he was bulky without being fat, and strong, though not very
muscular. He was, like many other giants, _split up_ too much, and his
long dangling limbs appeared still longer from their clothing, which was
invariably the same:—a pair of strong buck-skin breeches, never _very_
greasy, but never free from grease; half jack-boots; massive, long
silver spurs, either of his own or of somebody’s grandfather’s; a
scarlet waistcoat with long skirts; and a coat with “_all the cloth_ in
it.” These habiliments rendered him altogether a singular but not other
than respectable figure. His visage made amends for both his _outré_
boots and breeches; it was as well calculated as could be for a
kind-hearted, good-humoured, convivial old man. His queue wig, with a
curl at each side, had his grizzle hair combed smoothly over the front
of it; and he seldom troubled the powder-puff, but when he had got the
“skins whitened,” in order to “dine in good company.” He was the
_hardest-goer_ either at kettle or screw (except Squire Flood of
Roundwood) of the whole grand-jury, for whose use he made a new song
every summer assize: and it was from him I heard the very unanswerable
argument, “that if a man fills the bottom of his glass, there can be no
good reason why he should not also fill the top of it; and if he empties
the top of his glass, he certainly ought in common civility to pay the
bottom the same compliment:”—no man ever more invariably exemplified his
own theorem.
Thomas Palmer was hale and healthy;—his fifty-seventh year had handed
him over safe and sound to its next neighbour: his property was just
sufficient (and no more) to gallop side by side with his hospitality.
When at home, his boiler was seldom found bubbling without a corned
round withinside it; and a gander or cock turkey frequently danced at
the end of a string before the long turf fire. Ducks, hares, chickens,
or smoked ham, often adorned the sides of his table; whilst
apple-dumplings in the centre and potatoes at cross corners completed a
light snack for five or six seven-feet Ossoronians, who left no just
reason to the old cook and a couple of ruddy ploughmen, (who attended as
_butlers_,) to congratulate themselves upon the _dainty_ appetites of
their masters, or the balance of nourishment left to liquidate the
demand of their own stomachs. But, alas! those pleasurable specimens of
solid fare have passed away for ever! As age advances, Nature diminishes
her weights and measures in our _consumption_, and our early _pounds_
and Scotch _pints_ (_two bottles_) are at length reduced to the
miserable rations of _ounces_ and _glassfuls_.
At this magistrate’s _cottage_, which had as stout a roof to it as any
mansion in the county, I once dined, about the year 1781, when the state
of medicine in Ireland was exemplified in a way that neither Cullen,
Darwin, Perceval, James, or any other learned doctor ever contemplated,
and which I am convinced—had it been the practice in Italy—Doctor Morgan
would not have passed over in total silence.
We had scarcely finished such a meal as I have particularised, and “got
into the punch,” when a crowd of men, women, and children, came up to
the door in great confusion, but respectfully took off their hats and
bonnets, and asked humbly to speak to his worship.
Tom Palmer seemed to anticipate their business, and inquired at once “if
Dan Dempsey of the Pike (turnpike) was in the same way still?”
“Ough! please your worship,” cried out twenty voices together, “worse,
your worship, worse nor ever, death’s crawling upon him—he can’t _stop_,
and what’s the use in leaving the poor boy in his pains any longer, your
worship? We have got two good feather-beds at the Pike, and we want your
worship’s leave to smother Dan Dempsey, if your worship pleases.”
“Ough avourneen! he growls and barks like any mastiff dog, please your
worship,” cried a tremulous old woman, who seemed quite in terror.
“You lie, Nancy Bergin,” said her older husband, “Dan Dempsey does _not_
bark like a _mastiff_;—it’s for all the world like your worship’s white
lurcher, when she’s after the rabbits, so it is!”
“He snapped three times at myself this morning,” said another humane
lady, “and the neighbours said it were all as one, almost, as biting
me.”
“Hush! hush!” said the magistrate, waving his hand: “any of you who can
read and write, come in here.”
“Ough! there’s plenty of that sort, please your worship,” said Maurice
Dowling, the old schoolmaster. “Sure it’s not ignorance I’d be teaching
my scholards every day these forty years, except Sundays and holidays,
at the Pike. There’s plenty of swearing scholards here any how, your
worship.”
“Come in any three of you, then, who can clearly swear Dan Dempsey barks
like a dog,—no matter whether like a mastiff or a lurcher—and attempts
to bite.”
The selection was accordingly made, and the affidavit sworn, to the
effect that “Dan Dempsey had been bit by a mad dog; that he went mad
himself, barked like any greyhound, and had no objection to bite
whatever Christian came near him. Squire Palmer then directed them to go
back to the Pike, and said they might smother Dan Dempsey if he barked
any more in the morning; but told them to wait till then.
“Ah, then, at what hour, please your worship?” said Nan Bergin,
accompanied by several other female voices, whose owners seemed rather
impatient.
“Three hours after day-break,” said the magistrate: “but take care to
send to Mr. Calcut, the coroner, to come and hold his inquest after
Dan’s smothered. Take care of that, at your peril.”
“Never fear, please your worship,” said Ned Bergin.
They then gathered into a sort of consultation before the door, and
bowing with the same respect as when they came, all set off, to smother
Dan Dempsey of Rushhall Turnpike.
The magistrate’s instructions were accurately obeyed: Daniel barked, and
was duly smothered between two feather-beds, three hours after day-break
next morning, by the schoolmaster’s watch. Mr. Calcut came and held his
coroner’s inquest, who brought in their verdict that the said “Daniel
Dempsey died _in consequence of a mad dog_!”
The matter was not at that day considered the least extraordinary, and
was, in fact, never mentioned except in the course of common
conversation, and as the subject of a paragraph in the Leinster Journal.
It is a singular circumstance, that the termination of poor Palmer’s
life resulted from his consistency in strictly keeping his own aphorism
which I have before mentioned. He dined at my father’s Lodge at
Cullenagh; and having taken his _quantum sufficit_, (as people who dined
there generally did,) became obstinate, which is frequently the
consequence of being pot-valiant, and insisted on riding home, twelve or
thirteen miles, in a dark night. He said he had a couple of songs to
write for the high sheriff, which Mr. Boyce from Waterford had promised
to sing at the assizes;—and that he always wrote best with a full
stomach. It was thought that he fell asleep; and that his horse,
supposing he had as much right to drink freely as his master, had
quietly paid a visit to his accustomed watering-place, when, on the
animal’s stooping to drink, poor Palmer pitched over his head into the
pond, wherein he was found next morning quite dead—though scarcely
covered with water, and grasping the long branch of a tree as if he had
been instinctively endeavouring to save himself, but had not strength,
owing to the overpowering effect of the liquor. His horse had not
stirred from his side. His loss was, to my father’s affairs,
irreparable.
It is very singular that nearly a similar death occurred to an attorney,
who dined at my father’s about a month afterward—old Allen Kelly of
Portarlington, one of the most keen though cross-grained attorneys in
all Europe. He came to Cullenagh to insist upon a settlement for some
bills of costs he had dotted up against my father to the tune of fifty
pounds. It being generally, in those times, more convenient to country
gentlemen to pay by bond than by ready money—and always more agreeable
to the attorney, because he was pretty sure of doubling his costs before
the judgment was satisfied, Allen Kelly said, that, out of _friendship_,
he’d take a _bond and warrant of attorney_ for his fifty pounds; though
it was not taxed, which he declared would only _increase_ it
wonderfully. The bond and warrant, which he had ready filled up in his
pocket, were duly executed, and both parties were pleased—my father to
get rid of Allen Kelly, and Allen Kelly to get fifty pounds for the
worth of ten. Of course he stayed to dine, put the bond carefully into
his breeches pocket, drank plenty of port and hot punch, to keep him
warm on his journey, mounted his nag, reached Portarlington, where he
watered his nag (and _himself_ into the bargain). Hot punch, however, is
a bad balance-master, and so Allen fell over the nag’s head, and the
poor beast trotted home quite lonesome for want of his master. Next day
Allen was found well bloated with the Barrow water; indeed, swollen to
full double his usual circumference. In his pockets were found divers
documents which _had been_ bonds, notes, and other securities, and which
he had been collecting through the country: but unfortunately for his
administrators, the Barrow had taken pity on the debtors, and whilst
Allen was reposing himself in the bed of that beautiful river, her
naiads were employed in picking his pocket, and there was scarcely a
bill, bond, note, or any acknowledgment, where the fresh ink had not
yielded up its colouring; and neither the names, sums, dates, or other
written matters, of one out of ten, could be by any means decyphered. In
truth few of the debtors were very desirous, on this occasion, of
turning _decypherers_, and my father’s bond (among others) was from that
day never even suggested to him by any representative of Allen Kelly,
the famous attorney of Portarlington.