THE MAJOR.
I shall now advert to another Police magistrate whose name I need not
refrain from mentioning, inasmuch as although his unpopularity was
unparalleled, his name has never been associated with any imputation of
a dishonourable or debasing tendency, such as was manifested in
reference to Gonne's watch. Henry Charles Sirr was for many years
Town-Major of Dublin; and through the insurrection of 1798, and during
the outbreak of 1803, he was peculiarly energetic and most unscrupulous
in the exercise of his powers as a magistrate of Police, in which
capacity he continued until his death in 1841. He was detested by all
those to whose opinions he was opposed, and whose designs and acts he
was engaged in repressing or punishing. He was not respected by those of
a contrary tendency; for he unnecessarily and continually engaged
personally in enquiries, searches, and arrests, which a proper
appreciation of his magisterial position would have induced him to leave
to his subordinates. He was accustomed, during the insurrectionary
times, to traverse the streets of Dublin or the suburbs, with some
special attendants following at a short distance. He carried pistols,
and was also provided with a short heavy bludgeon. If a suspicion
crossed his mind in reference to any person whom he casually met, his
usual practice was to knock the individual down, and then to ascertain
if he had secured the right man. He was of considerable although
indirect advantage to his colleagues and successor; for, during his
official career, the acts of his colleagues, if of an unpopular
tendency, were attributed to the example he afforded, or to his supposed
suggestions. His successor was judged by the contrast, and his faults
were considered as venial mistakes, whilst the Major's acts were only
remembered to be stigmatized as wilful misdeeds. His courage has been
doubted, but the imputation of cowardice is not fairly sustained. It
arises from the prejudice which satisfied itself that he could not
possess any good quality. His conduct at the apprehension of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald did not evince either courage or cowardice. He entered the
room after the conflict had commenced, and fired the fatal shot, in all
probability, to save the life of his associate. He frequently, and
without any necessity, risked his personal safety, and there is no sound
reason for believing that he was of a pusillanimous nature.
In 1798 Sirr received information that a young man of most respectable
family, who had involved himself in the insurrectionary movement of the
period, had arrived in Dublin, and was concealed in the upper room of a
house in Bull Alley. The Major proceeded, attended by several of his
myrmidons, to the place, and entered a house on the right hand side from
Bride Street, the lower part of the premises being a butcher's shop. He
went up to the front two-pair room, and there surprised the accused
party lying on a bed, and partly undressed. He held a pistol to the
young man's head, and commanded him to arise and surrender. The mandate
was complied with, and the captive apparently submitted to his fate. He
arose and asked permission to wash his face and hands, which was
accorded, and he then put on his coat, which the Major had previously
ascertained to have no weapons in the pockets. Suddenly the prisoner
made a spring, throwing himself bodily against the window, which yielded
to his force, and out he went. Sirr shouted and dashed down stairs,
greatly impeded by his own assistants who were hurrying up on the alarm.
The poor fellow who had adopted so desperate an expedient, met, in his
fall, a clothes pole, and then came on some wooden shed-work which
projected over the front of the shop; the latter was rather crazy and
gave away. He sprang to his feet unhurt, darted down the alley and
escaped by one of the numerous passages with which it communicated. Sirr
hastened down to the Coombe, turned out the Poddle guard, and searched
the neighbourhood, but without success. When the British government,
after the campaign of Waterloo, formed some regiments of lancers, they
procured two Austrian officers, of ascertained capability, to impart a
knowledge of the lance exercise to those regiments. One of the officers
was the Bull Alley jumper. He took an opportunity of renew his
acquaintance with Sirr, and jocosely apologised for having terminated
their previous interview so suddenly and unceremoniously.
Sirr was once tricked into making himself instrumental in carrying out
the punishment desired by an outraged father against a profligate son,
and it occurred also in the unhappy year of 1798. There was a wealthy
bookseller residing on Lower Ormond Quay, who had a son, his only child,
bearing the same Christian name. Mr. Patrick W----, the father, was very
indulgent. Mr. Patrick W----, the son, was extremely vicious. His time
was chiefly spent in society of the most objectionable description, and
he was not particular as to the means whereby he made his father's money
available for his licentious pleasures. He had been absent from the
paternal roof for some weeks. His father had vainly sought to discover
him, when he unexpectedly met him in the street, and directed a storm of
well-merited reproaches on the young reprobate.
Young Pat stood submissively attentive to his parent, and allowed him to
vent the first burst of his wrath, and when old Pat closed his
impassioned complaints by peremptorily ordering him to go home, he
mildly replied, "I was going there, sir, to try if you would admit me; I
own it is more than I deserve, but give me one trial more before you
cast me off: give me one more trial, and you shall not regret it."
"You young villain! where have you spent the last month?"
"I spent it as badly as I could, except the last week, and during that
time I have been with Mr. Luke White, at Woodlands."
"At Woodlands!" exclaimed the astonished old man, "Is it with Luke
White, my oldest, my most valued friend, you have been?"
"Yes sir. This day week I was walking in Stephen's Green, and Mr. White
met me. I sought to avoid him, I own that, but he called after me, took
me aside and expostulated with me about my habits and associates. He
told me that I was breaking your heart, and that I must reform my life.
He said that he grieved, as did all your friends, over the coming ruin
of your hopes, and that he was determined, if possible, to avert it;
that you were his esteemed, respected, and highly valued friend. He then
proposed that I should go out to him that evening to Woodlands for a
week, and that in the peaceful retirement of that residence, he would
try to bring me to a proper sense of duty to a worthy father. I yielded
to his remonstrances, and accepted his invitation; and having spent the
week with that excellent gentleman, I was going, by his direction, to
throw myself upon my knees before you, and implore your forgiveness."
"Oh!" exclaimed old Pat, "may heaven's choicest blessings be showered on
him, my real, true friend, who felt for my misery, and has relieved it.
Come, Pat, my darling boy, all is forgiven and forgotten. Happiness is
in store for us both. You will be my pride and comfort. I can die
contented if my eyes are closed by a son whom I leave respectable in
conduct and character."
Father and son proceeded home; and old Pat immediately sought all means
to convince young Pat of his faults having been condoned. He was
informed of the business transactions then pending; and his father
handed him a cheque for a considerable amount, and directed him to
proceed to the bank, and pay some bills which were due that day.
Young Pat departed. He did not return; and the notary's messengers
called in the evening with the unpaid bills. The miserable parent was
only able to discover that his son had been seen, during the afternoon,
in most disreputable society. Next morning old Pat waited on Mr. White,
and thanked him most warmly for his exertions to reclaim the young
reprobate by his advice and expostulations. "If anything could have
produced a good effect on him," exclaimed the agonized father, "it
would have been your advice, your example, and the contemplation of the
sweet scene and happy family to which your invitation last week----"
"My dear sir," interrupted Mr. White, "there is a great delusion on your
mind. I have not seen your son, nor have I had any communication
whatever with him for more than twelve months."
The old gentleman staggered to a seat. A terrible convulsion shook his
frame. Then supervened that which is fearful to witness in woman, but
doubly horrible in man, hysterical tears and sardonic laughter. At
length the fit terminated. Old Pat arose and took his leave. He walked
away with surprising energy, and his countenance assumed a calmness
beneath which was concealed nothing less
"Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire
Of a strong human heart, and in a sire."
Old Pat sought a private interview with Major Sirr, and confided to him
strong suspicions that young Pat was compromised with the United
Irishmen, and that if closely and properly interrogated, he could
disclose a great deal, especially as to some depôts of pikes and other
weapons intended for insurrectionary purposes. He affected to stipulate
for the utmost secrecy as to the Major's informant, protested that he
regarded the rebels with the utmost horror and detestation, and that he
had no idea of favoring a change in public affairs detrimental to those
who, by unremitting industry, had realized property. He suggested that
his son, when arrested, should be brought to the Custom House, which, at
that time, was in Essex Street, and directly opposite to his own
residence on Ormond Quay. Sirr entered into his views, complimented him
on his prudence and loyalty, and took immediate measures for the arrest
of young Pat, who, when captured, was delivered to some of "Beresford's
Troop," to exercise their inquisitorial talents in eliciting all he knew
about men whom he had never seen, and as to designs of which, in all
probability, he had never heard. The young man was perfectly free from
all political or religious influences. Beau Brummell might as justly
have been accused of complicity in the designs of revolutionary _sans
culottes_, as young Pat of any sympathy with other pursuits than the
midnight orgies and debasing revels of the worst of both sexes.
In the Custom House yard he was interrogated, and his denials only
produced louder and sterner demands. Truth, strict truth, issued from
lips to which it had been hitherto a stranger. The triangles stood
before him, and all his protestations of innocence were uttered to ears
worse than deaf. He was stripped, tied up, and lashed until he swooned;
then taken down, and recalled to a sense of existence by restoratives,
only to be put up again, until, at last, he lay before his torturers, a
lacerated and semi-animate frame, incapable of enduring further
suffering. They cursed him as an obdurate, callous villain, from whom
nothing could be extorted; and whilst his terrific punishment was in
process of infliction, his father was looking on, from the window of his
residence. The wretched youth was conveyed home, and a considerable time
elapsed before he was sufficiently recovered to proceed to America,
whence he never returned. His father made no secret of the means he
adopted to punish young Pat and to trick the Major.
Sirr was occasionally humorous. He announced to one of his acquaintances
the fate which was expected to befal Theobald Wolfe Tone, in the laconic
phrase--"Mr. Tone is to a-tone to-morrow in the front of Newgate."
Galvin, the hangman, having applied to Sirr for his interest and
recommendation to procure a small pension, laid before him a memorial,
which he was desirous of having forwarded to Government under the
Major's auspices. In it the veteran executioner submitted that for many
years he had acted as finisher of the law in the County and City of
Dublin, with frequent visits for professional purposes to towns on the
Home and the Leinster circuits. That age and infirmities were rendering
him incapable of continuing his public duties; and that he humbly
besought a small pension for the support of his declining years. "Tom,"
said the Major, "you should have stated in your memorial that during
your official career you discharged your duties _to the perfect
satisfaction of all parties concerned_." "I thank you, Major," replied
the stupid old wretch, "I'll get it altered, and put _that_ in." One of
Sirr's colleagues, a barrister, was remarkable for speaking in a low
voice, and with a great lisp. He was indebted to the Major for the
nickname of "Mississippi."
At a funeral in St. Werburgh's churchyard, and close by the vaults in
which the body of Lord Edward Fitzgerald had been deposited, the Major
was present. After the interment, a Mr. S. ----, whose person was
invariably extremely slovenly, approached him and remarked, "I suppose,
Major, that you cannot be here without thinking of Lord Edward."
"My friend," was the reply, "I am at present thinking of you, and
wondering from whence you derive such an ample supply of soiled shirts."
In 1831, during Earl Grey's administration, Sirr attended meetings
convened in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and moved resolutions of the
most liberal tendency. He voted at the city election for the Reform
candidates, and was twitted by the late Thomas Ellis for having deserted
his party and forgotten his principles. His answer was simple and
true--"I am totally unchanged; I have always supported _the Government_,
and I shall continue to do so."
When the piers which form Kingstown harbour were in course of
construction, the supply of stone was derived from immense quarries at
Killiney, and conveyed along a tramway, on which, near the quarries,
there were slopes, down which the loaded waggons required no impelling
power, but rather to be restrained, by breaks, from acquiring a
dangerous velocity. Major Sirr was fond of collecting natural
curiosities, especially of a geological nature; and he frequently
visited Killiney in quest of spar formations, which were occasionally
found there. He was by no means niggardly in his dealings with the spar
finders; but still he could not conciliate them into a feeling of
kindness or respect. One day he was proceeding up the tramway slope,
when the discharge of artillery at the Pigeon House fort attracted his
attention. He turned and looked in the direction of the firing, just at
the moment when a train of loaded wagons was about to descend. Being
right before them, he would have been utterly destroyed in a moment, but
the breaksman saw his perilous situation, and applied the requisite
pressure, stopped the train, and saved the Major. Several persons
witnessed his danger and the prompt means by which it was averted. On
the transaction becoming known in the quarries, there was an immediate
strike. All work was stopped, and a determination was unanimously avowed
to insist on the dismissal of the breaksman. No specific complaint was
preferred against the individual whose expulsion was required. The
Harbour Commissioners deputed Mr. Hickman Kearney to enquire into the
grounds and reasons for such an extraordinary demand. He went to the
quarries and called on the workmen to come forward and explain the cause
of their animosity to the breaksman. The only reply was that "he should
go." It appeared, on reference to the clerk of the works, and to the
overseers, that the obnoxious man was honest, sober, diligent, and
attentive to his duties; and it was strongly urged that no accident had
occurred at the slope since his appointment, and that he had, by his
presence of mind and promptitude, saved Major Sirr's life. This produced
a general exclamation of "That's the reason he shan't stay amongst us.
What business had he to save the Major?" The poor breaksman would have
lost his employment, but for an old and influential workman who
interfered in his favor, and induced the others to forgive him,
_provided he faithfully promised never to do the like again_.
The Major was peculiarly unpopular amongst the hackney carriage drivers,
and yet he was not a severe judge of their delinquencies, for he
dismissed nearly half the complaints preferred before him, and the
average of his fines was three shillings and sixpence; still, they hated
him; and although he preached to them very many little sermons in the
carriage court, and occasionally sought to impart Scriptural knowledge
to their minds, the benighted "jarveys" detested the magisterial
apostle. At last "the Major" died. His illness was very brief, and his
indisposition commenced in a covered car. He drove home to the Lower
Castle-yard, and never rallied, but sank in a few hours. The story was
circulated that he actually died in a covered car; and for some time
after his decease, I was occasionally treated to the hearing of
complaints preferred by covered car-drivers against outside carmen, for
usurping their turns, and defrauding them of their jobs. It was, and is,
very unusual for carmen to summon members of their own body; but in the
cases to which I refer there was a peculiar grossness assigned to the
offence. "Yer worship," the plaintiff would exclaim, "I would not mind
him _stumping me_, but he roared out to the people that were going to
hire me that my car was the very one the owld Major died in, and yer
worship, _I couldn't be expected to forgive that_."