THE COLLEGE ROW--THE COOK STREET PRINTER--A QUESTION AND ANSWER--A
BARRISTER--AN ATTORNEY--GIBRALTAR.
The latter portion of my period of magisterial service was very scanty
in the production of events worthy of being recorded. On the 12th of
March, 1858, the Earl of Eglinton arrived in Dublin to assume the Lord
Lieutenancy, as successor to the Earl of Carlisle, who had left on the
8th of that month, in consequence of the dissolution of the Palmerston
Ministry. I believe that in the respective selections of Lords Carlisle
and Eglinton, the Liberal and Conservative administrations succeeded in
giving to the Irish community functionaries deservedly popular with all
ranks and conditions. I therefore consider it a subject of great regret
that the entry of the latter nobleman, on the day above mentioned,
should have been attended with a riot in College Green, in which the
police and the students of the University came into collision. The place
of the occurrence was not within the limits of the police division to
which I was attached, but I happened to be in a house very close to the
scene, and had the fullest opportunity of witnessing the entire affair.
It commenced by the throwing of squibs and crackers from within the
rails in front of the College, which rendered the horses of the mounted
police and of a few dragoons very unquiet, and irritated some of the
riders. I believe that amongst the persons engaged in annoying the
police there were many who were not students. An attempt to repress
forcibly the throwing of the squibs and crackers produced the addition
of some stones to the missiles, and the affair eventuated in the reading
of the Riot Act by Colonel Browne, the Commissioner of Police, and the
clearing of the space between the building and the front railing by an
attack of the police, in which some severe blows were inflicted.
Happily, none of them resulted in fatal or permanent injury. A very
lengthened investigation supervened, during which animosity and
irritation almost entirely subsided, and were replaced by feelings of
mutual kindness. I think that an extract from the proceedings, dated the
10th of April, may afford to my readers a most creditable and
praiseworthy manifestation by the police and the students. I may mention
that Mr. M'Donogh, Q.C., was engaged in the inquiry on the part of the
collegians, when Colonel Browne expressed himself as follows:--
"I am sure Mr. M'Donogh will not be displeased with me if I say that I
thought the police, whom I consider a fine body of young men, had been
ill-treated for an hour or two by a number of young gentlemen. They were
on unpleasant duty, not of their own will; and I was more annoyed to see
them so treated than if there had been fifty dozen stones showered on
myself. They, too, were irritated at seeing stones thrown at me. All I
now wish to say is this, I take the entire responsibility of all that
occurred on myself. (Sensation.) I gave the order, and ought to be
accountable for everything that happened. It is not because two or three
of the men have, and no doubt did, act intemperately, that the others
should be punished. The whole concern should be thrown on me; and I hope
the collegians will cast it on me, and forgive me. I have a great regard
for the collegians; and have always had, and to the last moment of my
life I shall remember the kindness with which they have treated me. I
thought that a good feeling existed between my men and them, and I think
there did. I feel regret for what has occurred--regret that will go down
with me to my grave, and I say none but myself alone ought to bear the
consequences of what has occurred."
Mr. M'Donogh--"After that expression of regret, Colonel Browne, I, as a
gentleman, shall not ask you another question." (Loud expression of
approbation from the students and others present.)
Mr. M'Dermot, (Police Magistrate)--"I hope the language of Colonel
Browne will be received in the spirit in which it is offered. It is as
creditable to him as the ebullition of feeling which we have just heard,
and at which I do not wonder, is creditable to the students of Trinity
College."
Mr. M'Donogh--"And I am proud and happy that my young friends have shown
how they can feel."
The applause was continued for some time longer. Colonel Browne, who
seemed to be altogether overcome by emotion, retired amidst warm
demonstrations of regard. No ulterior proceedings were adopted, and thus
terminated the only collision or misunderstanding between the civil
authorities and the students of the University that occurred from the
commencement of my magisterial duties in 1841 to the present time.
Colonel Browne retired from office in 1858, upon a pension of £800 per
annum. He has also the half-pay of a lieutenant-colonel, and is a
Companion of the Bath. He is decorated with the Peninsular medal for
military service in the army under Wellington in his early Spanish
campaigns. He was succeeded as Commissioner of Police by Colonel Lake,
whose services have been highly and deservedly appreciated, especially
in the defence of Kars, when besieged by the Russians.
Almost immediately after the collision between the police and the
collegians, a song was composed, in reference to the affair, by a
gentleman who has acquired by it and several other productions of a
comic character, a reputation which obtains for him a most enthusiastic
reception in the choicest convivial reunions. He introduces the most
extravagant fictions, and enunciates them with such apparent
seriousness, as suffices completely to dissolve the gravity of his
hearers. His song on the "College Row" imputes the "doleful tragedy" to
the resentment of the Duchess of Sutherland, Lord Carlisle's sister,
consequent on his loss of the Lord Lieutenancy, and the appointment of
Lord Eglinton. She communicates by telegrams with the Commissioners of
Police, and remits five hundred pounds to supply their force with ardent
spirits, closing the communication with an injunction, that in case of
any enthusiasm being manifested by the students on the public entry of
Eglinton, they should be at once subjected to the most unsparing
application of swords, batons, and bayonets. The ballad describes the
carnage provoked by the explosion of a few crackers and squibs, as being
fully equal to the worst excesses of our Indian sepoys in their mutinous
massacres. I have heard it sung in the presence of Colonel Brown and
other police functionaries; and from all who heard its fearful but
fictitious details, it elicited the utmost merriment. I have been
informed that in his subsequent viceroyalty, Lord Carlisle and his Chief
Secretary had it frequently sung by the author, who is now connected
with the Dublin police in an important professional capacity.
THE COOK STREET PRINTER.
Shortly after the affair between the collegians and the police, a
complaint preferred by the Crown solicitor was brought under my personal
cognizance, and subsequently became the subject of a lyric production,
in which it was almost impossible to determine whether exaggeration or
fiction predominated. There was a printer in Cook Street remarkable for
bodily deformity and mental acerbity. His trade almost entirely
consisted in the publication of ballads, which were bought by itinerant
vocalists, who came each evening to replenish their stocks of amatory,
political, or comic productions. In proportion to the number of
customers who crowded his shop and contended for a speedy supply, the
publisher varied and multiplied his maledictions, and most impartially
cursed and abused them all alike. His habitual vituperations were
disregarded or laughed at, and were generally ascribed to mental
infirmity; but he embarked in a speculation which brought him under the
serious notice of the authorities as being intolerably offensive. He
published an almanac, the marginal notes and memoranda of which were
replete with sedition, and in which the public functionaries were
grossly stigmatised. It happened that the corporation had effected a
contract with the proprietor of a quarry in Wales for the supply of
stone of a quality considered best adapted for the repair of the streets
of Dublin, and the day on which the contract had been accepted by the
civic body was noted in the almanac as the date of an infamous
preference of foreign production, and an exclusion of Irish industry and
material through corrupt and debasing motives. This statement, however,
constituted no portion whatever of the charges preferred before me,
which consisted almost entirely of references to former attempts of a
rebellious character, with expressions of deep regret for their failure,
and hopes that the patriotic energies of the Irish nation would, in the
next encounter prove more effective in crushing Saxon despotism than had
been the efforts of the glorious Sarsfield, the noble Lord Edward, the
martyred Emmett, or the more recent champions of Hibernian
freedom--O'Brien, Meagher, and Mitchell. Colonel Browne was not even
aware of the proceedings before me having been instituted; and Mr.
Whiteside, the present Chief Justice, was never concerned in any case
before me during my tenure of magisterial office. The printer of the
almanac appeared on a summons to show cause why informations should not
be taken against him, and returned for trial on numerous and deliberate
seditious statements published by him. The late Mr. John Adye Curran
appeared as his counsel, and proposed to give sureties for his client's
appearance to meet the charges preferred, if the Crown solicitor deemed
it necessary to continue the prosecution, offering also to give up all
copies of the almanac remaining in stock, and to abandon its future
publication. The Crown solicitor, Mr. Kemmis, at once acceded to this
proposal, and, on the sureties having been produced, I allowed the
accused party to leave, and entered in the summons-book that the
complaint was "dismissed without prejudice." I did not manifest the
slightest sympathy for the delinquent, but informed him that he owed his
escape from severe punishment entirely to the lenity of the Crown
solicitor, and not to any disinclination on my part to have him made
seriously and severely responsible for his misconduct. In a few days he
became the subject of a lyric panegyric, in which his prosecution was
attributed to Colonel Browne and Mr. Whiteside, and the stoppage of the
proceedings was ascribed _to me_ and to Mr. Curran; the course adopted
by the latter gentleman being the only thread of truth interwoven in a
web of fiction, and sung to an old Irish air, which I am not able to
particularise. It has been entitled by an additional fiction--
THE LOWER CASTLE YARD.
You gallant-hearted Irishmen,
Come listen to my lay,
The melancholy muse I woo,
She comes in tears to-day.
Oh Wirra! Wirrasthrue, says she,
Sure Dublin's noblest bard
Is took before his tyrants
In the Lower Castle Yard.
In Cook Street was our Printer born,
In Cook Street was he bred,
The legends of Hibernia's land
His young ideas fed,
How Brian Coru and Granyah too,
Did Saxons disregard,
And the flag of green once waved serene
In the Upper Castle Yard.
His first animadversions
Were on the paving stones,
Why should you send your cash to Wales,
To Taffy or to Jones?
Why not lay down, throughout the town,
Your Irish granite hard?
And macadamize the dirty spies
In the Lower Castle Yard?
Colonel Browne, he being a Welshman,
Swore by St. David's bones
He'd prosecute the Irishman
Who dare oppose their stones.
He order'd Whiteside to indict
And carcerate the Bard;
Let him try, says he, Geology,
In the Lower Castle Yard.
But good luck to Frank Thorpe Porter,
That expounder of the laws,
Likewise to Adye Curran,
Who was counsel in the cause.
They tann'd the hide of long Whiteside,
And did him disregard,
And freed our Printer from his fangs,
In the Lower Castle Yard.
A QUESTION AND ANSWER.
I was occasionally sent for by the Chief Secretary of the Lord
Lieutenant in reference to matters of a local nature on which it was
desirable to obtain prompt and confidential information. I cannot say
that any of those functionaries ever applied to me on a subject which I
considered very important, and I was never informed what was the
ultimate object of the inquiry. I believe that in several instances the
wish was to acquire some topics or materials for replies to deputations.
It was intimated to me, in 1853, one day about two o'clock, that the
Chief Secretary desired to see me immediately, and I accordingly
proceeded to his office. He said that he wished to know whether the
trade and commerce of Dublin was in a state of healthy progress, or of
retrogression as compared with the two previous years. I told him that
the files of the Dublin Gazette would enable him fully to ascertain the
increase or decrease of bankruptcies within the city in the last year
compared with any recent period, and that the Imports and Exports
published under the sanction of the Customs authorities could be easily
procured and examined. He declined to adopt the course I suggested as
being complex, and requiring too much time to ascertain its results; and
he then said that he wished me to come on the next day and tell him
whether I believed that the general trade and commerce of Dublin were in
a better or worse state during the past twelve months than they had been
for the two previous years. I attended at the time appointed, and
expressed a most decided opinion that the trading community had been far
more prosperous in the latter period, and that I believed their business
was one half greater than it had been during the terms with which it was
to be compared. The Right Honorable functionary asked me when I had
arrived at such a conclusion; to which I simply answered that my opinion
had been formed since our last interview. I was then interrogated as to
what documents I had examined, or what class of traders I had consulted,
to which I replied that I had nothing on the subject, and had spoken to
a few traders merely as to certain commodities in which I was aware that
they dealt. I was asked what commodities I meant, and the Secretary
seemed rather surprised when I mentioned coarse papers and packing
cordage, in which articles I was informed that they were doing an
increased and increasing traffic. I added that when there was a brisk
demand for such materials it denoted that the sale of shop goods must be
also brisk, just as extensive purchases of seeds, manures, or tillage
implements, would indicate greater activity in agricultural or
horticultural pursuits. A young gentleman, who acted as private or
confidential secretary to the Chief Secretary, was present when I
expressed such opinions and my reason for their adoption, and when his
principal indulged in a laugh which was, perhaps, somewhat derisive of
the importance I ascribed to wrapping papers and twine, he amply
participated in the merriment. I then said that I might possibly augment
their amusement by imparting the result of another inquiry which I had
made, and which tended to confirm my previous statements. I had been
informed, in almost all the pre-eminent musical establishments, that
there had been a considerable increase in the sale of pianofortes, and I
felt perfectly convinced that a pianoforte was very rarely purchased by
a person in embarrassed circumstances, whilst it was almost invariably
considered a desirable addition to the domestic recreation of a
comfortable and solvent family. This statement produced more laughter,
and as the interview was not of a secret nature, my references to
wrapping-paper, twine, and pianofortes, became sufficiently known to
obtain for me a considerable amount of banter. The Secretary
subsequently told me that several other persons whom he consulted gave
him opinions similar to mine on the commercial state of Dublin, although
their calculations and inferences were derived from very different
sources. I still entertain the impression that the grounds on which I
formed my conclusion were by no means unworthy of consideration.
A BARRISTER.
In some of the preceding pages I have mentioned several attorneys whose
professional avocations were extensively connected with the
police-courts, and whose conduct and character entitled them to our
esteem and respect. Whilst they would endeavour to induce the
magistrates to adopt the construction of a statute or by-law in the
sense most favorable to their clients, they sedulously avoided the
suppression or exaggeration of facts when seeking a mitigation of
punishment, or applying for the acceptance of bail. There were,
however, two or three professional men who occasionally subjected us to
the very disagreeable, perhaps I may say the disgusting, duty of
listening to statements subsequently ascertained to be totally false,
and which they were undoubtedly aware of being unfounded. One gentleman,
who was a member of my own profession, had a wonderful aptitude for
citing cases purporting to have been decided in the English courts, and
in complete accordance with the course which he was desirous we should
pursue. We soon found that many of those cases were suppositious, and
many others distorted and misrepresented. Our chief clerk, Mr. Cox,
having assisted on a particular occasion in detecting several
misquotations, observed, that if the learned counsel ever attained to
the peerage his most appropriate title would be Lord Phibsborough.[18]
AN ATTORNEY.
There was another practitioner, an attorney, who was known by the
nickname of "Bluebottle," inasmuch as his tendency was to taint whatever
he touched, and to evince a preference for garbage. He happened to be
present on one occasion, when a man and woman were charged before me
"for creating a disturbance in Dame Street, and using abusive,
insulting, and threatening language on the public thoroughfare." The
woman stated that the man was her husband; that he was in comfortable
circumstances, but left her in destitution, and refused to contribute to
her support. She produced a marriage certificate and various other
documents in support of her allegation, and I discharged the parties,
with a caution against ventilating their domestic wrongs or differences
in the public streets, suggesting to the female, that if she obtained
admission to the South Union Workhouse as a destitute pauper, the
guardians would make her husband responsible for deserting her, and
rendering her a charge upon the rates. As her excitement and volubility
appeared likely to create more disturbance, if she and her husband went
forth together, I directed her to leave at once, and suggested, on her
departure, that the man might remain until she had left the court and
its vicinity. When she went out, she was followed by Bluebottle, who
accosted her at the foot of the stairs, and told her that he would take
immediate steps to compel her husband to afford her a suitable
maintenance. Affecting to sympathise deeply with a destitute and
friendless female, he induced her to give him all her documents, and
also a small photographic picture, in which she and her husband appeared
holding each other by the right hand. He then desired her to go away,
promising to meet her at the Lord Mayor's court on the following day.
This conversation and arrangement occurred very close to the door of the
custody-room, and was fully overheard by the constable in charge, of
whose proximity the ardent vindicator of the poor woman's wrongs had no
knowledge or suspicion. When she departed, Bluebottle stepped up to the
court, and beckoned to the husband, whom he brought to the precise spot
where the previous conference had occurred. He then told him that he had
obtained all the woman's papers, the certificate and the picture, and
that he was willing to give him a great bargain of the entire for one
pound. The man declared that all the cash in his possession amounted
only to twelve shillings and sixpence, which he was willing to pay for
the articles. Bluebottle agreed to take the latter sum, and received it,
but before he delivered the picture and documents, the constable emerged
from the vestibule of the custody-room and arrested him. He was brought
immediately before me in his genuine name of Richard Walsh, and I had to
decide whether the certificate, picture, and letters he was about to
dispose of, brought him under a culpable liability. The 53rd section of
the 5th Vic., sess. 2, chap. 24, enacts--
"That every person who shall be brought before any of the
divisional justices, charged with having in his possession, or on
his premises, with his knowledge, or conveying in any manner
anything which may be reasonably suspected to be stolen or
unlawfully obtained, and who shall not give an account to the
satisfaction of such justice how he came by the same, shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof before
such justice or justices, shall be liable to a penalty not more
than five pounds, or in the discretion of the justice, may be
imprisoned in any gaol or house of correction within the police
district, with or without hard labour, for any time not exceeding
two calendar months."
On the facts as proved before me, I made the picture and the certificate
the subjects of a conviction for unlawful possession, and sent Mr. Walsh
for two months to the Richmond Bridewell, to be kept during that time at
hard labor. I declined to make any order for returning the twelve
shillings and sixpence to the man from whom it had been received, whose
name, as well as I can recollect, was Crozier; but his wife was put in
possession of the articles which she had entrusted to the treacherous
attorney. I believe that he was the only member of his profession on
whom, since the commencement of the present century, a criminal
conviction inflicted a disgraceful punishment in the metropolitan
district. He was inclined to corpulence, and had a very plethoric
appearance. In a few days after his committal, I received a note from
the governor of the prison in the following terms:--
"SIR,
"In reference to the case of Richard Walsh, committed by you for
two months, with hard labour, I beg leave to report that the
medical officers of the prison think it would be dangerous to work
a person of his age and full habit of body on the treadmill. I
believe, however, that I can make him perfectly available as an
oakum-picker. I have the honor, &c., &c."
This communication was entered in the official letter-book of the
police-court, and consequently became generally known. The delinquent
was a person of extreme effrontery, and the members of his profession
considered him to be habitually supercilious and offensive. When the
term of his punishment was completed, he had the almost incredible
audacity to attempt to resume practice in the criminal courts. None of
the other attorneys would act or associate with him, and his presence
always produced complaints against the "very disagreeable smell of
oakum." He died, as I have been informed, uncommiserated and unaided, in
extreme indigence. From the incidents which I have narrated, a lesson
may be derived to the effect, that the man who disgraces a profession
will soon render his pursuit of it thoroughly unprofitable.
GIBRALTAR.
My official reminiscences are nearly terminated. The latter years of my
magistracy were not marked by any important public events or political
excitement. In 1861 my health became seriously impaired, and a medical
commission of six members reported in favor of my superannuation. My
dear friend, Marcus Costello, the attorney-general of Gibraltar, having
been apprised that I had been greatly debilitated by bronchitis and
pleurisy, sent me a brief note to go out at once, and to say by return
of post when he might expect me. In compliance with his invitation, I
sailed from Southampton on the 27th of April, in the Peninsular and
Oriental Company's steamer, "Delta," and on the 29th we were crossing
the Bay of Biscay. My memory reverted to a ballad which I had heard sung
by Incledon, descriptive of the fearfully tempestuous state in which
that bay is generally found. One of his verses is, I believe, as
follows:--
"Loud roar'd the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge show'rs,
The clouds were rent asunder
By lightning's vivid powers.
The night all drear and dark,
Closed round our wretched bark,
As she lay, on that day,
In the Bay of Biscay, O!"
I presume to attempt a description of what I observed in crossing this
estuary; and I can truly affirm, that whatever may be the defects of my
composition, it does not contain the slightest exaggeration--
"The light-blue sky is o'er us,
The dark-blue sea beneath,
The wave scarce moves before us,
As zephyrs gently breathe.
The great unfathom'd deep,
Calm as an infant's sleep,
Cheers our way, on this day,
Through the Bay of Biscay, O!
"The mighty steam-ship cleaving
The tide, displays her pow'r,
The wondrous feat achieving
Of fifteen knots an hour;
We speedily shall gain
A sight of sunny Spain.
No delay checks our way
Through the Bay of Biscay, O!"
When we did attain sight of the Spanish coast, it afforded a very marked
contrast to the picturesque views presented by the shores of Ireland and
England. There were no towering and precipitous cliffs or verdant slopes
to be seen, and almost the only indications of the country being
inhabited were some watch-towers, from which in former days warning
signals were exhibited to denote the approach of hostile or predatory
vessels from Algiers or Barbary. Being totally unacquainted with
Transatlantic and Mediterranean scenery, I can exercise a very limited
judgment, but of all the marine views I have seen I consider the most
beautiful to be the Bay of Dublin, and the ugliest to be the far-famed
Trafalgar.
I landed at Gibraltar on the 2nd of May, and was not inclined, at my
arrival, to form a very favorable opinion of the climate, for I never
had previously seen such heavy rain as fell on that day, and continued
until midnight. Mr. Costello's man-servant, hearing me remark the
unpleasant state of the weather, said, "that it was the last rain of the
season, and that we should have no more until the middle of September."
I did not attach much credence to his statement, but although my visit
lasted for four months, I never saw another drop of rain there. He was a
native of the place, and spoke from experience.
My friend's residence was not far from the southern extremity of
Gibraltar, which is also supposed to be the southern extremity of
Europe, and there were three roads leading from it to the main body of
the city which is near the north front. They were constructed, I
suppose, for the purpose of affording the most ample means of
communication along the sloping face of the mountain, and between the
batteries which defiantly bristle all through the territory. On the
second day of my arrival, I set out to walk to the town, and for the
sake of the view which it commanded, I took the most elevated road.
There were no dwellings on it, and it went through an exhausted quarry,
to which the drummers and bugle boys were brought for instruction. A
squad of them were about to commence their practice just as I passed
their front, whereupon one of them lowered his instrument, and exclaimed
to a comrade, "Oh! Fitzpatrick, there's ould Porter from Dublin." On
reaching the city I was recognised by some officers of the 7th
Fusiliers. Indeed I am disposed to believe that a considerable number of
the private soldiers of the garrison had been attested by me in the
Dublin police-court, for I received frequent salutes whenever I
sauntered past the barracks or guard stations.
My health rapidly improved, and in a few days I attained renovated
strength. There was no lack of varied amusement or social enjoyment, and
until the intense heat of July and August precluded any movement outside
the house, between morning and evening, I never passed a tedious or
tiresome minute. Even in the hot time, especially if the wind is
westerly, an evening saunter along the low road and through the Alameda
is very agreeable. The people, especially those of the Spanish race,
rise about four or five o'clock in the morning during the sultry months.
They go to market and attend to their commercial arrangements and
domestic affairs until nine or ten o'clock, then, having breakfasted,
they betake themselves to bed and enjoy a "Siesta." I adopted the same
course as far as the retirement to bed was concerned, and found it
extremely pleasant. I went to sleep almost immediately after lying
down, and seldom awoke until four or five o'clock. Then walking slowly
down to the bay I took a plunge in the salt water, and generally
returned endowed with an appetite for a hearty dinner and a liberal
supplement of sherry and ice, after which a stroll to the Alameda and a
seat under the cool shade of an acacia or bella sombra tree, with a
military band playing on an adjoining bastion, enabled me and my friend
to pass the evening in good humour with the world and with each other.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] A suburb of Dublin, pronounced _fibs_borough.