A SALUTARY REFORMATION.
About the time to which the last anecdote refers, I was applied to, on a Monday afternoon, by a gentleman who asked and obtained a private interview. He was in a high social position, and possessed an ample fortune. He stated that his wife had lapsed into habits of intemperance which rendered his life wretched, and estranged him from association with his friends, to whom he could not bear to have her deplorable tendencies exposed. When inebriated she was excessively violent, and did not hesitate to assault the domestics, and that on the preceding evening she had assaulted, in his presence, a female servant, with a poker. I told him to have her summoned by the servant for the following Thursday, and I had three o'clock mentioned as the hour for hearing the complaint. The lady did not attend, and on proof of the service of the summons and a sworn information of the assault, I issued a warrant for her apprehension. She was brought before me after all the other business of the next day had been finished, and I required her to give bail in two sureties to keep the peace, and in default of such, to be imprisoned for three months. At Grangegorman, she was not compelled to associate with the other prisoners, and the matron's attention was invited to the case. At the termination of the second month, her husband, who had received frequent letters from her, felt confident that she had become reformed, and I discharged her at his instance and on his surety. I afterwards met them frequently in society. I have seen her at viceregal parties, and never observed the slightest appearance of, or tendency to, her former indulgence. I do not believe that she ever relapsed; but whilst I am happy to notice a complete reformation, my satisfaction is alloyed by the reflection that it was the only instance of such a change that I ever knew to occur.