BAXTER AND BARNES.
The carriage complaints were usually disposed of at the Head Police Office in a court upon the ground floor. The light was derived from windows opening on a yard, and they were so near to the magisterial bench as to enable its occupant frequently to hear observations and conversations of an extraordinary nature. It was my custom to remain after the carriage cases were heard, and when the criminal charges or summonses were, in the upper court, brought before some of my colleagues. I was thus enabled, in comparative quietude, to prepare reports on memorials referred by the executive or revenue authorities, or perhaps, to enjoy an occasional leisure hour over a magazine or newspaper. When the upper court was crowded, persons would betake themselves to the yard and frequently engage in conversation close to the windows, which in warm weather were generally open; but there was no indication to those outside of the presence inside of a listener to their communications. In the summer of 1854, I was sitting alone, and reading the latest news from the Crimea, when two women took their stand outside the open window, and one of them proceeded to impart her sorrows to her sympathizing friend. At the time to which I refer, recruiting was very rife in Dublin, and it was not uncommon for us to attest one hundred persons in a week. The utmost vigilance was exercised to prevent or detect desertion, and in the apprehension of deserters, a police sergeant named Barnes had particularly exerted himself, and had consequently received rewards to a considerable amount. This was the reason why his name was introduced into the narrative which I happened to overhear, and which I inscribed on a blank leaf of an interleaved statute. There is not one original idea of mine in the production, and I should not submit it to my readers if I did not consider it essential to the appreciation of the criticism subsequently pronounced by Mr. Barnes.
Musha! Katey Doyle, do you know what?
Shure Jem has took the shilling,
And off he's gone to Aldershot,
It's there he'll get the drilling.
The polis now along the Coombe[6]
No more will be resisted,
And Fordham's Alley's all in gloom
Since Jem has took and listed.
So have you got a dhrop at all?
My sperrits is so sinking,
I do not think I'd stop at all
If wanst I take to drinking.
The night afore he wint to list
I cribb'd his half week's wages,
And when the two 'r three hogs[7] he miss'd
At wanst he wint outrageous.
Next mornin' to the Linen Hall
He goes and takes the bounty;
It would not be so bad at all
If he had join'd the County;
For they're not gone to foreign parts,
And won't encounter dangers,
But, just as if to break our hearts,
He join'd the Connaught Rangers.
The night afore he wint away
He came to bid "good-bye" there.
I thought to get him for to stay,
That thrick we couldn't try there,
For Barnes was watching, skulking round
When Jem and I were parting—
That polisman would make a pound
On any boy desarting.
I'm shure I'd like to take a quart
Of Jameson's distillin',
To drink bad luck to all his sort—
The tallow-faced ould villin.
So Jem is gone to Aldershot,
Where 'tis I've no idea;
Of coorse it is some desprate spot,
Nigh-hand to the Crimea.
There's some entrench'd upon a hill,
Some hutted in a valley;
I'm sure Jem would be better, still
At home in Fordham's Alley.
For the Cossacks now he'll have to stob,
Or shoot 'em holus bolus;
I'm shure 'twould be an easier job
At home to face the polis.
In a week or ten days after I had perpetrated this production, I was sitting in the upper court, when I was informed by the usher that Sergeant Barnes was most anxious to speak to me at my convenience and leisure. I directed that he should be admitted, and he proceeded to request that Mr. Baxter, one of the junior clerks, should be restrained from singing a song which he had picked up somewhere, and occasionally lilted to the other clerks when unemployed, as it was most disrespectful, and even termed him, Sergeant Barnes, "a tallow-faced old villain." I told the complainant that I should certainly prohibit Baxter from continuing his vocal pastime, as it was calculated to annoy an active and meritorious member of the police force. Barnes expressed his gratitude, and added, "I knew that your worship would never tolerate any of the clerks in abusing or ridiculing us. I readily acknowledge that I have received nearly £30 for detecting and taking deserters, but I would spend every farthing of the amount if I could only discover the author of Mr. Baxter's song, I'd punish him to the utmost severity of the law for writing such a rigmarole about me." In about ten minutes after the interview, the song was torn out of the interleaved statute by the hand that had inscribed it. The sergeant soon after retired from the force on a pension, and was, for several years, in a confidential situation at the premises from which the whisky was considered so desirable to "drink bad luck to all his sort" namely, Jameson's distillery.