CHAPTER XIII. DOGS—WHIPPING YOUNG THIEVES—GARDEN ROBBERS—REFORMATORIES—APOLOGIES FOR VIOLENCE—TRESPASSERS ON A NUNNERY.
The statute, passed since my retirement, to enforce and regulate the registration of dogs, has relieved the magistrates from having to dispose, in the course of each year, of some hundreds of summonses against the owners, or reputed owners of dogs which were found "roaming at large on the public thoroughfare, without log or muzzle." In my time, I never found a summons in reference to a dog, at the instance of a constable, entered indiscriminately with other complaints. If the first case was a canine one, I might feel assured that it would be followed by forty or fifty others of the same description, and that the dogs would monopolise the day. It appeared to me that the police were occasionally directed to give special attention, for two or three days, to the unlogged and unmuzzled curs, and thus produce what our clerks used to term "a dog board." The appearance of a male defendant was extremely rare. The persons complained of were generally working tradesmen or labourers, who, on receiving a summons, directed the wife to attend the court, as they could not afford to lose their time. When a defendant was called, his female substitute, eager to have the first word, answered to the man's name; but what she said referred to the animal. A mere listener might imagine that the defendants were either guilty of some atrocious offences, or were subjected, unheard and untried, to a fearful, fatal doom; for instance—
"Call James Foley."
"He's drounded, yer worship, we drounded him off Wood Quay, the very evening that we got the summons, he wasn't logged or muzzled, but he is dead now, and the policeman 'ill never see him again."
"You are fined two and sixpence."
"Oh! yer worship, that's very hard, and he dead."
"Call Peter Casey."
"He's hung, sir; he was very owld and stupid, and hadn't a tooth in his head, so we hung him, not to be bother'd with him any more," &c.
"Call Patrick Dempsey."
"Plaze yer worship, he's dead, and if the polisman knew him, he'll know that he's dead. We had him hung and got him skinned, and I have his skin here to show you."
Perhaps another case would disclose the appalling fact, that Denis Reilly was "pisened by a young doctor that we got to sponge his nose with some Prooshun stuff, and it kilt him." Such calamities have been averted from the Foleys, Caseys, Dempseys, and Reillys of the present time, and the magistrates have been relieved from having to listen to such murderous details from the lips of the gentler sex by the magical effect of canine registration.