FISHER.
One of the most extraordinary characters of the many who came under my frequent magisterial notice, was a man named Fisher. He was the most inveterate and incorrigible drunkard that was to be found in Dublin, perhaps I might truly say, in the Empire. He had been educated, as I heard, in Stockholm, and acquired a proficiency in several European languages. He had also considerable classical attainments. His intemperance had ruined his commercial interests, and precluded his employment by others, even in very subordinate capacities. Occasionally he would be taken and kept almost as a prisoner in the concerns of an extensive timber merchant, arranging with the Norwegian or Danish people engaged in the delivery of cargoes. A suit of clothes and a pound or two would be thus acquired, but in a few minutes after his liberation he would assuredly be found in street or lane, hall or entry, dead drunk. He was never violent, abusive, blasphemous, or indecent, and as his senses returned, he became courteous and submissive. By the police he was generally pitied, and when a constable was obliged to state that he found "Mr. Fisher" drunk on a thoroughfare, he almost invariably added that he was very quiet. The magistrates were not severe on the wretched creature, and in general, the ruling in reference to him was deferred until the close of their sitting (four o'clock), and then the charge sheet was marked, "Dismissed with a caution." If there happened to be a paucity of cases, we were not disinclined to allow Fisher to address the bench, and state the grounds on which he expected or solicited exemption from punishment. He never "worshipped" us, but invariably named the magistrate, with the prefix of "My dear." I recollect a short speech having been made by him before myself, which excited my surprise and admiration from its purity of diction and the combination of interesting ideas it evinced. The charge against him was "Drunk on a public thoroughfare," and the constable stated that he found Mr. Fisher lying on the steps of a hall door in Peter Street, fast asleep, and having been aroused, he was very drunk, but perfectly quiet.
"My dear Mr. Porter," said the prisoner, "I acknowledge and regret my lapse from propriety—
'Facilis descensus Averni.'
I have, however, been severely punished. I reclined on the steps where your constable found me, and immediately I sank into a slumber which, had it lasted for ever, would have afforded me a blissful immortality. Sweet visions of the past, retrospections of youthful joys, untainted by the errors and cares of the present, monopolised my imagination. A mother's lips were pressed to mine. A father's smile gladdened my heart. I had clasped a sister's hand, and a brother's arm encircled my neck. The home of my childhood arose before me, and the garden, with which my earliest recollections were associated, appeared in luxuriant, vernal beauty. The strong hand of your officer, firmly but not rudely applied, dispelled the delightful scene in which I was entranced, and recalled me to the sad reality of captivity and degradation. Have I not already suffered enough to justify the clemency which I implore?" The wretched man was cautioned and discharged.
Having been brought before me on four successive mornings, I told him that I would not permit his coming so frequently, and that I adjudged him to pay a shilling, or to be confined for twenty-four hours. Thereupon he replied, "I regret, my dear Mr. Porter, that on this occasion you do not manifest your usual equanimity. I acknowledge my fault, but I am not worse to-day than I was yesterday or any of the previous days. Moreover, I must respectfully submit that you are greatly mistaken in your remarks as to my coming so often. I never came before you or any magistrate. I was always brought. If the police will leave me as they find me, I shall never complain of their want of attention, nor shall I ever intrude on your presence. Strike off that paltry shilling, and let me depart once more." I told the constable to remove the prisoner, upon which he exclaimed, "If you are obdurate, and insist on marking a penalty, put five shillings on the sheet. It will look more respectable, and there is just the same chance of its payment."
Fisher continued a hopeless, persistent drunkard. With natural talents of no mean order, and with educational acquirements from which great and varied advantages might be expected, he lived despised and ridiculed, and afforded to those under whose occasional observation he came, a melancholy but certain proof that when a man's habits render him his own enemy, he becomes incapable of deriving any benefit from the friendship of others. On a winter's night in, I believe, 1856, Fisher betook himself to a limekiln in Luke Street. He lay down too near the edge and fell asleep, never to awake again in this world. Suffocated by the fumes of the kiln, his corpse, after an inquest and verdict of "accidental death," was consigned to a pauper's coffin, and was ultimately made a subject for anatomical demonstration. His fate was truly melancholy, but some salutary reflections may be derived from contemplating the final consequences of habitual and unrestrained intemperance.