MISCELLANEOUS SUMMONSES.
According to my recollections of the summons cases of a police-court, apart from carriage complaints, I feel justified in remarking on the mild and forgiving tendencies of the men, and the vindictive rancour of the women of Dublin. From recent conversations with police functionaries, I am disposed to believe that the present time differs in no material respect from the past. The man claims the protection of the law; "he has no desire to injure the parties he complains of, but he wants them bound to the peace, just to keep them quiet." The woman wants "the coorse of the law, and to have her adversary chastised and kept from killing the whole world, like a murdhering vagabone as she is; it's no use in talkin', but the street will never be quiet until she gets some little confinement just to larn her manners." Summonses for abusive language, or as the fair complainants term it, "street scandal," are, perhaps, the most numerous cases as a class; and on the hearing of them, there is frequently elicited an amount of vituperation beyond anything that Billingsgate could attempt to supply. In almost every case a total absence of chastity is imputed as a matter of course; and if a foreigner would only believe both sides of a police summons-book, he would be forced to the conclusion that chastity was a virtue rarely found amongst the lower order of Dublin females. Yet the very contrary is the fact: furious in their resentments, uncontrollable in their invectives, and inveterately addicted to assassination of character, they are, in general, extremely chaste; and attest the value they attach to female virtue by invariably imputing its absence to their opponents. Sometimes, indeed, a novel term of reproach arouses volcanic fury, and an eruption of indignation is excited by the most extraordinary and unmeaning epithet. I cannot forget a fish-vendor from Patrick Street vociferating to me, that if her enemy was not sent off to Grangegorman at wanst, her life and her child's life (for she was enceinte) would be lost. "But what did she say?" was my query. "What did she say! yer worship, what did she say! Why she came down forenenst the whole world at the corner of Plunket Street, and called me 'a b——y ould excommunicated gasometer.'" I may mention that as female invective generally ascribed inconsistency to its opponent, so the male scolds—happily not very numerous—had their favorite term of reproach; and when they wished to destroy a man's reputation, they designated him—a thief?—no; a robber?—no; a murderer?—no; they satiated all their malignity in calling him "an informer."
Disputes between manufacturers and their artisans or workmen were very rarely the subject of magisterial investigation. There was, however, one case disposed of by me in which a comparison was instituted of a most extraordinary nature. A journeyman summoned an employer for abruptly dismissing him, without giving him, according to the usage of the trade, "a week's notice or a week's wages." I shall not mention the name, residence, or trade of the defendant: but I must say that his countenance exhibited the greatest obliquity of vision that I ever observed in a human face. All the trite phrases commonly applied to squints would fail adequately to describe the tendency of his eyes to avoid seeing the same object at the same time. He admitted having summarily discharged the workman, and alleged that the complainant had totally spoiled an article which he had been directed to make in a hexagon form, and conformable to a pattern supplied, and had produced a piece of work in which shape and proportion had been totally disregarded. The complainant insisted that the work had been properly done, and in complete conformity with the model, and he asked why it was not produced, so that I might judge, by viewing it, whether it deserved to be condemned as crooked and shapeless. I suggested a postponement of the case, and the production of the condemned article. The defendant, who was rather excited, replied, "Your worship, I was so vexed when it was brought in, that I threw it out of the window of the finishing room into the yard, and it was smashed to pieces, but I am ready to swear, in this or any other court, that it was as crooked as the two eyes in my head." The laugh in which I indulged, at hearing this comparison, was lost in the risibility of all present. I suggested that the parties might come to an understanding, and that the complainant might be afforded another opportunity of making an article perfectly conformable to the pattern, and without any resemblance to anything else. This was agreed to, and they departed reconciled.