THE LUCKY SHOT.
A female of the class to which I have adverted was an inmate of one of the many disreputable houses which constituted almost the entire of a street on the south side of Dublin. It was called "French Street" but the obnoxious establishments having been suppressed, it is now designated "Upper Mercer Street." An English commercial traveller betook himself to the house in which the "unfortunate" resided. He was in a fearful state of delirium tremens; and having been refused a further supply of liquor, he took out a pistol, and shot the "unfortunate," lodging two bullets in her body. He was seized, and the woman was conveyed to Mercer's Hospital, which was in the immediate vicinity. Her wounds did not prove mortal, the balls were extracted; but whilst her recovery was uncertain, I went several times to the hospital for the purpose of taking her informations. She never expressed any resentment against her assailant, and she refused to prosecute him. Some of his family and friends contributed about £20, which sum was paid to her a few days before she was discharged, and she appropriated it to defray the expenses of her emigration. I was informed by the attendants that she often spoke of the lucky shot, by which she was enabled to quit a course of sin and degradation, and to essay a new life in a new land. This occurred, I think, in the year 1843.