NO. II.
Scarcely the most youthful reader needs now to be informed that for an indefinite period our country has unfortunately seldom been without bands of misguided men, more or less numerous, combined for illegal purposes, and who have from time to time wrought much ruin and misery to themselves and others, whether they went under the denomination of rapparees, defenders, peep-o’-day-boys, steelboys, whiteboys, united Irishmen, carders, houghers, thrashers or ribbonmen, the last of the species—may they prove the last indeed! The manifold causes that produced those lawless and destructive combinations the nature of this Journal wisely precludes us from meddling with; their objects were perfectly apparent. We therefore pass both by with a single remark, namely, that since the disastrous and desolating insurrection and invasion of ’98, there has been no person of weight or property connected with any of the numerous confederacies that have continued unceasingly to distract the country, with the exception of that which involved the fate of the wild but amiable visionary Robert Emmett—certainly not in Connaught; nor would it appear that in any one of them since was any serious opposition to government contemplated. In fact, the conspirators being, with but few exceptions, invariably of the very lowest class, their object, however guilty, was limited to the obtainment of personal advantage, the gratification of private revenge, or petty opposition to tithes and the local authorities.
In 1806, the combinators were designated in Connaught, thrashers. Their vengeance seemed to be chiefly wreaked on the haggards of such gentlemen or middlemen as excited the wrath or suspicions of the brotherhood; and frequently, where at evening had been seen a large and well-filled haggard, nought was visible in the morning but empty space, the wasted grain and the then valuable hay being scattered over the adjacent fields and roads, often to a considerable distance.
Tirawley, the northern barony of Mayo, was at this period infested with a gang of thrashers of peculiar daring and activity, the most prominent of whom was Murtagh Lavan, usually termed “Murty the Shaker,” a soubriquet which he derived from his remarkable dexterity in scattering the contents of the various haggards; and for a considerable period this reckless gang was a terror to the entire barony. But there is, fortunately, neither union nor faith among the wicked. After having been the principal in numberless acts of destruction and lawlessness, Murty became a private informer against guilty and innocent, in consequence of the large rewards offered by government for the detection of the offenders, and had given in the names of a large number of accomplices, as well as of those who he knew were likely to be suspected, when his career was cut short by a violent death.
Secretly as his informations were given, it appears it was discovered that he had become an informer; and in consequence, a band of the most desperate of his former accomplices planned and accomplished his murder in a singularly daring manner. His wife and himself were guests at a christening when he was called out: she followed him, and in her presence he was assailed by a number of blackened and partly armed men, one of whom felled him with a hatchet like an ox in the slaughter-house. He was never allowed to rise, for the others trampled on him when down, and struck him with various weapons. The wretched woman fled into a corner, and remained there an unharmed spectatress of the whole murderous scene, and, what has rarely occurred in similar circumstances, without making any attempt to fling herself between her husband and the murderers.
Immediately on information being forwarded to the government of the audacious murder of the informer, proclamations offering large rewards for the discovery and conviction of the perpetrators were issued; great activity was exhibited by the magistrates and the yeomanry, put under permanent pay, as is well remembered in the localities where they were stationed, the inhabitants of which were soon left minus their geese and hens with miraculous rapidity, after the arrival of their defenders. The yeomen! God forgive us: dark as is our theme, so strangely does levity mingle with gloom and even with sorrow in our national temperament, that a host of humorous recollections come rushing on us, called up by the name, as we recall our boyish enjoyment in witnessing some of their inspections. Their motley dress—their arms—the suggaun often binding a dislocated gun—and their discipline—oh, their discipline! Why, reader, believe us or not as you please, we knew of a captain of yeomanry standing in front of his corps, during an inspection of all the yeomen in the district by a distinguished general officer, with his drawn sword held with great gallantry in his left hand, till his serjeant-major besought him in a whisper to change it to the other hand, until the general should have passed him. But we say avaunt to the evil temptation that has beset us at so awkward a time, to descant on yeomanry frolics, though we promise the readers of the Journal a laugh at them on some more fitting occasion.
Five of the murderers were apprehended and executed together in 1806; and, some years afterwards, one of them, named M’Ginty, whose troubled conscience would not permit him to remain in England, whither he had fled after the commission of the crime, and who was apprehended the very night after his return to this country, died a fearful death. Indeed, in our experience of public executions we never witnessed a more terrible one. He was a man of a large, athletic frame, and when on the lapboard ramped about with frightful violence, got his fingers several times between the rope and his neck, and attempted to pull down the temporary beam, and drag out the executioner with him, the latter of which objects he nearly effected. He spurned at all exertions to induce him to forgive his prosecutors and captors, and was in the act of denouncing vengeance against them, dead or alive, when he was flung off.
We remember a curious point was saved in this man’s favour after conviction, when an arrest of judgment was moved on the ground that the principal evidence against him (an accomplice) was himself, after having been tried, and sentenced to capital punishment, and, therefore, being dead in law, could not be received as a competent witness. The objection was, however, overruled by the judges in Dublin, on the ground that the man had received a pardon, and could be, therefore, considered a living witness again.
It was twenty-four years after the murder of Murty, namely, in the spring of 1830, that a woman was making her way across a stream running through a gentleman’s grounds in the county of Sligo, when she was prevented by a caretaker, who obliged her to turn back.
“Skirria snivurth,” exclaimed the woman with bitter earnestness, “but don’t think, durneen sollagh (dirty Cuffe) but I know you well; an, thank God, any way ye can’t murther us, as ye did Murty Lavan long ago.”
Her words were heard by a policeman who chanced to be angling along the stream, and who promptly brought her into the presence of a magistrate, where, after the policeman had stated what he heard, she attempted at first to draw in her horns and retract her words.
“Well, my good woman,” said the magistrate, “what expressions were those you used just now?”
“Ou, only some ramask (nonsense), yer honour.”
“Did you not accuse a man of murder?”
“In onough, I dunno what I sed when the spalpeen gev us the round, and the vexation was upon us.”
“You must speak to the point, woman.”
“Wethen sure yer honour wouldn’t be after mindin’ what an oul’ hag sed when she was in the passion.”
“Policeman, repeat the expressions exactly.”
The policeman repeated his former statement.
“Now swear the hag, and I warn her if she doesn’t tell the whole truth, I will myself see her transported.”
The woman, now thoroughly frightened, admitted that she knew the person who prevented her from crossing the stream to be Cuffe or Durneen, who was charged with having been the principal in the murder of Murty the Shaker. Cuffe was accordingly apprehended, and having been fully identified by Murty’s wife, who was still in existence, having continued a pensioner of the Mayo grand jury since her husband’s murder, was committed to the Mayo jail, to the astonishment and regret of his employer.
The extraordinary part of Cuffe’s case seems to us not by any means that he should have been detected after the lapse of twenty-four years, but it does seem a singular fact indeed, that, notwithstanding a description of him in the Hue and Cry as the person who had struck the mortal blow with the hatchet, and the large rewards offered for his apprehension, he should have remained undiscovered for such a protracted period, so immediately adjacent to the scene of his crime. Most of our readers are aware that Sligo adjoins Mayo—nay, the barony of Tirawley, in which the murder was perpetrated, is only separated by the river Moy from the county of Sligo, so that one portion of the town of Ballina is in Mayo, and the other in Sligo; and yet, in all probability, were it not that Providence directed the steps of the woman to that stream for the first and last time in her life, he might have remained there undiscovered to the end of his natural life, which could not then be far distant, his head being completely silvered at the time of his apprehension.
While in prison, both before and after conviction, Cuffe’s conduct, as it had been all along prior to his detection, was peaceful, obliging, and amenable, comporting much better with a pleasant and rather benevolent countenance, in which there did not seem to be a single line indicative of an evil disposition, than with the terrible crime he had been the principal in committing.
On the morning after M’Gennis had committed the extraordinary suicide detailed in a former number, in the same cell with him, Cuffe’s gaze continued to be fastened, as if by fascination, on the body while it remained in the cell, and his countenance wore an expression resembling a smile of gratified wonder, as he frequently exclaimed in an under tone, “didn’t he do it clever?” He strongly denied, however, as was before stated, having witnessed the suicide, or known anything of its being intended.
His own death was calm and easy: in fact he seemed to have died without a struggle; and so little did his punishment after such a lapse of years seem to be considered as a necessary atonement to justice, that we heard, during his execution, Murty’s own brother, who was among the spectators, use the expression, that it was a pity so many lives should be lost for such a rascal.
We should have remarked that on the morning of his execution he requested of the benevolent and intelligent inspector to allow him a tea breakfast. Indeed, it is a curious consideration that animal gratification seems to be the predominant object with a large proportion of persons on the eve of execution, when hope becomes as nearly extinct as it can become while life remains. In general, in such cases among the lower class, there is a petition for a meat dinner, or a tea breakfast, or both—a petition which, we need scarcely say, is in Ireland generally granted.
We recollect an instance where two persons under sentence were breakfasting together, just previous to their execution, having, among other materials, three eggs between them, when one of them, having swallowed his first egg rapidly, seized upon the other with the utmost greediness, while his companion eyed him with a sickly smile that seemed to say “you have outdone me to the last.”
On another occasion we remember to have seen two convicts on a cart with the ropes about their necks, who were to be executed about fourteen miles from the prison, one of them bearing with him in his fettered hands the remains of a loaf he had been unable to finish at his breakfast, but still begged permission to take with him, as he purposed to eat it, and did so, on his way to the gallows.
A.
Evil Influence of Fashion.—Never yet was a woman really improved in attraction by mingling with the motley throng of the fashionable world. She may learn to dress better, to step more gracefully; her head may assume a more elegant turn, her conversation become more polished, her air more distinguished; but in point of attraction she acquires nothing. Her simplicity of mind departs; her generous confiding impulses of character are lost; she is no longer inclined to interpret favourably of men and things; she listens, without believing, sees without admiring; has suffered persecution without learning mercy; and been taught to mistrust the candour of others by the forfeiture of her own. The freshness of her disposition has vanished with the freshness of her complexion; hard lines are perceptible in her very soul, and crows-feet contract her very fancy. No longer pure and fair as the statue of alabaster, her beauty, like that of some painted waxen effigy, is tawdry and meretricious. It is not alone the rouge upon the cheek and the false tresses adorning the forehead which repel the ardour of admiration; it is the artificiality of mind with which such efforts are connected that breaks the spell of beauty.—Mrs Gore.
Impossibility of Forgetting.—In these opium ecstacies, the minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived. I could not be said to recollect them; for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge them as parts of my past experience. But, placed as they were before me, in dreamlike intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accompanying feelings, I recognised them instantaneously. I was once told by a near relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed before her simultaneously, as in a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as suddenly, for comprehending the whole and every part. This, from some opium experiences of mine, I can believe. I have indeed seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, viz, that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak of, is in fact the mind of each individual. Of this at least I feel assured, that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn.—Confessions of an Opium Eater.
There are few roses without thorns, and where is the heart that hides not some sorrow in its secret depths?
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