He goes into a tent and he spends half-a-crown,
He comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down,
With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green."
I sincerely hope that the "glory" derived from Donnybrook Fair has been for ever quenched, and that future indications of love for a friend will not require to be illustrated by the application of a shillelagh. Some of my readers may not be aware that this designation of a cudgel is derived from a barony named Shillelagh in the County of Wicklow, which has been celebrated for its oak woods from a very remote period. I believe at present they are the property of Earl Fitzwilliam; and I have frequently heard that the timber contained in the roof of Westminster Hall was supplied from them. I am not aware, however, that the propinquity of such material has produced any quarrelsome or combative tendencies amongst the senators or legal practitioners who frequent the locality.
THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
I am disposed to offer here a few observations in reference to the liquor traffic, and the effect of the laws by which it is regulated. I have heard the commission of every offence in which violence was a principal ingredient, attributed to the demoralising and infuriating indulgence in strong drinks. I am convinced, by my official experience, that hundreds of crimes unattended with actual violence, have also originated in the debasing craving for stimulating liquors. Frauds and thefts have been abundantly committed from such an incentive; and even affection has been extinguished by its loathsome power so completely, as to make the criminality and degrading infamy of a son or daughter, subsidiary to the gratification of intemperate habits; and the result of recent legislation has certainly neither remedied, nor in my humble opinion mitigated, the prevalence of drunkenness and its multifarious concomitant evils. We are informed that a strict observance of the statute prohibiting the opening of public-houses on Sunday before two o'clock, p.m., has been enforced, and notwithstanding that regulation, we see numerous cases of intoxication in our thoroughfares two or three hours before the publicans open. On a Sunday in the present year, a servant-man left my house between ten and eleven o'clock, in the forenoon, and returned, or rather was brought back, in less than two hours completely intoxicated. In such a case the law is only operative in restraining the regular licensed trader. To deal with those infractions of the law and of public decency, the visitorial powers of the police and constabulary should be greatly extended; and the penalties incident to a conviction for the illicit traffic should be augmented to at least fourfold the amount now authorised, with the alternative, in case of non-payment, of three or four months' imprisonment with hard labor. In the preceding pages I have mentioned a conviction for smuggling tobacco, on which a penalty of one hundred pounds or six months' imprisonment was awarded. I recollect a detection of an illicit still in a house on Haddington Road, in reference to which the Excise authorities required that every adult found on the premises should be subjected to very severe penalties, or imprisonment for some months; and when I declined to convict a young woman who was washing clothes in the dwelling-house, and who was not a resident, but merely employed there occasionally, the professional gentlemen engaged in the prosecution were very dissatisfied with my decision. Offences against the Customs or Excise, which tend to withhold or lessen the revenue, even in the slightest degree, are made legally liable to penal consequences, compared with which the infractions of laws intended to protect the community from the innumerable evils generated by intemperance, may be regarded as trifling indiscretions, undeserving of strict and severe repression. If a trader sends forth from his premises one hundred drunken customers, to exhibit every phase of violent or indecent behaviour, his conduct is not visited with one-tenth of the punishment incurred by selling a glass of poteen whisky.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] A showy description of silk handkerchief, supposed to be derived from a Spanish city, and associated with its name.