FOOTNOTE:
[3] These expressions refer to the late Duke of Leinster, who has died since I wrote them.—F. T. P.
CHAPTER V. A MILLIONAIRE.
I shall revert to old Skinner Row in reference to the career of an individual which may be said to have commenced there about the year 1782. The incidents which I shall detail are not of an amatory or very sentimental nature, but nevertheless, truly extraordinary. To a Dublin, or even an Irish reader, it is unnecessary to offer an assurance of their truth, or to mention the individual's name. Only one error in reference to him has had currency, and that to a very limited extent. It arose, in all probability, from envy or malice, and consisted in describing him as a person of very imperfect education, of plebeian manners and disposition, and of almost menial avocations. He might have been truly described as well-informed, unaffectedly courteous, unobtrusive of his own opinions, and tolerant of the opinions of others, whilst his business transactions were marked by diligence, integrity, and intelligence. The proprietor of a very extensive establishment in a central situation in Dublin, where bookselling and auctions of libraries were carried on, had advertised for an assistant; and the situation attracted the attention of many competitors, of whom the individual alluded to was one. He was young and active, and sought a personal interview with Mr. V. the advertiser. He was informed that the latter had gone up to Skinner Row, to my father's house, where he would be engaged for upwards of an hour. The applicant hurried off to the narrow, crowded, and inconvenient locality. The footway was disproportionally raised above the carriage road, and at the very door of the house to which he was going, he accidentally slipped and fell. In a disabled condition, he was raised and carried in, and it was ascertained that his ankle was dislocated. His sufferings excited great sympathy. He was conveyed to a bedroom, and surgical aid was procured. Mr. V. manifested great interest in the young man, and came frequently to see him. After several weeks elapsed his cure was effected, and the situation which he sought was given to him. He expressed the deepest gratitude to my father for the kindness he had experienced, and the acquaintance which commenced in the painful accident referred to, ripened ultimately into a very close intimacy. He gained the confidence of Mr. V., who conferred many marks of his esteem, and on the retirement of that gentleman from business, he became, to a great extent, his successor. All his undertakings prospered, and he acquired the reputation of being extremely wealthy. A rumour was circulated that, between the leaves of some books which he had purchased, he had found several bank notes of considerable value, but that report was groundless. In addition to extensive bookselling, he had formed a connection with the house of Bish and Co., of Cornhill, by which he was enabled to do a profitable business in bills on London amongst the Dublin traders, for at that time the facilities of letters of credit were very little known. He also dealt largely in the tickets and shares of the State Lotteries which, three or four times in the year, stimulated the community into legalized gambling. One evening in the year 1794, my father had occasion to call upon him, and found him unusually dissatisfied. He said that Bish's people had made a great mistake in sending him several whole tickets instead of quarters, eighths, or sixteenths, and that three tickets had been left on his hands, involving a loss of sixty pounds. There was not sufficient time to communicate with London before the drawing day, and he could only warn them against committing a similar error on the next occasion. However, in about a week after, my father ascertained that the mistake had eventuated in one of the tickets turning out a prize for twenty thousand pounds. Bish was no longer censured by the man whose wealth, previously considerable, had received a great and unexpected augmentation. The writer of fiction would hesitate before he would adopt a young man lying on the flagway of a city in which he was a complete stranger, with a dislocated ankle, as the material for a future millionaire. The person to whom this narrative refers was not English, Irish, or Scotch. He was a Manxman, who left his native island to seek in Dublin, what he most completely found, a fortune. He died a member of Parliament for an Irish county. Three of his sons attained to similar positions, and one of them was elevated to the House of Peers. Their positions were honourably and worthily acquired.
CHAPTER VI. THE SHIP STREET DIAMOND—SECOND-HAND PLATE—THE SILVER SLAB—LAW'S WINDOW—OLD NEWGATE.
I have already mentioned that old Skinner Row contained a considerable number of establishments belonging to goldsmiths and jewellers. Pre-eminent amongst them was one kept, in the early part of the present century, by Matthew West, who realised an ample fortune there, and attained to high civic distinctions in Dublin. His concern was celebrated for an extensive assortment of jewelry, and for the tasteful and correct execution of orders specially relative to the setting of precious stones. When such were brought to be cleaned, arranged, or set, the owner was required to state the value which he attached to the property, and to sign such statement on the back of the receipt given for the articles. Mr. West gave considerable employment, especially in gem-setting, to a man named Delandre, who occupied the upper part of a house in Great Ship Street, in front of the ground on which the church of St. Michael le Pole formerly stood, and over the yard of which the windows of his working-room opened. A narrow passage led from the street under the house to a building in the rere, and a high wall separated this passage from the old cemetery. The top of the wall was thickly studded with broken glass, to prevent trespasses. In the year 1811, a gentleman called on Mr. West, and produced a diamond to which he attached considerable value, and which he wished to have set in a peculiar style. His order was taken, and a receipt was given for the stone, with an endorsement of its value at £950. Delandre was sent for, and received the diamond, with directions for the setting, and with an injunction to be expeditious. He took it to his work-room, and, the weather being very warm, the window close to his bench had been opened. He was using heavy pressure of the diamond against the material in which it was to be set, when either the tool or the gem slipped, and the latter flew out of the opened window. Instantly alarming his family, he watched the passage and the yard until means were adopted to prevent the entrance of any strangers. Then the passage was swept, and the sweepings were sifted. The surface of the old cemetery, for a considerable space, was similarly treated, the top of the wall was brushed carefully, and a tombstone in which a fissure was observed was raised and examined; but all the searching was fruitless. Finally, Delandre had to betake himself to Mr. West, and communicate the disastrous loss of the valuable jewel. Extraordinary as was the statement, Mr. West did not discredit the workman, in whose probity he placed great confidence. He undertook to afford constant employment to Delandre and to his son, but stipulated that an insurance should be effected on the life of the former, and that weekly deductions should be made from their earnings, so as to provide for the premium on the insurance policy, and form a reserve for the value of the diamond. Delandre scrupulously observed his engagements. He had full employment from West, and although he was working, as he termed it, "for a dead horse," he kept his hands busy and his heart light. Each year lessened his liabilities, and at length, having paid for the diamond, he received an assignment of the policy of insurance, for the ultimate benefit of his family. He had grown old and rather feeble, but still, in conjunction with his son, attended industriously to his trade. Mr. West had died, and I, who had been a schoolboy when the diamond was lost, had become a magistrate of the Head Police Court of Dublin. In my younger days I had often heard of the Ship Street diamond, and the various accounts of its loss were occasionally exaggerated immensely in reference to its size and value. In 1842 some much-needed repairs were in progress at the rere of Delandre's dwelling. Whitewashing and plastering were intended, and the top of the wall between the yard and passage was to be re-glassed. Old Delandre had gone out to buy some provisions, and on his return he was accosted by one of the workmen who had been removing the glass from the wall, and who showed him a curiosity which he had found. Delandre did not require a second look to satisfy himself that it was the long-lost gem. Amongst the glass which had been on the wall there was the neck of a pint bottle, which had been placed in the plaster with the mouth downwards, and it had formed the trap in which the diamond had been caught on falling from the window. Delandre gave the finder a liberal reward; but with a laudable anxiety to remove all suspicion of a sinister nature from himself, he had the discovery of the diamond made the subject of a solemn declaration, which the finder subscribed before me in the Head Police Court. The loss of the gem had been eventually highly advantageous to the man, by whom it was at first very naturally considered a great calamity. It had induced him to adopt a life of strict economy and industry, which easier circumstances would not have suggested or enforced.