Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate

by Frank Thorpe Porter

The Dublin carmen are far from being faultless, but, as a class, I found them generally very honest. Whilst I discharged the carriage business, I knew instances of considerable sums of money and articles of value, which had been left in their vehicles, being brought in and delivered up to the police. I do not know how such property, if unclaimed, is now disposed of; but in my time, I invariably, after the expiration of twelve months, had it delivered, subject to charges for advertising, &c., to the person who brought it. I may mention one very extraordinary incident. Before the opening of the Great Southern and Western Railway, the Grand Canal Company ran passenger boats to the towns of Athy and Ballinasloe. A boat for the latter place left Portobello each day at two o'clock. A Rathmines man, who was owner and driver of a covered car, was returning home one morning about 11 o'clock, when he was hailed, in Dame Street, by a respectably dressed man, who engaged him to drive about town, and to be paid by the hour. The hirer stopped at several establishments and bought parcels of woollen, linen, plaid, and cotton goods, as also a hat and a pair of boots, for all of which he paid in cash. There was merely room for the hirer in the vehicle along with his ample purchases. Finally, he directed the driver to go to Portobello, adding that he intended to leave town by the passage-boat at two o'clock. When the car arrived at the end of Lennox Street, the driver was ordered to stop. The hirer alighted and told the driver to go round by the front of the hotel and wait for him at the boat. The order was obeyed, and the carman waited until the boat started, but the hirer did not appear. The driver apprized the police of the circumstance, and, at their suggestion, he attended the two boats which left on the following day, but no one came to claim the goods. They were brought to the police stores and advertised, the hirer was described and sought for in various hotels and lodging-houses, but without any result. It was ascertained at the establishments where the parcels were purchased that they cost twenty-seven pounds, and the carman ultimately got them on paying some small charges. He had not been paid his fare, nevertheless he was not dissatisfied. A rare case amongst his fraternity.

When it was proposed to have a hackney fare for sixpence, "for a drive with not more than two passengers, direct, and without any delay on the part of the hirer, from any place within the municipal boundary to any other place within the same," I refused to sanction such a regulation. I considered that it would, in many instances, be a most inadequate payment for the employment of a vehicle. I suggested that the fifteen municipal wards should form three districts of five wards each, and designated, Southern, Middle, Northern. I proposed that a drive entirely in one of those districts should be a sixpenny fare, that from South or North to Middle, or vice versa, should be eightpence, and that North to South, or vice versa, should be tenpence. My suggestions were not even considered, for the carmen published advertisements that they were desirous of giving cheap locomotion to the people of Dublin, but that the magistrate refused to allow them to take small fares. I sent for the "runners," as the attendants on the stands were termed, and told them that I should no longer object to the sixpenny fare which was proposed. I added that it was the carmen's own act, and, to use a homely phrase, "as they had made the bed, nothing remained for me but to compel them to lie in it." The by-law was no sooner in operation than numerous cases of its violation were brought before me. I fined each, if I thought it fully proved, in the maximum penalty of two pounds. One delinquent was extremely urgent to have a smaller penalty inflicted. I recognized him as having been present when I used the phrase which I have quoted, and reminded him that he had been fully warned. He replied, "Yes, yer worship, we did make the bed, and you promised to make us lie in it, but we never thought that it would be so heavily quilted."

I held that any stop or deviation from the direct line between two places, at the hirer's instance, voided the sixpenny contract, and entitled the driver to additional remuneration. I often availed myself of a sixpenny lift, and was taking one in which I passed the Shelbourne Hotel, in front of which there was a "hazard," or branch stand for five or six cars or cabs. It was considered very objectionable for a disengaged vehicle to stop alongside a hazard and thus obstruct the carriage way. I observed a jarvey committing this offence, and desired my driver to "hold a moment." I said to the offender, "If a constable takes your number for obstructing, you will not escape for less than ten shillings." I then bid my man to go on. He replied, "Yes, yer worship, and it would serve that fellow right to have him punished, for he is after putting your worship in for another sixpence to me."

Two of my daughters had gone to make some purchases at the establishment of Messrs. Todd and Burns, in Mary Street. They were engaged to spend the afternoon at a house in Leinster Street. Rain was falling, and the elder beckoned to the driver of a covered car who happened to be passing. They got into it, and desired him to go to No. 14 Leinster Street. When they arrived, the elder let her sister pass before her into the house, and then she offered a sixpence to the carman. He declined to take it, and said that she should give "the father or mother of that." She asked how much did he demand? and the reply was "a shilling at least." She then said that she would get half-a-crown changed in the house, and bring him a shilling, but she added "that she would speak to papa about it." "Musha, who is papa?" said he. "Mr. Porter," was the reply. She went in, got the change, and came back with the shilling, but he was gone. He preferred giving her a gratuitous drive to having my opinion elicited in reference to the transaction.

A cavalry regiment, if I recollect rightly it was the "Scots Greys," occupied the barracks at Island Bridge in 1854. One day an outside jaunting-car was waiting in the barrack-yard, and the driver was standing on the step. He was a few yards from the quarters of a Captain B——, who was reputed to have a private income of £15,000 per annum. The officer was amusing himself with a little gun, which discharged peas and leaden pellets by detonating caps with greater force than the captain was aware of. He shot at the carman, and the pellet passed through his overcoat and reached his back, giving him a smart blow, but without penetrating the skin. The driver was looking round, and expressing his displeasure, when he received a second shot, which, striking the calf of his leg, lodged in the flesh. He instantly whipped his horse, drove rapidly away, and betook himself to the Meath Hospital, where the shot was extracted. He summoned the officer before me, and when the facts were stated, I expressed an opinion that the act was most unjustifiable, that a wanton and very severe assault had been committed, but that I thought it originated more in a spirit of foolish fun than in any wish to injure the complainant, and as it was a misdemeanor, the parties might come to an understanding, which would render further proceedings unnecessary.

The captain accosted the carman—"Will you take one hundred pounds?"

"Of coorse, I will, yer honor, and I'll never say another word, even if you war to shoot me agin."

Two fifty-pound notes were handed to the delighted complainant, who then said to me—

"The business is settled, yer worship, and I can only say that when I was hit, although it gave me a great start, I felt satisfied it was a rale gintleman that shot me."

I advised the captain to discontinue the sport of jarvey-shooting. Cox complimented him on his generosity, adding that he ought to have got a large covey of such game for the price he paid. I regret to add that the money did not improve its recipient. He relapsed into habits of idleness and drunkenness, lost his licence through misconduct, and was reduced to complete destitution.