A gentleman, who lived in Baggot Street, came to Exchange Court one morning for the purpose of reporting that his coach-house had been entered, as he believed, by means of false keys, and that a set of cushions, adapted to an outside jaunting-car, had been abstracted. He described them as white cord material with green borders and seams. A detective mentioned that he had seen cushions of the description on a car which had been brought for inspection, and the licence of which had been suspended on account of its unseemly condition. The car was then in Dame Street, and a further enquiry eventuated in the discovery on it of the articles which had been supposed to have been abstracted. The owner of the car was a brother of the gentleman's servant who had lent his master's cushions to pass the inspection. The car licence was cancelled; but I believe that similar tricks were frequently played on similar occasions.
For upwards of ten years I have been estranged from the Dublin Police Courts. I cannot speak as to the habits and characteristics of the carmen of the present time. I have already stated that, according to my experience and recollection, they were honest and sober. I can add that I knew many instances in which members of their class manifested generosity, kindness, and courage. A man belonging to New Street stand went to the fair of St. Doulagh's, and expended his savings in the purchase of a fine-looking horse that appeared in a sound condition, but on whose leg there was a slight scar. In about a week after the fair, the beast exhibited some very extraordinary symptoms, and at last became most furious and unruly. He dashed into a shop window, and injured himself so much as to make it necessary to kill him. It was the opinion of a veterinary practitioner that he had been bitten by some rabid animal, and had taken hydrophobia. The other carmen promptly subscribed a sum sufficient to defray the damage done to the shop, and to procure another horse for the man who vainly sought to ascertain the former owner of the one that he bought at St. Doulagh's. I am aware that previous to the establishment of the fire brigade in Dublin, the drivers on a car-stand would leave two or three of their number to mind their horses and vehicles, and apply themselves to work the engines and extinguish fires in their vicinity. Many acts of heroism on the part of carmen have occurred on our quays and at Kingstown, in saving, at their own imminent risk, persons in danger of drowning.
Having noticed some very good qualities, I must remark on the scarcity amongst them, according to my experience, of veracity. When a carman was summoned by a constable he almost invariably met the accusation by a direct contradiction. If called on to answer for being shabbily dressed or dirty in his apparel, he bought or borrowed a good suit of clothes, shaved, put on a clean shirt, and stated boldly to me that he was just in the same attire when the policeman "wrote him." If the summons was for being absent from his beast and vehicle, he insisted that he was holding "a lock of hay" to his horse all the time. If the complaint was for furious driving, the defence was that "the baste was dead lame, that it was just after taking up a nail, and was on three legs when he was 'wrote.'" If it was alleged that the horse was in a wretched condition, and unfit to ply for public accommodation, he expressed his surprise that any fault should be found with a horse that could "rowl" four to the Curragh and back without "turning a hair." Whatever statement was made for the defence, it evinced imaginative power, for the plain, dull truth was hardly ever permitted the slightest admixture in the excuse offered. Mr. Hughes, whom I have mentioned in some earlier pages, was in the carriage-court one day, on an occasion when an old man named Pat Markey, formerly belonging to the Baggot Street stand, made a statement utterly at variance with all probability, and directly opposed to the evidence adduced against him: however, on the prosecutor's own showing the case was dismissed, as the charge was not legally sustained. On leaving the court, Hughes asked Pat why he did not tell the truth at first, as it would have been better for him; upon which the other exclaimed—"Musha, cock him up with the truth! that's more than I ever towld a magistrate yit." A delinquent seldom mentioned the offence for which he was punished; he generally substituted for it, the inducement which led to its commission. If he went into a tobacconist's, and while he made his purchase, his horse moved on, and was stopped by a constable, who summoned the driver, the latter when asked what he was fined for would reply, "for taking a blast of the pipe." If, on a Saturday evening, he betook himself to a barber's shop to have the week's growth taken off his chin, and incurred a penalty for being absent from his vehicle, he said, "the polis wrote him" for getting himself shaved. And on Sunday morning, if a devotional feeling prompted him to get "a mouthful of prayers," whilst his beast remained without any person to mind it, upon the public thoroughfare, he expressed his indignation at a consequent fine "for going to Mass."
I found it impossible to adapt the law, as it existed in my time, so as effectually to compel the carmen to keep themselves in cleanly, respectable attire, or their vehicles in proper order. When summoned and fined, their comments evinced the inutility of the punishment. I have said to one, "Your car has been proved to be in a most disgraceful state, and I shall fine you ten shillings." The reply has been, "I thank yer worship, shure that fine will help me to mend it." I have told another that I would suspend his licence for a month; but this only elicited a request for an order to admit him and his family to the poorhouse during the suspension. If the complaints preferred by the police did not effect much good, those brought forward by private individuals were, in their general tendency, and as a class of cases, decidedly injurious. When extortion, violence, insolence, or an infraction of duty provoked an aggrieved person to summon, the usual course was for the delinquent to send his wife to the complainant's residence, or sometimes to borrow a wife, if he had not one of his own, to beg him off. In the case of a young lad being the offender, the intercession was managed by his mother, whether the maternity was real or pretended. The afflicted female beset the door, and applied to all who passed in or out "to save her and her childher, or her poor gorsoon, from the waves of the world," that Mr. Porter was a "rale Turk," and if the poor fellow was brought before him, he would be destroyed "out of a face." A riddance of such importunities formed no slight inducement to forego the prosecution, and consequently the majority of such cases were dismissed for the non-appearance of the complainant; but sometimes the fellow who had been "begged off" came forward, stated that he was ready to answer the summons, and insisted on his loss of time being recompensed by costs. I must admit that I always complied with such applications, and I have enjoyed frequently the vain remonstrances of the forgiving party, who, for his mistaken and expensive lenity, acquired nothing but the wholesome warning not to summon a Dublin driver without appearing to prosecute.
Although the carmen were rather fond of getting more than their fare, they became the dupes and victims of dishonest and tricky employers, and, to use their own term, were "sconced" much more frequently than was generally supposed. The Four Courts constituted, in my time, the frequent scene of such rascality. There was seldom a day in Term that some poor carman was not left "without his costs" by a plausible fellow, who alighting at one door, and passing through the hall, went out at another, leaving the driver with the assurance, that "he would be back in a minute," to find that he had been employed, for perhaps an hour or two previously by a heartless blackguard, who desired no better fun than "sconcing" him. I believe that a regulation has been since adopted which authorises a driver engaged by time to require payment in advance. I consider it a very great improvement.
CHAPTER XII. A GRATUITOUS JAUNT—THE PORTUGUESE POSTILLION—MISCELLANEOUS SUMMONSES.
A young woman who was servant in a house in Harcourt Street in which two students resided, had an altercation with one of them, which eventuated in a summons and a cross-summons before me. It appeared that the young man had imputed dishonesty to her, and she had been very indignant and abusive towards her accuser. He called his fellow-student as a witness, to prove that the girl threw a bottle at him, and that she freely used the terms of swindler, blackguard, &c. The charge of dishonesty was unfounded, and the encounter between the parties terminated without any personal injury to either, but the damsel cross-examined the witness in reference to a transaction, and elicited a mode of procuring a jaunt across the city, which I hope that I shall not lessen the reader's interest in my observations and reminiscences of the Dublin carmen by briefly detailing. The woman acquired the knowledge of it by having overheard a conversation between the young men.
They had been invited to an early evening party at Summer Hill. They were not inclined to walk such a distance, and neither of them found it convenient to pay for a vehicle. At last the one who subsequently complained of being termed a swindler and blackguard said that he would get a covered car without payment. Accordingly, having walked to the nearest "hazard," he desired his comrade to get into a car, and also seated himself, he then directed the driver to proceed "to Santry." "Santry!" explained the astonished jarvey; "is it joking you are? D——l an inch I'll go to Santry to-night. Get out of my car if you plaze, the baste is tired, and I won't go." "My good fellow," was the answer, "I shall not get out, and you may as well get on at once." "By gorra, if you don't get out, I'll pull you out," said the carman. "If you lay a finger on me," answered the occupant, "I will resist you as well as I can, and I shall prosecute you for an assault." It was a bad business. The carman changed his tactics. "Why, yer honor," he mildly urged, "it is an unrasonable thing to ax a man to go to such a place even in the day time, for there's nothin but murdher and robbery on that b——y road, an' if I do go, we'll be all kilt, and you'll be robbed into the bargain; shure you haven't right sinse to think of such a jaunt." "My friend," said the fare, "there may be something in what you say, but I shall call at a house on Summer Hill and get firearms for myself and my companion, and with two case of pistols I fear no robbers." The carman grumbled, but he had a sturdy customer, so he mounted his seat and drove on. When they came to Summer Hill he was desired to pull up, and the two sparks alighted, assuring him that they would immediately procure the arms and resume their journey. As soon as they were inside the hall-door, the jarvey plied his whip, and rattled off as fast as he could, congratulating himself that he had escaped a drive to Santry, and leaving the two scamps to enjoy the joke of having got a gratuitous jaunt from Harcourt Street to Summer Hill.