The committee admitted the applicant, registered the admission, and brought the case before the Board of Guardians on the following Thursday, when they obtained a ready sanction to prosecute Mr. Gilmore for deserting his wife, and leaving her, as a pauper, chargeable on the rates. A summons bearing my signature issued, and the constabulary officer appeared at the police-court. The marriage was proved, as were the circumstances of the desertion. On the part of the Guardians a demand was made for the immediate committal of the delinquent, to be imprisoned, with hard labor for three months. Richard Gilmore escaped a formal conviction by paying the expenses already incurred, and undertaking to allow twenty shillings weekly for his wife's maintenance. All parties left the police-court; but in an hour or two after the case had been heard, Richard Gilmore returned and applied to me to have Elizabeth Jones, calling herself Gilmore, apprehended on a charge of bigamy. He alleged that she had been married in Wales about four years previous to her marriage with him, and that her husband, Thomas Jones, was still living. His assertions were made on statements which he had received from others. He had no legal evidence of the charge, and I refused to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the alleged bigamist, but he determined to persist in the accusation. He seized on his wife in the public street, and gave her into the custody of a constable on a charge of felony. On the following morning he stated on oath that he had been informed, and fully believed, that the prisoner had been married to one Thomas Jones in a parish church near Carnarvon; that said Thomas was still living; and he further swore to the marriage of the prisoner with himself in the city of Dublin. He asked for a remand, and stated that he expected to produce witnesses from Wales to prove his charge. I remanded the accused for six days, and Richard left Dublin by the next Holyhead packet in quest of evidence to convict his wife. Before she was removed to prison she sent to me a short note, in which she implored me to direct that no person should be permitted to see her in the prison unless at her own request; and further, that on the day for resuming the investigation, she should be placed amongst a number of females, and that the witnesses should be required to identify her from amongst the others. I considered those requests to be fair and reasonable, and directed that they should be complied with. Richard Gilmore returned to Dublin the day before the resumption of the case. He brought over two witnesses, and sought at the prison to give them a view of the accused, but they were denied admittance. On the appointed day Elizabeth Gilmore was brought from the prison, and placed in the carriage-court with about a dozen of other females, amongst whom was Mrs. Canavan, her Nicholas Street landlady, who manifested great interest in her sufferings, and great indignation at Richard Gilmore's attempt to transport an innocent creature whom he had vowed to love and cherish. Without separating the prisoner from the other women, I proceeded to swear the first witness, one William Jones, who stated that he was a parish clerk of some unpronounceable place in Wales; that he remembered the marriage of Thomas Jones and Elizabeth Jones, and he produced the registry; he recollected the matter very distinctly, the more so from the parties being both of the same name as himself. I directed him to look at the women present, and to point out the one whom he had seen married at the time mentioned in the registry if she was amongst them. Mr. Jones walked to the group, viewed all the women, and very deliberately placing his hand on Mrs. Canavan's shoulder, identified her as the culprit. He was instantly electrified by a burst of abuse, delivered in an accent acquired much nearer to Patrick Street than to Penmaemawr.
Mrs. Canavan's vocabulary was too copious to be select. I do not think that I could have restrained her, and I admit that I allowed her a latitude from which I derived some amusement. She descanted on the propriety of "cropping the ears"[5] of perjured parish clerks, but gave up that idea as, on full consideration, it appeared too mild a treatment for the Welshman. She proceeded to assure him, that there was not a gaol in Ireland that would refuse him admission; and that in no place of such a description could he meet with anyone worse than himself. She appealed to my benevolent tendencies to have the Welsh fellow transported at once, upon the grounds that it would be "a charity;" and she descanted on the physiological defect in such a parish clerk having been born without handcuffs, suggesting an artificial amendment of the natural deficiency. She thanked Mr. Jones for the pleasant news, that she had one husband in Dublin and another in Wales, and assured him that he might expect some very particular attentions from the Dublin one in acknowledgment of his testimony.
"And still she talked, and still the wonder spread,
That one small tongue could utter all she said."
The parish clerk was overwhelmed with confusion, but Richard Gilmore persisted in his charge, and demanded the examination of his remaining witness. Accordingly, a Mrs. Edwards was sworn. She deposed that the Thomas Jones mentioned in the registry was her brother. She had not been present at the marriage, but was satisfied that her brother was living, for she had seen him at Swansea about a month previous, at which time he was proceeding to America as supercargo in a merchant vessel. On further examination, she stated that she was aware that Thomas and Elizabeth Jones had separated within the last two years, and this put an end to the case, for a reference to Gilmore's information showed that his acquaintance with the prisoner commenced nearly three years before their marriage. I remarked that the only allegation fully and clearly proved was the marriage of Mr. Gilmore to Miss Jones in the church of St. Nicholas; and it only remained for me to discharge the prisoner, to congratulate the parties on the removal of all imputation on the legality of their union, and to wish them many years of connubial happiness. Richard Gilmore did not manifest the slightest gratitude for this kind expression; he left the court without asking his wife to accompany him, but she was not compelled to betake herself again to the workhouse. Her weekly stipend was continued. Soon afterwards a son was born, and he is now a confidential employé in an extensive mercantile establishment in Dublin. I do not believe that he ever sought his father, or that his father ever took the slightest notice of him. Wishing him prosperity and happiness, I hope that he may never be necessitated to engage in any correspondence or enquiry relative to his mother's property in Wales. She resided for a considerable time in one of our southern suburbs, and latterly affected no secrecy as to the means which she adopted to effect her marriage. In the year 1858, I expressed, in some conversations with a medical man of her acquaintance, a wish for the particulars, and a copy of the letter which I have given to my readers was enclosed to me by post, without any accompanying condition, or even an indication of the quarter from whence it was furnished.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Cropping the ears was in former times a punishment for perjury.
CHAPTER XVI. WHO THREW THE BOTTLE?—EXCISE AND CUSTOMS CASES.
In the "Dublin Annals" given in Thom's Almanac and Official Directory, it is stated in reference to the year 1822, "Riot in the theatre, on the Marquis of Wellesley, the Lord Lieutenant's first visit thither, during which a bottle was flung into his Excellency's box."