I was sitting one day at the police-court in Dublin, along with another magistrate, when a gentleman entered and preferred a very urgent request that one of us would accompany him to Kingstown, to witness and certify the execution of a power of attorney by his mother, in reference to certain funds in the Bank of England. The applicant was reputed to be the natural son of a very distinguished nobleman who had discharged viceregal duties in Ireland, and also in very important and extensive oriental territories. I never heard what the original name of the lady had been, but she was known by the rather inelegant soubriquet of Moll Raffle. She had followed her aristocratic paramour to Ireland, and he had relieved himself from her claims or importunities by providing her with a husband, and her son with an official appointment of respectable rank and emolument. I had never seen her, and I was influenced by personal curiosity to accede to her son's request. We proceeded to Kingstown, and on arriving at a commodious and genteel residence, he desired the servant to inform Mrs. —— that he had brought the magistrate for the business required. In a few minutes she appeared, and although no longer youthful, or even middle-aged, a second look was not necessary to convince me that she must have been exquisitely beautiful in her features, and of a tall and symmetrical figure. Her right arm was bandaged and in a sling, and she exclaimed to her son that she was deeply mortified at having given me the trouble of coming so far on an ineffectual mission, for that she had unfortunately sustained a severe fall, having trodden on a loose stair-rod just after he had started for Dublin, and her wrist and hand were so much bruised as to render her incapable of making her signature. I told her that if she took the pen in her left hand, I would, at her instance and request, guide it so as to write her name, and that I would explain the matter in a special magisterial attestation on the document. To this suggestion she readily acceded, and the power of attorney was promptly perfected. She insisted that I should take luncheon, after which I left. Not having to return to official duties, I sauntered through Kingstown until about four o'clock, when I went to the jetty, which was crowded, as a military band was playing there. I was not long on the jetty before I saw Mrs. —— with half-a-dozen companions, but the sling was gone, and her right hand seemed perfectly capable of managing her parasol. I subsequently ascertained that "Moll Raffle" had never been taught to write, and that she thought it more agreeable to pretend that her hand had been hurt than to acknowledge her educational deficiency.
A LUCKY ACCUSATION.
In the year 1846, the Ribbon association, or fraternity, prevailed very extensively in the city of Dublin, and in the counties of Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, and Meath. I believe that religious opinions or political tendencies had very little influence on their deliberations or proceedings. All the information that I acquired in reference to them led me to the conclusion that their temporal interests actuated them throughout. Threats, menaces, and even murderous violence were used without hesitation to deter competition with a ribbon-man in affairs of tenancy, traffic, or employment. I notice these tendencies merely as being connected with a most extraordinary incident at the time. A man named Lacy held a small farm somewhere between Brittas and Blessington, and at an early hour on a Saturday morning, he left home, bringing, with a horse and cart, various commodities for sale in Dublin. Having disposed of his goods, he was about to start for home in the evening. He stopped at a shop in Bride Street to purchase some groceries, and tendered in payment a crown-piece. It was a coin of George the Third's reign, was rather worn, and had acquired a dark and very questionable appearance. The proprietor of the shop pronounced the crown to be base, and used some expressions which irritated Lacy, who replied to them in vituperative terms. The grocer observed a constable passing, and having called upon him, charged Lacy with tendering a base coin. The man was taken to the station-house in Chancery Lane, his horse and cart were sent to a livery stable, and he remained in custody until Monday morning, when the charge was laid before me. Mr. Stuart, of Dame Street, a silversmith, was examined, and in my presence tested the crown. He pronounced it to be perfectly genuine. I accordingly directed the accused party to be discharged from custody, and I was not surprised at his expressions of indignation for having been detained and locked up amongst thieves and disorderly characters, and his horse and cart sent to livery, whilst his family could not but feel alarmed for his safety when he failed to return at the expected time. I directed his horse and cart to be given to him, and that the livery should be defrayed from the police funds. Scarcely had I disposed of the case when Lacy's wife arrived in an indescribable state of joyful excitement. She clasped him in her arms, exclaiming, "You're safe, all is right, thanks to God." She manifested no resentment towards the grocer, but wished him good luck and prosperity. The cause of her delight may be briefly explained, but it is not the less extraordinary. Her husband had incurred the resentment of the ribbon-men of his vicinity, by offering for land against one of the fraternity. On the Saturday night an armed party entered his house for the purpose of killing him, but their diabolical design was thwarted by the circumstance of their intended victim being in custody of the Dublin Police, upon an unfounded, but certainly not an unfortunate accusation. His family had communicated with the constabulary, lest the intended assassination might be perpetrated on his journey home, and early on Monday morning his wife started in search of him with the result which has been stated.
CROWN WITNESSES.
For several years subsequent to my appointment to magisterial office, there were two houses in Great Ship Street, on the side now entirely occupied by the barrack, which were appropriated to the accommodation of crown witnesses. There was an internal communication between those houses, and the witnesses, of both sexes, were allowed to associate free from all supervision, except what served to keep them from leaving the premises, unless accompanied by an attendant, and examining letters received or despatched by them. Their meals were generally taken together; and for the amusement or employment of their evenings, they were left entirely to themselves. Amongst those witnesses almost every variety of character was to be found. A young man, whose name has lapsed from my recollection, was charged by a female with attempting to commit an offence which I need not particularise, and I was directed to investigate the affair at the premises, without imparting to it any avoidable publicity. The accused party denied the misconduct imputed to him, and attributed the charge to spite and resentment on the part of the complainant and another inmate of the place. A woman stated that "the girl was vexed by the questions put to her, and the faults found with her evidence every time that her case was tried." I was greatly surprised to find that the crown witnesses were accustomed to have their evidence rehearsed before an amateur judge, an improvised jury, and a couple of supposed counsel, one to prosecute and the other to defend. If a case failed, the witnesses were instructed as to their deficiencies, either in manner or matter; and they were drilled to avoid admissions of any nature calculated to weaken their testimony. I made such representations to the Executive as produced the suppression of the Ship Street establishments.
WHO BLEW UP KING WILLIAM?
Very soon after my appointment to the police magistracy, there was a person named Jones convicted of being deeply implicated in the Ribbon system. He was not committed for trial from the Head Office, and I was not officially connected with any of the proceedings in his case. After he had been sent to another hemisphere under sentence of transportation, I heard casually from a professional man, on whose statements I placed the utmost reliance, that Jones had acknowledged to him being the person by whom the statue of King William in College Green was blown up in 1836. There was no prosecution instituted as to that extraordinary affair, and I notice it only on account of the statements subsequently made, and an incident which may be considered of an amusing character. Two women of a disreputable class were standing at the corner of Church Lane in College Green just after midnight. A man whom they had not previously observed, descended quickly from the statue, and having crossed the rails which then intervened between the pedestal and the thoroughfare, he ignited a fuse which had been previously connected with some explosive substance placed between the figures of the steed and the rider. The man rapidly decamped, the fuse burned quickly, and there was an explosion which was heard in almost every part of the city, and by which the figure of the monarch was completely separated from his horse, and thrown into the public carriage-way, several yards from the pedestal. It was reported that a respectable citizen residing in the immediate vicinity, who had been suffering for some time previous from disease of the heart, rose from his bed in hasty alarm, and almost immediately dropped lifeless. Jones, according to the statement of my informant, subsequently tried to cut the head off the prostrate figure, but was deterred by the approach of a party of police from College Street. I believe that those who examined the figures of man and horse expressed a decided opinion that the explosion had not been effected by gunpowder, and the statements of the acknowledged delinquent denied that gunpowder had been used, but without his specifying what material had effected such an extraordinary result.
SURGICAL ASSISTANCE.
In the year 1836, Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He had an aide-de-camp, a Captain B——, who has since supplemented that name by another commencing with O. That gentleman then was, and has since continued to be, a most desirable addition to any social or convivial re-union in which wit and comic humor were appreciated. On the night of the explosion, Captain B—— was returning from some festive scene, and reached College Green, on his way to the Castle, a few minutes after the occurrence. He instantly ordered his driver to make for Merrion Square as quickly as possible, and to stop at the residence of Crampton, who was the first surgical practitioner of the time, and who was very generally considered to have a most persistent anxiety to establish acquaintance and even intimacies amongst the aristocracy. Captain B—— applied himself to the knocker and door-bell until he had completely roused every inmate of the house, and to the first who enquired the reason for his urgent application, he replied, "To let Surgeon Crampton know that a very distinguished personage had fallen from his horse in College Green, and sustained serious injuries." The hoax was successful. Crampton proceeded with the utmost haste to the place designated, and subsequently he caused considerable surprise by becoming the frequent narrator of the trick to which he had been subjected.