Amongst my personal recollections, there is one which I hope to narrate without ruffling or alarming the most sensitively delicate of my readers, although amongst the prominent characters of the scene about a dozen belonged to the most wretched and degraded portion of the female sex, and dwelt in a mean, loathsome, and disreputable locality named Cole Alley, which was, and perhaps still continues to be, occupied by denizens of a similar description. I shall apply to them the term adopted by Hood in his exquisite production of "The Bridge of Sighs," and designate them "unfortunates." I had been a magistrate for three or four years, when I was one day informed by the attendant of the police-court that a deputation of females from Cole Alley earnestly besought me to give them an audience. My colleagues were amused at the application, and ironically congratulated me on such an exclusive preference; but I determined to accede to the request, and directed them to be admitted. About twelve of them entered the court, and amidst the "unfortunates" I perceived a female child of ten or eleven years of age. The spokeswoman of the party led this child forward, and addressed me to the following effect:—
"Yer worship, this poor little girl was born in the alley. She was not quite a year old when the collar (cholera) made a great sweep up there, and took off her mother, who was one of us. The child had no one to care her, so we agreed to do the best we could for her, and we gave her a bit of food, a rag or two to cover her, and she lived about among us, so that we used to call her our own child. But now, yer worship, we see that she is coming to a time of life when to stay in the alley would be her destruction. We are doatingly fond of her, and it would be a heartscald to us all to think of her ever falling into our course of life. We would beg of you to have her put into some school or institution where she will be reared in decency, and trained to earn honest bread."
I at once stated to "the deputation" that I should do my utmost to realize their wishes, and that they might leave the child to my care. They embraced her most affectionately, and with the warmest thanks for my compliance, they departed. The Poor Law Unions had not been organized at the time, and I sent the child on a remand committal to the worthy matron of Grangegorman Prison, Mrs. Rawlins, with a note explaining the circumstances, and requesting that the little girl should be kept apart from the juvenile delinquents. My wishes were strictly complied with. On the following day, I dined at Portrane with the worthy George Evans. I mentioned the transaction to him, and he communicated it to his sister, Mrs. Putland. That lady was an impersonation of charity, and at once offered to have the "child of the alley" placed in one of the many institutions which she contributed to support. I regret that I am unable to state any further results, having omitted to make ulterior enquiries, but I have always considered the earnest application, perhaps I might fairly term it the supplication, of the Cole Alley "unfortunates" as the strongest acknowledgment, offered sincerely and spontaneously, by Vice of the superiority of Virtue.
THE LUCKY SHOT.
A female of the class to which I have adverted was an inmate of one of the many disreputable houses which constituted almost the entire of a street on the south side of Dublin. It was called "French Street" but the obnoxious establishments having been suppressed, it is now designated "Upper Mercer Street." An English commercial traveller betook himself to the house in which the "unfortunate" resided. He was in a fearful state of delirium tremens; and having been refused a further supply of liquor, he took out a pistol, and shot the "unfortunate," lodging two bullets in her body. He was seized, and the woman was conveyed to Mercer's Hospital, which was in the immediate vicinity. Her wounds did not prove mortal, the balls were extracted; but whilst her recovery was uncertain, I went several times to the hospital for the purpose of taking her informations. She never expressed any resentment against her assailant, and she refused to prosecute him. Some of his family and friends contributed about £20, which sum was paid to her a few days before she was discharged, and she appropriated it to defray the expenses of her emigration. I was informed by the attendants that she often spoke of the lucky shot, by which she was enabled to quit a course of sin and degradation, and to essay a new life in a new land. This occurred, I think, in the year 1843.
CHAPTER XX. O'CONNELL—SMITH O'BRIEN AND MEAGHER—JOHN MITCHELL—INFORMERS—THE CLOSE OF 1848—THE MILITARY—A FRENCH VIEW OF POPULAR COMMOTIONS.
In 1844 there was the most intense excitement amongst all classes, sects, and parties of the Irish community, arising from the prosecutions instituted by the Attorney-General, Thomas Berry Cusack Smith against O'Connell and several others for various alleged violations of the laws in their meetings, publications and other proceedings adopted by them to promote a repeal of the Union. The preliminary informations were sworn before a judge, and none of the police magistrates were called upon to interfere, in any way whatever, from the commencement to the conclusion of the affair. On the 30th of May, the accused were sentenced to certain terms of imprisonments and fines, and they were liberated on the reversal of the judgment by the House of Lords, on the 6th September. A few days before the sentence was pronounced, I dined in company with Mr. John O'Connell, when he stated that they expected to be sent to Newgate or Kilmainham, I advised him to have a special application made to the court to order the imprisonment in the Richmond Bridewell, which was cleanly and spacious, and where they might have access to two extensive gardens. My suggestion was adopted, and the prisoners were sent by a circuitous route, avoiding the great thoroughfares of the city, to the bridewell. In the evening I was going home to my residence in Rathmines, when I overheard a woman loudly expressing to a number of sympathetic listeners, her hearty detestation and curse upon all "who had any hand in sending the Liberator to the same place as that to which Porter sends his blackguards."
Thomas Berry Cusack Smith, the Attorney-General, had been nicknamed, "Alphabet Smith," from the multiplicity of his names, and when the judgment of the Queen's Bench was reversed, a ballad appeared to the tune of "The Shan van vocht." A police inspector asked my opinion as to the prevention of it being chanted by the street vocalists, and I advised him against making it more known and more relished by the multitude, as it would be by his interference. It is as follows:—