Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate

by Frank Thorpe Porter

UNLUCKY RIOTERS.

On my resumption of duty in Dublin, I had very few cases of importance or peculiar interest to dispose of. I may mention one in which two men were charged with being actively engaged in a riotous tumult in Dean Street, and assaulting the police. They had been extremely violent, and one of the constables had been so severely injured as to be incapacitated for duty during several days. In almost all such cases the prosecutors prefer a summary decision; and in the one to which my present remarks apply, I stated that I considered the prisoners, Foley and Magrath, deserved the utmost punishment which I was empowered to award, namely two months' imprisonment with hard labor. The culprits loudly exclaimed against such a judgment, and vociferated that they should get a full and fair trial by a jury. I acceded to their demand, and returned the informations to the next commission of Oyer et Terminer for the city of Dublin. There never was a more complete exemplification of an escape from the frying-pan by a fall into the fire. They were tried and convicted before Baron Richards, and he sentenced them to be imprisoned for twelve months, and kept to hard labor each alternate month. Their repugnance to a summary conviction had received great publicity; and the increased punishment to which they were subjected had the effect of reconciling the delinquents who were subsequently brought to the police-court to the fullest exercise, by the magistrates, of their summary jurisdiction.

VISIT TO PARIS.

In 1853 a prosecution was instituted by a lady, named Kelly, against a Mr. Birch, whom she accused of embezzling or stealing a very considerable sum of money. Her informations were sworn before my colleague, Mr. Magee, and he issued a warrant for the apprehension of Birch, which was delivered to a very intelligent and active officer, who subsequently was promoted to be the chief superintendent. The accused party was supposed to be in France, whither it was intended to send Mr. Ryan with the warrant. I had nothing whatever to do with the case, and I chanced to be sitting beside Mr. Magee when an application was made to him that he should go to France, having his expenses fully paid, and taking with him all the documents relating to the charge, for the information and satisfaction of the French authorities. Mr. Magee at once refused the request, alleging that his health would not admit of rapid travelling, but suggesting that Mr. Porter might undertake the journey, and fetch all the papers likely to induce the French functionaries to consent to the extradition of Birch, in the event of Ryan being able to find him. I consented to this arrangement, and set off for Paris, where I remained for a fortnight without any arrest having been effected of the accused party by the officer holding the warrant. I was never called on to produce the informations, and had no warrant in my possession, nor did I feel the slightest anxiety on the subject. Ryan was proceeding to France, when he ascertained that Birch was in Southampton, and there the capture was effected. A rumor was circulated in Dublin that I had gone to Paris to make a search, personally, for the alleged offender, when, in fact, I had neither the power nor the inclination to interfere beyond producing the informations which had been sworn before my colleague, and to authenticate them if required. My expenses were fully paid, and I found, on returning to Dublin, that the prosecution was abandoned. My short sojourn in the French capital was extremely pleasant; and having made myself known, as a Dublin police-magistrate, by the production of my passport at the prefecture, I experienced very kind and agreeable attentions. A man who spoke English was directed to attend me when visiting the public institutions, and I received a tricolored card, which procured me admission to all the theatres. I am tempted to mention one performance which I saw in a small theatre on the Boulevard near the large barracks, (La Caserne de Prince Eugene.) I do not recollect the title of the piece, but it exhibited the most extraordinary adaptation of machinery that I ever beheld, and the stage-tricks transcended all that I had previously seen or supposed possible. A scene represented a railway terminus, and on the arrival of a train, the engine exploded, and the carriage next to it was torn asunder. One passenger was supposed to have had his head knocked off, his arms separated from his shoulders, and his lower extremities from his hips, and the body, head, and limbs were seen, as the vapour cleared off, lying on the roof of a shed. Ladders were instantly applied, and the passenger was taken down piecemeal. A bench was pushed forward on the platform, it seemed covered with dark cushions, and the trunk of the victim was placed on it, the head was affixed and the lower extremities were attached, an arm added on the left side, when a poodle dog joined in the performance by seizing the other arm and taking it off the stage. Instantly the man arose, apparently with only one arm, and pursued the dog, exclaiming that the cursed poodle should not have his arm for supper. He returned, bringing the arm, and resumed his place on the bench, where the apparent reunion of his frame was completed. A surgeon was supposed to have been sent for, and he came too late to claim any share in the restoration of life and vigor to the dismembered patient. On proceeding to feel the pulse, he was rewarded by a slap on the cheek, accompanied with the contemptuous intimation of "Voici votre honoraire." (Here's your fee.) I may remark that there did not appear to be any dripping of blood on the shed, neither did the platform or bench show any gory stains; and the performers who represented railway officials of the various grades, and passengers, male and female, to the number of twenty at least, intervened four or five times between the bench and the audience, as if actuated by the deepest anxiety for the supposed sufferer. I was not much surprised at the apparent deficiency of the right arm, for I had several times seen the late Pat Brophy, of Dawson Street, Dublin, representing Nelson in a tableau vivant, and he managed on those occasions to appear as if he had lost an arm. The incidents which I have attempted to describe were only stage-tricks, but they were most perfectly accomplished.

A gentleman, who appeared to me to fill the office of secretary or chief clerk at the prefecture, availed himself of several opportunities for having conversations with me in English. I related to him some of the anecdotes and circumstances which I have included in the preceding pages, and he reciprocated by affording me much information and amusement. At our last interview, M. Hubert gave me six volumes, containing memoirs derived from the archives of the Parisian police, from the time of Cardinal Richelieu's administration down to the accession of Louis Philippe. I cannot offer many extracts from these volumes to the reader, but I shall notice two narratives which I was assured were, in their main circumstances, strictly true. One was subsequently shown to me in a collection of tales, and I considered it so amusing that I shall translate it in these pages. The other will, I hope, be deemed a striking instance of mere fact being far stranger than fiction. The former was entitled "Michel Perrin," and it is as follows:—

MICHEL PERRIN.

"I must go; I must depart as soon as possible. I plainly perceive that she has sold her watch without informing me. She has to work hard from morning to night; the needle of a woman cannot provide for the requirements of two persons. Ah! I ought to have left long before this! But where to go? without money, without family influence, without friends! How to get on in a world where I have never as yet lived, of the habits and customs of which I am as uninformed as an infant child! Nevertheless, I shall go, were I to beg on the highway; were I to die of hunger, I shall go."

This soliloquy is referred to the eighth year of the Republic, in a very humble apartment, which perhaps still exists at Dijon, and which was then inhabited by a former pastor of a small village in the department of the Cote-d'Or. Michel Perrin, who had lived up to that time in performing acts of charity, praying to his Creator, and cultivating the garden of his manse, had found himself torn from the asylum in which twenty-two years of his tranquil existence had been spent. Deprived of the slender stipend attached to his functions, persecuted by some agents of the Republican Government, and suspected by all, the poor priest had rambled for a considerable time from village to village, sometimes to avoid captivity, sometimes to avail himself of the friendship of the many kind hearts whose gratitude he had earned in happier times. Lastly, for a year he had lived at Dijon. There he had rejoined his sister, Madeleine Perrin, the supreme mistress of his establishment, and also his sole support in the world.

Madeleine, on leaving the manse, had betaken herself direct to Dijon, where she hoped to renew some old friendships, and to support herself by needlework. She had fully succeeded in utilising her talents for sewing to the extent of providing for her own wants; but when the good pastor, yielding to her earnest entreaties, had come to occupy one of the two little garret-rooms which constituted her residence, Madeleine soon became aware that a man, still in vigorous health and of good appetite, is more difficult to be fed than to be lodged.