An elderly matron, one Mrs. Bridget Foggarty—the lady of an operative architect (vulgo a bricklayer) was charged with having wantonly assaulted a patrol, whilst in the execution of his duty.
It seems that a deceased lamplighter was interred, the evening before, in St. Pancras' burying ground, with much funeral pomp—there being more than two hundred of his brother illuminati present, each bearing a flaming torch in celebration of his obsequies. This, it was said, is the universal mode of lighting a lamplighter to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns," and, of course, the spectacle attracted crowds of people. Wherever crowds of people are collected, there the patrol very properly repair, to prevent disorder: and the officer in question was there for that meritorious purpose, when Mrs. Bridget Foggarty abruptly gave him a slap on the cheek with her own right hand—that hand being all begrimed with tar, in consequence of her having held one of the half-melted funeral torches while the bearer of it took a little of Deady's consolatory[12] on his way back from the mournful ceremonies.
This was the assault complained of; but the officer said he did not wish to be hard with Mrs. Foggarty; neither would he have taken her into custody, had not the surrounding multitude echoed the blow with such a shout of exultation as gave the lady a very evident intention of repeating it.
Mrs. Bridget Foggarty, when asked by the magistrate what she had to say for herself, wept audibly, and assured his worship that she took the gentleman for a friend of her husband's, or she never should have taken such a liberty as that 'ere. She declared that it was not tar upon her hand, but soot—plain, ordinary soot, "off of a chimney-sweeper;" and, if his worship pleased, she would tell him all about it.
His worship did not object, and she proceeded to state that she had been to see her husband, then lying ill in the hospital; that on her return, she went to see the lamplighter's burying, and that the folks were all very merry, "and quite larkish in a manner;" that being curious to see what sort of a coffin it was, she skrouged herself through the mob till she reached the brink of the grave, and she had no sooner done so, than the mob pushed a chimney-sweeper into it, and pushed her atop of him; and that was the way her hands were blacked.
The magistrate told her he thought her visit to her sick husband should have disposed her more seriously, than to be mingling in such a disgraceful scene; and desired her to go home, and conduct herself more decently in future.
Mrs. Foggarty was very thankful for the lenity shown to her, and departed courtesying and drying her eyes.
LATE HOURS AND OYSTERS.
Two gentlemen of pretty considerable respectability—one tall, and the other short—were charged with having assaulted the watch; and no fewer than five "ancient and quiet watchmen" appeared, to testify against them.