‘The Lord Chief Justice addressed the several persons, and said—It was now his painful duty to pronounce upon them severally and respectively the punishment which the law and the court awarded against them, for the crimes of which they had been convicted. Those crimes were one and all of them of no ordinary enormity—they were crimes which, in point of morals, involved the atrocious guilt of murder; and if it had pleased God to spare their souls from the pollution of that offence, the court could not still shut its eyes to the fact, that although death had not ensued in consequence of the crimes of which they had been found guilty, yet it was not owing to their forbearance that such a dreadful crime had not been perpetrated. The prisoner, Michael Hughes, had been convicted of firing a gun at a person of the name of John Ryan (Luke); his horse had been killed, and no one could say that the balls were not intended for the prosecutor himself. The prisoner had fired one shot himself, and then called on his companion in guilt to discharge another. One of these shots killed Ryan’s mare, and it was by the mercy of God that the life of the prisoner had not become forfeited by his own act. The next culprit was John Pound, who was equally guilty of the intended outrage perpetrated on the life of an unoffending individual—that individual a female, surrounded by her little children, five or six in number. With a complete carelessness to the probable consequences, while she and her family were going, or had gone, to bed, the contents of a gun were discharged through the door, which entered the panel in three different places. The deaths resulting from this act might have been extensive, but it was not a matter of any moment how many were deprived of life. The woman had just risen from her prayers, preparing herself to sleep under the protection of that arm which would shield the child and protect the innocent, when she was wounded. As to Cornelius Flynn and Patrick Dwyer, they likewise were the subjects of similar imputations and similar observations. There was a very slight difference between them, but not such as to amount to any real distinction. They had gone upon a common illegal purpose, to the house of a respectable individual, for the purpose of interfering with the domestic arrangements he thought fit to make. They had no sort of right to interfere with the disposition of a man’s affairs; and what would be the consequences if the reverse were to be held? No imputation had ever been made upon the gentleman whose house was visited, but he was desired to dismiss another, under the pains and penalties of death, although that other was not a retained servant, but a friend who had come to Mr. Hogan on a visit. Because this visitor used sometimes to inspect the men at work, the lawless edict issued that he should be put away. Good God! to what extent did the prisoners and such misguided men intend to carry out their objects? Where was their dictation to cease? and they, and those in a similar rank, to take upon themselves to regulate how many and what men a farmer should take into his employment? Were they to be the judges whether a servant had discharged his duty to his principal? or was it because a visitor happened to come, that the host should turn him away, under the pains and penalties of death? His lordship, after adverting to the guilt of the prisoners in this case—the last two persons convicted, Thos. Stapleton and Thos. Gleeson—said their case was so recently before the public, that it was sufficient to say they were morally guilty of what might be considered wilful and deliberate murder. Murder was most awful, because it could only be suggested by deliberate malice, and the act of the prisoners was the result of that base, malicious, and diabolical disposition. What was the cause of resentment against the unfortunate man who had been shot at, and so desperately wounded? Why, he had dared to comply with the wishes of a just landlord; and because the landlord, for the benefit of his tenantry, proposed that the farms should be squared, those who acquiesced in his wishes were to be equally the victims of the assassin. What were the facts in this case? The two prisoners at the bar, Stapleton and Gleeson, sprung out at the man as he was leaving work, placed him on his knees, and without giving him a moment of preparation, commenced the work of blood, intending deliberately to despatch that unprepared and unoffending individual to eternity. What country was it that they lived in, in which such crimes could be perpetrated in the open light of day? It was not necessary that deeds of darkness should be shrouded in the clouds of night, for the darkness of the deeds themselves was considered a sufficient protection. He (the Chief Justice) was not aware of any solitary instance at the present Commission, to show that the crimes committed were the consequences of poverty. Poverty should be no justification, however; it might be some little palliation, but on no trial at this Commission did it appear that the crime could be attributed to distress. His lordship concluded a most impressive address, by sentencing the six prisoners called up to transportation for life.
‘The clock was near midnight as the court was cleared, and the whole of the proceedings were solemn and impressive in the extreme. The Commission is likely to prove extremely beneficial in its results on the future tranquillity of the country.’
I confess, for my part, to that common cant and sickly sentimentality, which, thank God! is felt by a great number of people nowadays, and which leads them to revolt against murder, whether performed by a ruffian’s knife or a hangman’s rope: whether accompanied with a curse from the thief as he blows his victim’s brains out, or a prayer from my lord on the bench in his wig and black cap. Nay, is all the cant and sickly sentimentality on our side, and might not some such charge be applied to the admirers of the good old fashion? Long ere this is printed, for instance, Byrne and Woods have been hanged:[21] sent ‘to face their God,’ as the Chief Justice says, ‘with the weight of their victim’s blood upon them,’—a just observation; and remember that it is we who send them. It is true that the judge hopes Heaven will have mercy upon their souls; but are such recommendations of particular weight because they come from the bench? Psha! If we go on killing people without giving them time to repent, let us at least give up the cant of praying for their souls’ salvation. We find a man drowning in a well, shut the lid upon him, and heartily pray that he may get out. Sin has hold of him, as the two ruffians of Laffan yonder, and we stand aloof, and hope that he may escape. Let us give up the ceremony of condolence, and be honest, like the witness, and say, ‘Let him save himself or not, it’s no business of ours.’ ... Here a waiter, with a very broad, though insinuating accent, says, ‘Have you done with the Sandthers, sir, there’s a gentleman waiting for’t these two hours?’ And so he carries off that strange picture of pleasure and pain, trade, theatres, schools, courts, churches, life and death, in Ireland, which a man may buy for a fourpenny-piece.
The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town; and a handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see on a summer’s day. In the whole wide square of Stephen’s Green, I think there were not more than two nursery-maids, to keep company with the statue of George I., who rides on horseback in the middle of the garden, the horse having his foot up to trot, as if he wanted to go out of town too. Small troops of dirty children (too poor and dirty to have lodgings at Kingstown) were squatting here and there upon the sunshiny steps, the only clients at the thresholds of the professional gentlemen whose names figure on brass-plates on the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning against the rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a toy and book stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmet, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, were all the population of the Green.
At the door of the Kildare Street Club, I saw eight gentlemen looking at two boys playing at leapfrog: at the door of the University six lazy porters, in jockey-caps, were sunning themselves on a bench—a sort of blue-bottle race; and the Bank on the opposite side did not look as if sixpence-worth of change had been negotiated there during the day. There was a lad pretending to sell umbrellas under the colonnade, almost the only instance of trade going on; and I began to think of Juan Fernandez, or Cambridge in the long vacation. In the courts of the College, scarce the ghost of a gyp or the shadow of a bed-maker.
In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine sight—a large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and styles, but comfortable, handsome, and in good repair; a modern row of rooms; a row that has been Elizabethan once; a hall and senate-house, facing each other, of the style of George I.; and a noble library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly simple façade of cut stone. The library was shut. The librarian, I suppose, is at the seaside; and the only part of the establishment which I could see was the museum, to which one of the jockey-capped porters conducted me, up a wide dismal staircase (adorned with an old pair of jack-boots, a dusty canoe or two, a few helmets, and a South Sea Islander’s armour) which passes through a hall hung round with cobwebs (with which the blue-bottles are too wise to meddle), into an old mouldy room, filled with dingy glass-cases, under which the articles of curiosity or science were partially visible. In the middle was a very seedy camelopard (the word has grown to be English by this time), the straw splitting through his tight old skin and the black cobblers’-wax stuffing the dim orifices of his eyes. Other beasts formed a pleasing group around him, not so tall, but equally mouldy and old. The porter took me round to the cases, and told me a great number of fibs concerning their contents: there was the harp of Brian Borou, and the sword of some one else, and other cheap old gimcracks with their corollary of lies. The place would have been a disgrace to Don Saltero. I was quite glad to walk out of it, and down the dirty staircase again, about the ornaments of which the jockey-capped gyp had more figments to tell; an atrocious one (I forget what) relative to the pair of boots; near which—a fine specimen of collegiate taste—were the shoes of Mr. O’Brien, the Irish giant. If the collection is worth preserving,—and indeed the mineralogical specimens look quite as awful as those in the British Museum,—one thing is clear, that the rooms are worth sweeping. A pail of water costs nothing, a scrubbing-brush not much, and a charwoman might be hired for a trifle, to keep the room in a decent state of cleanliness.
Among the curiosities is a mask of the Dean—not the scoffer and giber, not the fiery politician, nor the courtier of St. John and Harley, equally ready with servility and scorn; but the poor old man, whose great intellect had deserted him, and who died old, wild, and sad. The tall forehead is fallen away in a ruin, the mouth has settled in a hideous, vacant smile. Well, it was a mercy for Stella that she died first; it was better that she should be killed by his unkindness than by the sight of his misery; which, to such a gentle heart as that, would have been harder still to bear.
The Bank and other public buildings of Dublin are justly famous. In the former may still be seen the room which was the House of Lords formerly, and where the Bank directors now sit, under a clean marble image of George III. The House of Commons has disappeared, for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The interior is light, splendid, airy, well furnished, and the outside of the building not less so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally magnificent structure; but the genius of commerce has deserted it, for all its architectural beauty. There was nobody inside when I entered, but a pert statue of George III. in a Roman toga, simpering and turning out his toes; and two dirty children playing, whose hoop-sticks caused great clattering echoes under the vacant sounding dome. The neighbourhood is not cheerful, and has a dingy poverty-stricken look.
Walking towards the river, you have on either side of you, at Carlisle Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect. The Four Courts and their dome to the left, the Custom-house and its dome to the right; and in this direction seaward, a considerable number of vessels are moored, and the quays are black and busy with the cargoes discharged from ships. Seamen cheering, herring-women bawling, coal-carts loading—the scene is animated and lively. Yonder is the famous Corn Exchange; but the Lord Mayor is attending to his duties in Parliament, and little of note is going on. I had just passed his lordship’s mansion in Dawson Street,—a queer old dirty brick house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, and looking as if a story of it had been cut off—a rasée house. Close at hand, and peering over a paling, is a statue of our blessed sovereign George II. How absurd these pompous images look, of defunct majesties, for whom no breathing soul cares a halfpenny! It is not so with the effigy of William III., who has done something to merit a statue. At this minute the Lord Mayor has William’s effigy under a canvas, and is painting him of a bright green picked out with yellow—his lordship’s’ own livery.