‘Wasn’t there twenty other people under the arch?’ said he to a witness, a noble-looking beautiful girl—the girl was obliged to own there were. ‘Did you see me touch the wool, or stand nearer to it than a dozen of the dacent people there?’ and the girl confessed she had not. ‘And this it is, my lord,’ says he to the bench; ‘they attack me because I’m poor and ragged, but they never think of charging the crime on a rich farmer.’
But alas for the defence! another witness saw the prisoner with his legs round the sack, and being about to charge him with the theft, the prisoner fled into the arms of a policeman, to whom his first words were, ‘I know nothing about the sack.’ So, as the sack had been stolen, as he had been seen handling it four minutes before it was stolen, and holding it for sale the day after, it was concluded that Patrick Malony had stolen the sack, and he was accommodated with eighteen months accordingly.
In another case we had a woman and her child on the table; and others followed, in the judgment of which it was impossible not to admire the extreme leniency, acuteness, and sensibility of the judge presiding, Chief Justice Pennefather:—the man against whom all the Liberals in Ireland, and every one else who has read his charge too, must be angry, for the ferocity of his charge against a Belfast newspaper editor. It seems as if no parties here will be dispassionate when they get to a party question, and that natural kindness has no claim, when Whig and Tory come into collision.
The juryman is here placed on a table instead of a witness-box; nor was there much further peculiarity to remark, except in the dirt of the court, the absence of the barristerial wig and gown, and the great coolness with which a fellow who seemed a sort of clerk, usher, and Irish interpreter to the court, recommended a prisoner, who was making rather a long defence, to be quiet. I asked him why the man might not have his say. ‘Sure,’ says he, ‘he’s said all he has to say, and there’s no use in any more.’ But there was no use in attempting to convince Mr. Usher that the prisoner was best judge on this point; in fact the poor devil shut his mouth at the admonition, and was found guilty with perfect justice.
A considerable poorhouse has been erected at Waterford, but the beggars of the place as yet prefer their liberty, and less certain means of gaining support. We asked one who was calling down all the blessings of all the saints and angels upon us, and telling a most piteous tale of poverty, why she did not go to the poorhouse. The woman’s look at once changed from a sentimental whine to a grin. ‘Dey owe two hundred pounds at dat house,’ said she, ‘and faith, an honest woman can’t go dere;’ with which wonderful reason ought not the most squeamish to be content?