Category: Biographies

Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate

A Run to Connaught--A Present--A Puzzle--Moll Raffle--A Lucky Accusation--Crown Witnesses--Who blew up King William?--Surgical Assistance--A Rejected Suitor--George Robins--The Greek Count: The Rats--The Child of the Alley--The Lucky Shot 153

Chapters

39. CHAPTER XXII.

On my way home from the Rhineland, I stopped for two days in Brussels, the second of which happened to be the day on which the anniversary of the attainment of Belgian independe...

40. CHAPTER XXIII.

I now proceed to the narration of the other case which I received from M. Hubert, the facts of which are far more extraordinary than any of the exuberant fictions presented in t...

37. CHAPTER XX.

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, T...

38. CHAPTER XXI.

Leaving to my readers, without any comment from myself, the consideration of the statements and sentiments contained in the extracts from the French author, I pass to the year 1...

49. CHAPTER XXXII.

In narrating the incidents that came under my personal observation, and the impressions produced by many of them on my mind, during a residence of eighteen months in the French...

36. CHAPTER XIX.

In the year 1842, I indulged in an excursion to the County of Mayo, and enjoyed a sojourn of a fortnight at the house of a most hospitable friend near Crossmolina. On leaving Du...

26. CHAPTER IX.

It is pleasing to observe decided improvements in institutions of importance to the community. In the time of Major Sirr, the coarsest language was addressed from the bench of t...

42. CHAPTER XXV.

I returned to Dublin in 1853, on the 10th of May, and had the pleasure of witnessing the opening of the Great Industrial Exhibition in Merrion Square on the 12th. It was a great...

53. CHAPTER XXXVI.

On my return from France, I found that my son, Frank Thorpe, had accepted the appointment of medical officer in the Islands of Arran, which lie at the entrance of Galway Bay; an...

44. CHAPTER XXVII.

The latter portion of my period of magisterial service was very scanty in the production of events worthy of being recorded. On the 12th of March, 1858, the Earl of Eglinton arr...

35. CHAPTER XVIII.

I shall now advert to a most atrocious murder which was committed in the Metropolitan Police District in 1856. It occurred in the Northern division, and I was requested by the l...

45. CHAPTER XXVIII.

The road by which Gibraltar is approached from Spain is, for a considerable distance, completely level. The connecting isthmus is flanked by the bay and the Mediterranean, and t...

47. CHAPTER XXX.

Several friends have suggested that, even at the risk of being considered discursive or irregular in the arrangement of my Gleanings and Reminiscences, I should not conclude wit...

43. CHAPTER XXVI.

In one of the preceding pages I stated that "the military enrolments relieved our district of a great number of loose characters, whose abstraction was very salutary to our comm...

48. CHAPTER XXXI.

I took a run to Belfast in 1862, and from thence through Carrickfergus, and along the coast-road to the Giant's Causeway, where I spent two days most agreeably. At the Causeway...

34. CHAPTER XVII.

I shall now present a magisterial reminiscence which derives its greatest interest from antecedent occurrences, the first of which brings me back to 1821, the year in which Geor...

46. CHAPTER XXIX.

Towards the conclusion of my visit to Gibraltar, a marriage was solemnized between an officer commanding a frigate lying off the New Mole and a young lady of very prepossessing...

41. CHAPTER XXIV.

It is probable that these pages will be perused by some who recollect a recent attempt to substitute a child procured in an English workhouse for the veritable heir to an Irish...

28. CHAPTER XI.

When I assumed, by an arrangement with my colleagues, the regulation of the public vehicles, and the disposal of complaints in the Carriage Court at the Head office, announced m...

19. CHAPTER II.

On the 15th of February, 1743, a gentleman named James Vesey, who held a commission in the army, was returning to Dublin from a southern county where he possessed a respectable...

52. CHAPTER XXXV.

Whilst sojourning in Paris I became acquainted with an _avocat_, named Vanneau, who practised in a provincial district, and who came to stay, for a few days, at the boarding-hou...

32. CHAPTER XV.

I shall now proceed to relate a magisterial reminiscence in which the only fictions are the names of the parties, and I trust that at the termination of the narrative, my reader...

20. CHAPTER III.

Longevity, although desired by almost all human beings, is a subject of contemplation to very few. We attach, in general, a greater interest to an aged tree or an antique buildi...

23. CHAPTER VI.

I have already mentioned that old Skinner Row contained a considerable number of establishments belonging to goldsmiths and jewellers. Pre-eminent amongst them was one kept, in...

30. CHAPTER XIII.

The statute, passed since my retirement, to enforce and regulate the registration of dogs, has relieved the magistrates from having to dispose, in the course of each year, of so...

25. CHAPTER VIII.

I shall now advert to another Police magistrate whose name I need not refrain from mentioning, inasmuch as although his unpopularity was unparalleled, his name has never been as...

33. CHAPTER XVI.

In the "Dublin Annals" given in Thom's Almanac and Official Directory, it is stated in reference to the year 1822, "Riot in the theatre, on the Marquis of Wellesley, the Lord Li...

29. CHAPTER XII.

A young woman who was servant in a house in Harcourt Street in which two students resided, had an altercation with one of them, which eventuated in a summons and a cross-summons...

24. CHAPTER VII.

In the year 1810 a manufacturing goldsmith of high respectability, named Gonne, lived in Crow Street, Dublin. His establishment was noted for the superior execution of chased wo...

50. CHAPTER XXXIII.

When a stranger surveys the military asylum for the maimed or aged soldiers--when he beholds the triumphal arch (_l'arc de l'Etoile_) at the higher termination of the Champs Ely...

31. CHAPTER XIV.

I shall now revert to magisterial reminiscences, and notice an anecdote originally published in the _Warder_ newspaper, as a portion of a letter signed "Terry Driscoll," which w...

21. CHAPTER IV.

I have mentioned in the narrative respecting Lonergan, that my father was a member of the corps of Dublin Volunteers, and that he was serjeant of the grenadier company. Many of...

27. CHAPTER X.

I think that some useful information may be blended with amusement by offering to my readers a few anecdotes in reference to mendicancy and the laws intended for its repression....

18. CHAPTER I.

Although it is probable that I may bring before my readers an incident or two of a more remote date, I shall commence with the narrative of an alleged crime and its supposed pun...

51. CHAPTER XXXIV.

I had, during my residence in Paris, the supreme gratification of being honored with the intimacy of the Rev. Francis Mahony, whose _nom de plume_ of "Father Prout" is suggestiv...

22. CHAPTER V.

I shall revert to old Skinner Row in reference to the career of an individual which may be said to have commenced there about the year 1782. The incidents which I shall detail a...

6. CHAPTER XIX.

A Run to Connaught--A Present--A Puzzle--Moll Raffle--A Lucky Accusation--Crown Witnesses--Who blew up King William?--Surgical Assistance--A Rejected Suitor--George Robins--The...

5. CHAPTER XVIII.

3. CHAPTER IX.

8. CHAPTER XXI.

10. CHAPTER XXV.

13. CHAPTER XXIX.

14. CHAPTER XXXI.

11. CHAPTER XXVI.

7. CHAPTER XX.

15. CHAPTER XXXII.

9. CHAPTER XXII.

17. CHAPTER XXXVI.

1. CHAPTER IV.

12. CHAPTER XXVII.

16. CHAPTER XXXIII.

4. CHAPTER XIII.

2. CHAPTER VI.