CHAPTER XXVI.

EFFECTS OF ENLISTMENT--MARTIAL TENDENCIES--THE SHE BARRACKS--THE DUBLIN GARRISON--AN ARTILLERY AMAZON--A COLONEL OF DRAGOONS--DONNYBROOK FAIR--THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

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 community." I subsequently expressed an intention to submit to my readers "some remarks that might be considered interesting, and perhaps important."

It is unnecessary to particularise the numerous varieties of objectionable tendencies and habits, any of which will be considered sufficient to constitute the person exhibiting them "an undoubted scamp." In Dublin and its suburban districts, society has never been free from the evils incident to the existence of such disreputable characters; but I fully believe that we are not more tainted by them than any other part of the United Kingdom of equal extent and population. The three regiments of militia embodied at the commencement of the Crimean war relieved us of some hundreds of loose, disorderly, or dishonest fellows, the riddance of whom produced a very desirable decrease in the custody cases of our police-courts. However, at the termination of the war, those regiments were brought back, and disembodied in the locality where they had been raised; and many persons might reasonably expect very disagreeable and injurious results from the return of those whose departure was regarded as a happy riddance by the community from which they had been abstracted. But very few instances occurred of the discharged militia-men relapsing into disreputable habits and criminal practices. Military service had produced a great and most desirable reformatory effect. Supervision, strict without unnecessary severity, with the adjuncts of regular and wholesome diet, comfortable clothing and personal cleanliness, emulation in the efficient discharge of duty, and the incitements arising from the preference accorded in various minor appointments and employments to the well-conducted soldier--all these, together with a change from the scene of previous improprieties and disreputable associations, strongly tended to generate a desire for improvement, and the acquisition of a new character. Similar results were observable in reference to the last enrolment and subsequent disembodiment of those regiments consequent on the outbreak and suppression of the Indian mutiny. I wrote to the late Lord Herbert of Lea, then Mr. Sydney Herbert, and Secretary of State for War, in reference to the reformatory results, which I attributed to military influence. He read my letter in the House of Commons when moving the army estimates, and excited much laughter by stating that he did not think it expedient to mention the name of the writer or the regiments to which the communication referred.

My eldest son was a lieutenant in the County of Dublin Militia, which, soon after being embodied, was stationed at Waterford. One morning he was crossing the barrack yard from his quarters, to serve on a regimental court-martial, before which some disorderly or insubordinate characters were to be brought, when he was accosted by the wife of one of the delinquents. She earnestly besought him not to be very severe on "poor Larry," and that it would be a hardship if he got worse treatment in Waterford than he'd get in Dublin for a little spree. She added, "The owld gentleman, your father, long life to him, never put the poor fellow up for more than a week at a time."

MARTIAL TENDENCIES.

During the period of my magisterial duty, I almost invariably discharged the afternoon business, by an arrangement with my colleagues, which tended to their convenience and mine. The attestations of recruits were very seldom taken in the morning, and consequently they were generally made before me. At the commencement of the Crimean war, recruiting was very rife, and I was frequently appealed to by the recruit as to the particular place in which the regiment for which he was enlisted was stationed, inasmuch as he had bargained to be sent "where the fighting was going on." This desire could not be attributed to any excitement arising from sudden caprice or whim, or from indulgence in liquor, for the attestation was never administered until twenty-four hours had elapsed after enlisting, and unless the recruit appeared perfectly sober, and aware of the responsibility which, with his own free will, he was required to assume.

There was a man named Roger Tobin, who lived somewhere about the classic locality of Stoneybatter. He appeared to be about twenty-five years of age, tall, strong, intelligent, healthy, and handsome. There were at least a dozen public-houses which the recruiting sergeants frequently visited at the time of the Crimean campaign, being then in quest of the martial spirits to whom pay, booty, promotion, and military glory were promised as certain acquisitions, all considerations of danger or death being left unmentioned and ignored as improbable or impossible. Roger would enter one of these houses, having previously ascertained that the sergeant had not yet arrived, and he would locate himself in a chair or on a bench close to a table, and order some moderate refreshment. He manifested an intense anxiety as to the most recent news from the seat of war, and generally succeeded in making the proceedings of our army the subject of conversation amongst the persons present. When the collector of future heroes appeared, he was sure to be greeted by Roger with the warmest wishes for his success in providing gallant hearts and strong hands to repel the encroachments of Russia. The poor Poles would be commiserated, and our brave French allies eulogized. Every topic calculated to excite martial feelings would be adverted to by the enthusiastic Roger. Such expressions would naturally lead the sergeant to conclude that he might calculate on one recruit accompanying him back to barracks, and his request or suggestion of immediate enlistment met with a ready acquiescence. The magic shilling having been paid, the new recruit would spend it in an additional libation, and address an earnest exhortation to any young fellows then present to follow his example. The sergeant would not be slow in giving a further advance, the application of which to convivial purposes might procure him two or three additional adherents. Ten shillings, or perhaps more, having been joyously spent, Roger was informed that he was to accompany the sergeant, and any others who had joined, and receive accommodation in the barrack, from whence he would be brought next day to the police-court for attestation. Promptly acceding to this direction, and raising his fine manly figure, he left the table, and enabled the disgusted sergeant to perceive that his recruit was clubfooted, and totally incapable of ever being put in marching order. How the expenses incurred were afterwards liquidated, whether the sergeant was the loser, or the liability devolved on the recruiting department, I am unable to state, but I fully believe that Roger repeated the same trick on many occasions. It would seem that each sergeant did not wish to be the last victim, and consequently none of them disclosed the deception to the new comers, or to those in other parts of the metropolitan district. Roger's game was spoiled by a warning communicated to the recruiting stations from the police.

THE SHE BARRACKS.

When the Richmond Barracks were built at Golden Bridge, they were intended to afford ample accommodation for more than an entire regiment. There were also barracks at Island Bridge, and the distance between both was about half a mile. The former were generally occupied by infantry, and the latter by artillery. A person in the vicinity had a large building constructed through a speculative motive of a very extraordinary kind. He was aware that soldiers marrying without leave, or whose wives were dishonest, turbulent, quarrelsome, slovenly, or habitually intemperate, were not allowed to bring such objectionable characters into the regimental quarters. He consequently calculated that he would find no difficulty in having his premises occupied by tenants, to whose habits and morals he attached no importance, provided they paid the rent, and his expectations were not disappointed. His apartments were no sooner vacated by the incorrigible termagants of one regiment, than a succession of vixens, was supplied from another to fill the unedifying edifice. The proprietor had not appropriated any particular name to the building, but it became speedily known in the district under the designation of "The She Barracks." In the southern division of the police districts, there were five extensive military barracks, and I can unhesitatingly declare, that the cases supplied for police intervention or magisterial decision from them all, were completely outnumbered by those derived from the comparatively diminutive limits of the structure designed for the use and associated with the name of the softer sex. The details of the various charges and summonses in which inmates of these premises were compromised, would neither be instructive nor amusing, but I cannot ever forget a case in which two women, the wives of artillerymen, appeared, on summons and cross-summons, to swear against each other to the greatest extent of culpability. Each of them imputed to her adversary the inclination and avowed intention to commit every offence of a violent or malicious description, and neither came unprovided with witnesses ready to surmount the most elevated pinnacles of exaggeration. Whilst this auction of swearing was in progress, the husbands of the two inmates of the She Barracks were seated together, quietly listening to the proceedings, apparently on very friendly terms with each other, and not evincing any anxiety for the success of their respective consorts. At the close, I directed the informations of the parties to be engrossed, and stated that I would commit both for a month, unless they respectively found a surety in five pounds for their future good behaviour. I added, that as they were strangers, I did not suppose they could easily find bail amongst their neighbours, and that I was satisfied to take the husband of each as a surety for his wife. Immediately I was addressed by one of the artillerymen to the following purport:--

"May it please your honor, I'm only a private soldier, and where would I get five pounds in a day or two, when they begin again. Besides, if I was a fit bail, I would sooner be bound for his wife's behaviour than for my own wife's. 'Tis best to let them go." Then turning to his comrade, he added, "Come, Sam, we're likely to have a quiet month while they're both up."

Nevertheless, he was disappointed, for the two viragoes, acting on the suggestion of an attorney who had been engaged in the case, came almost immediately to terms, and neither of them would make an information. They were consequently liberated, and instead of having a quiet month, I am sure that the artillery men had, during that time, to undergo some heavy domestic bombardments.

THE DUBLIN GARRISON.

The regular military establishments in our district produced very few cases for decision by the civil authorities. I am not able to state the exact strength of the Dublin garrison, but I believe that it is the largest in the United Kingdom, and that the seven barracks never contain less than five thousand men of all ranks and arms. Since the commencement of the present century, this city has had quartered within its limits or immediate suburbs every regular regiment in the service, and large bodies of militia. In 1813, a private dragoon named Tuite deserted, and on a Sunday morning stopped a gentleman named Goulding on South Circular Road, near Portobello, for the purpose of robbing him. The offence had a fatal conclusion, for Goulding was shot through the heart, and the murderer was apprehended and executed. After his conviction he acknowledged his guilt, but declared that he intended only to rob, and that the discharge of the pistol was occasioned by his trepidation. In 1818, a corporal named Alliard was indicted for murdering a woman named Flood, in a cellar in Thomas Street, and he was acquitted. These two cases constituted all the capital charges preferred against soldiers before civil tribunals in our district from 1800 to the present time. During my magistrature of upwards of twenty years' duration, I had to send two private soldiers for trial on a charge of passing base coin, and one of them was convicted. I had no cognizance or knowledge of offences purely military as to their nature or number. Whenever a soldier was found on a public thoroughfare in a state of intoxication, he was taken by the police, and when sober, sent by magisterial order to the officer commanding at his quarters; but the number of such captures was very inconsiderable. Indeed if the entire population of the district had been strictly similar to the military in their habits and conduct, my office would have been almost a sinecure.

AN ARTILLERY AMAZON.

There was an affair brought under my cognizance about seven years previous to my retirement, of which I have a perfect recollection, and in which, I am free to confess, I busied myself beyond my magisterial duties for mere amusement. An artillery soldier strolled into town from his barracks at Portobello, and having indulged freely in liquor, betook himself to a house in Bow Lane, off Mercer Street, about ten o'clock at night. He was unable to return to his quarters, and having been undressed, was placed in bed to sleep off his intoxication. The inmates of the house were by no means of a reputable description, and amongst them was a female unusually tall in stature, and with proportional amplitude of figure. In a sudden whim, she arrayed herself in the uniform of the sleeping soldier, and set out on a nocturnal promenade, to the infinite amusement of her associates, by some of whom she was accompanied. Their obstreperous merriment attracted the attention of the police, and eventuated in the arrest of the amazon. On my arrival at the police-court on the following morning, I was apprised of the extraordinary charge which awaited my investigation; and I immediately communicated with a gentleman with whom I was personally acquainted, and who was in a high position connected with the Ordnance Office. He came to me, and we arranged that I should not dispose of the case in the police-court until the circumstances were made known to the military authorities at Portobello. When the woman was brought before me, I directed a sergeant of police to take her in a covered vehicle to the barrack, and, in the meantime, the artillery man was captured in Bow Lane by a party sent from the barracks, and as his own attire was not forthcoming, he was brought away in a cab, and with habiliments not altogether suitable to his sex or his station. The heroine was submitted to some of the women, who divested her of the martial appearance she had assumed, and transferred the garments to two non-commissioned officers, who gave in return the clothes or improvised vestments that covered the soldier during his return to barracks. I did not inflict any further punishment on the woman, and I believe that the artillery man was not severely treated: but I was informed by some of his officers that he was made the object of the most persistent banter and ridicule amongst his comrades, who accorded him the soubriquet of "Mary Anne." I believe, indeed, that severe corporal punishment inflicted on his delinquency would not have deterred the other soldiers from the commission of a similar error so effectually as the jests and sarcasms supplied from amongst themselves, and suggested by the appearance of one who had returned from his roving so very unsuitably.

A COLONEL OF DRAGOONS.

Before I pass from the recollections and favorable impressions produced by the almost uniform good conduct of the gallant members of our garrison, I am disposed to give my readers a short narrative, without any other comment than the expression of an opinion that it is one of the many instances in which fact appears stranger than fiction. A lady, the widow of a medical officer, having presented a memorial soliciting a commission for her son, received a reply appointing him to a regiment in one of our most distant colonies, and involving the necessity of his speedy departure from this country. At her request I interested myself to procure for him an outfit, promptly supplied, of excellent quality and of very reasonable price. It was furnished by Buckmaster, Malyn, and Co., of Dawson Street, who have also an extensive establishment in London. I had occasion to call two or three times during the execution of the order, and I was making one of those visits when two officers entered. On seeing them, Mr. Malyn said to me, "This colonel is a most extraordinary man; when he is gone I shall tell you why I say so." The officers were in the uniform of a heavy dragoon regiment; one was the lieutenant-colonel, the other was the adjutant. The former was in face and figure such a man as I would consider that no painter or statuary would decline to accept as a faultless model for a splendid artistic production. His communication was very brief, but he appeared to be intelligent and courteous. When he departed, Mr. Malyn told me that he remembered him working on their shopboard, as a tailor, at their house in New Burlington Street, London; that he knew his business perfectly, being skilful, sober, and industrious. Nevertheless, he disliked such a sedentary occupation, and being fond of equestrian exercise, enlisted in the dragoons. Having entered the service, his conduct was such as gained the approbation of his superiors, and he soon attained the rank of sergeant. In active service he evinced patience, promptitude, and courage, and the adjutancy having become vacant he was appointed to it, with a concomitant commission. Being thus entitled to be received in society as an officer and a gentleman, he gained respect and esteem in his new position, and also succeeded in marrying a lady possessed of a very ample fortune, by which he was enabled to expedite promotion whenever it could be acquired by purchase. His success would seem to have resulted from persistent good conduct, winning and retaining the favorable opinions of all who could materially aid his advancement. The most imaginative of our romance writers would certainly shrink from presenting for our perusal the ideal descent of a field-officer's epaulets upon the shoulders of a journeyman tailor.

DONNYBROOK FAIR.

I have to notice an event which occurred in 1855, and was productive of most salutary results, not merely to the suburb in which it was effected, but to the entire city and county of Dublin; I mean the abolition or suppression of Donnybrook Fair. This excellent proceeding was effected at the instance and mainly by the exertions of Alderman Joseph Boyce, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in the last-mentioned year. It would be almost impossible to describe the scenes of drunkenness, violence, gambling, and gross indecency that characterized an entire week in the month of August, every year whilst "The Brook" afforded its immoral attractions, causing our prisons to be immediately crowded with loose, disorderly, or dishonest characters, so as to resemble hospitals in a locality suddenly visited by an epidemic or contagious distemper. I do not believe that, for many years previous to its suppression, Donnybrook Fair was ever held without being the direct or indirect cause of a life or lives being lost. It lasted for a week; and the greatest intemperance and violence seemed to be specially displayed on the day known as "the Walking Sunday." I visited the fair on several occasions in my days of boyhood, and I can recollect some sad accidents in which lives were lost or limbs fractured by vehicles having been driven furiously by drunken "jarveys." I have seen the body of a female taken out of a mill-race close to the fair green, into which she had fallen in a state of intoxication. I witnessed a very furious encounter on the bridge between coal-porters and some other class of combatants, in which a man was thrown over the battlement and killed by the fall; but the worst experience that I had of Donnybrook was in 1820, when an amiable and most inoffensive young gentleman, named James Rogerson, was walking beside me through the main street of the village, about eight o'clock in the evening, and was struck in the head by a large stone thrown at another person. He was felled by the blow, and was raised in a state of insensibility. After he had revived a little, I took him in a covered car to his father's residence in William Street, where he died in a few days from the effects of the injury, and the perpetrator of the fatal assault was never made amenable for the offence. From the time when I attained the police magistracy in 1844 until 1855, I had to deal with an ample share of the charges and summonses arising from the annual nuisance of Donnybrook Fair; and I fully agreed with my colleagues in considering such duties as "moral scavenging;" and just as pedestrians might apologise for mud-covered feet or bespattered garments being unavoidable in filthy thoroughfares, so the delinquencies arising from the various evil excitements abundantly offered in the locality where they occurred, were almost invariably imputed to the offender having unfortunately gone to "The Brook." I must admit that in disposing of drunken or disorderly cases, I was often influenced by the consideration that when such an annual abomination was tolerated in a civilized community, it was a ground for slightly mitigating the punishments incurred by yielding to its abundant temptations.

In the early pages of these reminiscences I mentioned that a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had dined in a tent at Donnybrook Fair. I have heard doubts expressed as to the correctness of such a statement. I now reiterate it, adding that it occurred in 1808, in the viceroyalty of the Duke of Richmond. It was noticed in several newspapers of the time, but not with the slightest expression of disapproval. It was almost an established custom for the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, with many of the aldermen and common council, to dine at the fair, but their festivities were enjoyed in a house. The place was then in the city of Dublin, but it has since, along with a large adjoining district, been added to the county of Dublin as regards any civil or criminal jurisdiction, but the parliamentary franchises are available in the city, although the district forms no portion of it, and possesses no municipal privileges whatever. This arrangement, or perhaps it might be termed "derangement," occurred in 1832. I shall not digress into any remarks on local changes of a political nature, but resume my recollections of the fair now so properly abolished.

Almost every tent displayed the proprietor's name, and generally the place of his residence, to induce visitors, from the same direction, to give him a preference. Colored signs were frequently exhibited, which at night became transparencies by a lamp being placed behind each. On one might be seen the representation of a fellow apparently dancing with a young female, whilst underneath was inscribed--

"Here Paddy comes to have a swig, A better one he never took; And now he'll dance an Irish jig With Dolly Dunne of Donnybrook."

I recollect another sign representing a bee-hive, for the exhibition of which no reason of an industrial nature was adduced. It displayed the following invitation:--

"In this hive we're all alive, Good whisky makes us funny; So don't pass by, but stop and try The sweetness of our honey."

Such were some instances of the allurements to participate in dissipations then not merely permitted, but encouraged, but which have happily been prevented from continuing their periodical infractions of public peace, and their interruptions of quietude and industry. I shall conclude my observations on the subject by quoting a verse of one of Ned Lysaght's songs, which tends strongly to prove that drunken violence was not merely tolerated, but made the occasion of a laudatory strain--

"Whoe'er had the luck to see Donnybrook Fair, An Irishman, all in his glory, was there, With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green. His clothes spic and span new, without e'er a speck, A neat Barcelona[17] entwined on his neck; He goes into a tent and he spends half-a-crown, He comes out, _meets a friend, and for love knocks him down_, With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green."

I sincerely hope that the "glory" derived from Donnybrook Fair has been for ever quenched, and that future indications of love for a friend will not require to be illustrated by the application of a shillelagh. Some of my readers may not be aware that this designation of a cudgel is derived from a barony named Shillelagh in the County of Wicklow, which has been celebrated for its oak woods from a very remote period. I believe at present they are the property of Earl Fitzwilliam; and I have frequently heard that the timber contained in the roof of Westminster Hall was supplied from them. I am not aware, however, that the propinquity of such material has produced any quarrelsome or combative tendencies amongst the senators or legal practitioners who frequent the locality.

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

I am disposed to offer here a few observations in reference to the liquor traffic, and the effect of the laws by which it is regulated. I have heard the commission of every offence in which violence was a principal ingredient, attributed to the demoralising and infuriating indulgence in strong drinks. I am convinced, by my official experience, that hundreds of crimes unattended with actual violence, have also originated in the debasing craving for stimulating liquors. Frauds and thefts have been abundantly committed from such an incentive; and even affection has been extinguished by its loathsome power so completely, as to make the criminality and degrading infamy of a son or daughter, subsidiary to the gratification of intemperate habits; and the result of recent legislation has certainly neither remedied, nor in my humble opinion mitigated, the prevalence of drunkenness and its multifarious concomitant evils. We are informed that a strict observance of the statute prohibiting the opening of public-houses on Sunday before two o'clock, p.m., has been enforced, and notwithstanding that regulation, we see numerous cases of intoxication in our thoroughfares two or three hours before the publicans open. On a Sunday in the present year, a servant-man left my house between ten and eleven o'clock, in the forenoon, and returned, or rather was brought back, in less than two hours completely intoxicated. In such a case the law is only operative in restraining the regular licensed trader. To deal with those infractions of the law and of public decency, the visitorial powers of the police and constabulary should be greatly extended; and the penalties incident to a conviction for the illicit traffic should be augmented to at least fourfold the amount now authorised, with the alternative, in case of non-payment, of three or four months' imprisonment with hard labor. In the preceding pages I have mentioned a conviction for smuggling tobacco, on which a penalty of one hundred pounds or six months' imprisonment was awarded. I recollect a detection of an illicit still in a house on Haddington Road, in reference to which the Excise authorities required that every adult found on the premises should be subjected to very severe penalties, or imprisonment for some months; and when I declined to convict a young woman who was washing clothes in the dwelling-house, and who was not a resident, but merely employed there occasionally, the professional gentlemen engaged in the prosecution were very dissatisfied with my decision. Offences against the Customs or Excise, which tend to withhold or lessen the revenue, even in the slightest degree, are made legally liable to penal consequences, compared with which the infractions of laws intended to protect the community from the innumerable evils generated by intemperance, may be regarded as trifling indiscretions, undeserving of strict and severe repression. If a trader sends forth from his premises one hundred drunken customers, to exhibit every phase of violent or indecent behaviour, his conduct is not visited with one-tenth of the punishment incurred by selling a glass of poteen whisky.

FOOTNOTE:

[17] A showy description of silk handkerchief, supposed to be derived from a Spanish city, and associated with its name.