Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate. Frank Thorpe Porter
his torturers, a lacerated and semi-animate frame, incapable of enduring further suffering. They cursed him as an obdurate, callous villain, from whom nothing could be extorted; and whilst his terrific punishment was in process of infliction, his father was looking on, from the window of his residence. The wretched youth was conveyed home, and a considerable time elapsed before he was sufficiently recovered to proceed to America, whence he never returned. His father made no secret of the means he adopted to punish young Pat and to trick the Major.
Sirr was occasionally humorous. He announced to one of his acquaintances the fate which was expected to befal Theobald Wolfe Tone, in the laconic phrase—"Mr. Tone is to a-tone to-morrow in the front of Newgate." Galvin, the hangman, having applied to Sirr for his interest and recommendation to procure a small pension, laid before him a memorial, which he was desirous of having forwarded to Government under the Major's auspices. In it the veteran executioner submitted that for many years he had acted as finisher of the law in the County and City of Dublin, with frequent visits for professional purposes to towns on the Home and the Leinster circuits. That age and infirmities were rendering him incapable of continuing his public duties; and that he humbly besought a small pension for the support of his declining years. "Tom," said the Major, "you should have stated in your memorial that during your official career you discharged your duties to the perfect satisfaction of all parties concerned." "I thank you, Major," replied the stupid old wretch, "I'll get it altered, and put that in." One of Sirr's colleagues, a barrister, was remarkable for speaking in a low voice, and with a great lisp. He was indebted to the Major for the nickname of "Mississippi."
At a funeral in St. Werburgh's churchyard, and close by the vaults in which the body of Lord Edward Fitzgerald had been deposited, the Major was present. After the interment, a Mr. S. ——, whose person was invariably extremely slovenly, approached him and remarked, "I suppose, Major, that you cannot be here without thinking of Lord Edward."
"My friend," was the reply, "I am at present thinking of you, and wondering from whence you derive such an ample supply of soiled shirts."
In 1831, during Earl Grey's administration, Sirr attended meetings convened in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and moved resolutions of the most liberal tendency. He voted at the city election for the Reform candidates, and was twitted by the late Thomas Ellis for having deserted his party and forgotten his principles. His answer was simple and true—"I am totally unchanged; I have always supported the Government, and I shall continue to do so."
When the piers which form Kingstown harbour were in course of construction, the supply of stone was derived from immense quarries at Killiney, and conveyed along a tramway, on which, near the quarries, there were slopes, down which the loaded waggons required no impelling power, but rather to be restrained, by breaks, from acquiring a dangerous velocity. Major Sirr was fond of collecting natural curiosities, especially of a geological nature; and he frequently visited Killiney in quest of spar formations, which were occasionally found there. He was by no means niggardly in his dealings with the spar finders; but still he could not conciliate them into a feeling of kindness or respect. One day he was proceeding up the tramway slope, when the discharge of artillery at the Pigeon House fort attracted his attention. He turned and looked in the direction of the firing, just at the moment when a train of loaded wagons was about to descend. Being right before them, he would have been utterly destroyed in a moment, but the breaksman saw his perilous situation, and applied the requisite pressure, stopped the train, and saved the Major. Several persons witnessed his danger and the prompt means by which it was averted. On the transaction becoming known in the quarries, there was an immediate strike. All work was stopped, and a determination was unanimously avowed to insist on the dismissal of the breaksman. No specific complaint was preferred against the individual whose expulsion was required. The Harbour Commissioners deputed Mr. Hickman Kearney to enquire into the grounds and reasons for such an extraordinary demand. He went to the quarries and called on the workmen to come forward and explain the cause of their animosity to the breaksman. The only reply was that "he should go." It appeared, on reference to the clerk of the works, and to the overseers, that the obnoxious man was honest, sober, diligent, and attentive to his duties; and it was strongly urged that no accident had occurred at the slope since his appointment, and that he had, by his presence of mind and promptitude, saved Major Sirr's life. This produced a general exclamation of "That's the reason he shan't stay amongst us. What business had he to save the Major?" The poor breaksman would have lost his employment, but for an old and influential workman who interfered in his favor, and induced the others to forgive him, provided he faithfully promised never to do the like again.
The Major was peculiarly unpopular amongst the hackney carriage drivers, and yet he was not a severe judge of their delinquencies, for he dismissed nearly half the complaints preferred before him, and the average of his fines was three shillings and sixpence; still, they hated him; and although he preached to them very many little sermons in the carriage court, and occasionally sought to impart Scriptural knowledge to their minds, the benighted "jarveys" detested the magisterial apostle. At last "the Major" died. His illness was very brief, and his indisposition commenced in a covered car. He drove home to the Lower Castle-yard, and never rallied, but sank in a few hours. The story was circulated that he actually died in a covered car; and for some time after his decease, I was occasionally treated to the hearing of complaints preferred by covered car-drivers against outside carmen, for usurping their turns, and defrauding them of their jobs. It was, and is, very unusual for carmen to summon members of their own body; but in the cases to which I refer there was a peculiar grossness assigned to the offence. "Yer worship," the plaintiff would exclaim, "I would not mind him stumping me, but he roared out to the people that were going to hire me that my car was the very one the owld Major died in, and yer worship, I couldn't be expected to forgive that."
CHAPTER IX. COMMITTALS—A BARBER WANTED—DWYER THE REBEL—AN EXTRAORDINARY INQUEST—SERGEANT GREENE'S HORSE—CHRISTY HUGHES—THE POLICE CLERKS—RECORDER WALKER—THE POLICE STATUTES—PREAMBLE—A BENEFIT SOCIETY CASE—POLICE RECRUITS—A BORN SOLDIER.
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 the police courts, not only to prisoners on serious charges, but to persons prosecuting or defending summonses. If a magistrate of police were now to apply terms of abuse, even to the most disreputable characters, he would most certainly be severely censured, or perhaps dismissed. The personal characters of the present magistrates of Dublin ensure the observance of the strictest propriety in their courts. I may remark, also, that imprisonment cannot now be inflicted in the reckless manner formerly adopted. On the day when my magisterial functions commenced, I called for a list of the existing committals to the Dublin prisons from the Head Office. I was astonished to find that one man had been detained for the previous fifteen years, another for thirteen, and a third for ten, in default of sureties to keep the peace, and be of good behaviour. I ordered the immediate discharge of those persons, and two of them expressed great dissatisfaction at being thrown upon the world from which they had been so long estranged. These committals were signed by Major Sirr. There is no danger of persons being now sent to prison, and forgotten there; for if such a committal were sent, through ignorance or inadvertence, the Board of Superintendence would soon draw attention to the fact of a prisoner's subsistence being charged on the public for an illegal or unreasonable period. At the time when the committals to which I have alluded came under my notice, I happened to meet with some reports from a Governor of the Richmond Bridewell addressed to the magistrates of the Head Police Office during the time when that prison was under their exclusive control and supervision. In one of these documents, the writer states the building to be in good repair, and perfectly adapted for the safe custody of its inmates, and that every ward was in a clean and wholesome condition. He proceeds to describe the good effects produced by the use he made of a barber, who, for riotous and disorderly conduct, had been committed for two months with hard labour. He had not put the delinquent to stone-breaking or oakum picking, but employed him in shaving and hair-cutting the other prisoners, the effect of which was to improve their