Captain Sinico, of Leoville, Sydney Parade, husband of the deceased,
also gave evidence. He stated that the deceased was his wife. He was
not in Dublin at the time of the accident as he had arrived only that
morning from Rotterdam. They had been married for twenty-two years and
had lived happily until about two years ago when his wife began to be
rather intemperate in her habits.
Miss Mary Sinico said that of late her mother had been in the habit of
going out at night to buy spirits. She, witness, had often tried to
reason with her mother and had induced her to join a league. She was
not at home until an hour after the accident. The jury returned a
verdict in accordance with the medical evidence and exonerated Lennon
from all blame.
The Deputy Coroner said it was a most painful case, and expressed great
sympathy with Captain Sinico and his daughter. He urged on the railway
company to take strong measures to prevent the possibility of similar
accidents in the future. No blame attached to anyone.
Mr Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on
the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty
distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on the
Lucan road. What an end! The whole narrative of her death revolted him
and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he
held sacred. The threadbare phrases, the inane expressions of sympathy,
the cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a
commonplace vulgar death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she
degraded herself; she had degraded him. He saw the squalid tract of her
vice, miserable and malodorous. His soul’s companion! He thought of the
hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bottles to be
filled by the barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been
unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits,
one of the wrecks on which civilisation has been reared. But that she
could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so
utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and
interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no
difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.
As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her hand
touched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now
attacking his nerves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went
out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves
of his coat. When he came to the public-house at Chapelizod Bridge he
went in and ordered a hot punch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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