Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police MagistratePorter, Frank Thorpe
History
Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate
Porter, Frank Thorpe
Crime -- Ireland; Criminals -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs; Porter, Frank Thorpe, 1801-1882
On the occasion to which I have last referred, one of the royal
carriages contained three children, two boys and a girl, with their
tutor and governess. The girl was Leopold's only daughter, and her name
was identical with that of his first wife, Charlotte. The little Belgian
princess was then eleven years of age, and was exceedingly pretty. She
was delicately fair, blue-eyed, and flaxen-haired, and appeared to
appreciate highly the popular acclamations which were frequently
announced as specially intended for her. The joyous countenance,
irradiated by the excitement incident to demonstrations of enthusiastic
approbation, seemed inaccessible to the wrinkles of care, and exempt
from the lachrymal effects of sorrow. Nevertheless, that royal child has
furnished a most piteous instance of the mutability of fortune, of
accumulated miseries substituted for the apparent approach of
transcendent happiness. To her have been allotted
"The hopes that but allure to fly,
The joys that vanish while we sip;
Like Dead-Sea fruits that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lip!"
In about six years after the time to which my reminiscence refers, she
became the consort of Ferdinand Maximilian, eldest brother of the
Emperor of Austria, who subsequently, at the instance of Napoleon the
Third, assumed the title of Emperor of Mexico, but having utterly failed
in his efforts to establish the Imperial authority to which he aspired,
was shot as a culprit, by order of the President Juarez, in 1867,
leaving his bereaved widow in such affliction as to produce a state of
insanity from which she is not expected to recover.
THE GREAT EXHIBITION IN LONDON.
On my return from the Continent, I spent a few days in London, and had a
most gratifying opportunity of seeing the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park,
which, apart from its own attractions and merits, afforded an example to
the civilized nations of the world, stimulating their pursuits of the
industrial arts, awakening dormant energies, and evoking amicable
competitions and peaceful rivalries. I happened to express to the
Commissioner of Police, a wish to be admitted to the building at night,
and he gave me a note to the Superintendent in charge there, directing
him to conduct me through it. The structure was lighted sufficiently to
afford means to the police on duty to keep it safe from the designs of
marauders and from accidental injury. Profound silence was only
interrupted by the chiming of the clocks, and the announcement at
certain intervals of "All's well." The solitude, the subdued light, the
banners of all nations, statues and other works of art, of which I was
the only spectator in that splendid and extensive edifice, suggested
contemplative feelings which I am not adequate to express; but I can
safely assert that my midnight visit to the great Crystal Palace of
1851, afforded me greater gratification than I ever derived from any
public spectacle however gorgeous or crowded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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