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
He preached very frequently to numerous congregations, and excited great
admiration and even surprise by the fluency of his language and
correctness of diction. Finding that many books and tracts had been
distributed, in Kingstown and its vicinity, containing doctrines or
controversial arguments of which he and his religious associates
disapproved, he exhorted his hearers to bring all such publications to
him, and having received a considerable quantity, he burned them in a
large fire lighted within the precincts of the church where the mission
was held, and between the building and the exterior railing. It was
alleged that amongst the articles thus consumed, there was a copy of the
Scriptures. A prosecution was instituted before me, which was met by a
denial that any perfect copy of the Bible had been burned; and that if
even a portion of one had been thus destroyed it was by mere mischance,
and without his knowledge, intention, or approval. The proceedings
before me produced intense excitement, and great manifestation,
especially amongst the humbler classes, of the asperities usually
incident to indications of religious differences. I sent the case for
trial to the ensuing commission of _Oyer et Terminer_ for the County of
Dublin, and the result was an acquittal; but I refer to the occasion as
having produced some very striking instances of the most inconsiderate
and rash violence, committed without any provocation whatever on the
part of those assailed, and in the supposition that they had been
concerned in a proceeding with which they were totally unconnected.
ASSAULTS AND THEFTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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