Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate — John Shaqi
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
There was another Dublin establishment in the gold, silver, and jewelry
trade, and also belonging to a Mr. West. It was in Capel Street. I may
mention an incident connected with it of a very extraordinary nature.
There were mills at Chapelizod, near Dublin, kept by a Mr. M'Garry, in
which he had very powerful machinery for rolling metals. He was
frequently employed to roll silver for Mr. West. In the year 1829, a
silver slab, valued at £27, was delivered to his carrier at Capel
Street, and the usual receipt was given for it. The slab was to be
rolled into a silver sheet; but when the vehicle in which it had been
placed arrived at Chapelizod, the article was not to be found. In
appearance it was not bright, having lain in store for some time after
being cast. Advertisements and enquiries failed to discover it, and Mr.
M'Garry paid its value to the owner. In 1845, it was brought to a
silversmith named Chapman, on Essex Quay, and offered for sale. Chapman
stopped the article, and gave the bearer of it into custody. On an
investigation before me, it appeared that a shoemaker who lived in
Leixlip had found it on the road and taken it home with him. He never
suspected that it was silver. He considered it to be pewter or zinc, and
it was used for the purposes of a lapstone for sixteen years. How the
person in whose possession it was found had ascertained its real quality
did not appear, but he had purchased it from the shoemaker for
half-a-crown. West's and M'Garry's books coincided as to the nature of
the article, its value, and the time of its loss. The old slab was
adjudged to M'Garry, who at once sold it to Chapman for the price he
offered, £22. The shoemaker expressed deep, and certainly sincere regret
that he had never suspected the real value of his lapstone. His only
consolation was, that the roguish fellow who induced him to sell it for
half-a-crown, lost two shillings and sixpence by the bargain.
LAW'S WINDOW.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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