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
In 1798 Sirr received information that a young man of most respectable
family, who had involved himself in the insurrectionary movement of the
period, had arrived in Dublin, and was concealed in the upper room of a
house in Bull Alley. The Major proceeded, attended by several of his
myrmidons, to the place, and entered a house on the right hand side from
Bride Street, the lower part of the premises being a butcher's shop. He
went up to the front two-pair room, and there surprised the accused
party lying on a bed, and partly undressed. He held a pistol to the
young man's head, and commanded him to arise and surrender. The mandate
was complied with, and the captive apparently submitted to his fate. He
arose and asked permission to wash his face and hands, which was
accorded, and he then put on his coat, which the Major had previously
ascertained to have no weapons in the pockets. Suddenly the prisoner
made a spring, throwing himself bodily against the window, which yielded
to his force, and out he went. Sirr shouted and dashed down stairs,
greatly impeded by his own assistants who were hurrying up on the alarm.
The poor fellow who had adopted so desperate an expedient, met, in his
fall, a clothes pole, and then came on some wooden shed-work which
projected over the front of the shop; the latter was rather crazy and
gave away. He sprang to his feet unhurt, darted down the alley and
escaped by one of the numerous passages with which it communicated. Sirr
hastened down to the Coombe, turned out the Poddle guard, and searched
the neighbourhood, but without success. When the British government,
after the campaign of Waterloo, formed some regiments of lancers, they
procured two Austrian officers, of ascertained capability, to impart a
knowledge of the lance exercise to those regiments. One of the officers
was the Bull Alley jumper. He took an opportunity of renew his
acquaintance with Sirr, and jocosely apologised for having terminated
their previous interview so suddenly and unceremoniously.
Sirr was once tricked into making himself instrumental in carrying out
the punishment desired by an outraged father against a profligate son,
and it occurred also in the unhappy year of 1798. There was a wealthy
bookseller residing on Lower Ormond Quay, who had a son, his only child,
bearing the same Christian name. Mr. Patrick W----, the father, was very
indulgent. Mr. Patrick W----, the son, was extremely vicious. His time
was chiefly spent in society of the most objectionable description, and
he was not particular as to the means whereby he made his father's money
available for his licentious pleasures. He had been absent from the
paternal roof for some weeks. His father had vainly sought to discover
him, when he unexpectedly met him in the street, and directed a storm of
well-merited reproaches on the young reprobate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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