Twenty Years' Recollections of an Irish Police MagistratePorter, Frank Thorpe
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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
The statute, passed since my retirement, to enforce and regulate the
registration of dogs, has relieved the magistrates from having to
dispose, in the course of each year, of some hundreds of summonses
against the owners, or reputed owners of dogs which were found "roaming
at large on the public thoroughfare, without log or muzzle." In my time,
I never found a summons in reference to a dog, at the instance of a
constable, entered indiscriminately with other complaints. If the first
case was a canine one, I might feel assured that it would be followed by
forty or fifty others of the same description, and that the dogs would
monopolise the day. It appeared to me that the police were occasionally
directed to give special attention, for two or three days, to the
unlogged and unmuzzled curs, and thus produce what our clerks used to
term "a dog board." The appearance of a male defendant was extremely
rare. The persons complained of were generally working tradesmen or
labourers, who, on receiving a summons, directed the wife to attend the
court, as they could not afford to lose their time. When a defendant was
called, his female substitute, eager to have the first word, answered to
the man's name; but what she said referred to the animal. A mere
listener might imagine that the defendants were either guilty of some
atrocious offences, or were subjected, unheard and untried, to a
fearful, fatal doom; for instance--
"Call James Foley."
"He's drounded, yer worship, we drounded him off Wood Quay, the very
evening that we got the summons, he wasn't logged or muzzled, but he is
dead now, and the policeman 'ill never see him again."
"You are fined two and sixpence."
"Oh! yer worship, that's very hard, and he dead."
"Call Peter Casey."
"He's hung, sir; he was very owld and stupid, and hadn't a tooth in his
head, so we hung him, not to be bother'd with him any more," &c.
"Call Patrick Dempsey."
"Plaze yer worship, he's dead, and if the polisman knew him, he'll know
that he's dead. We had him hung and got him skinned, and I have his skin
here to show you."
Perhaps another case would disclose the appalling fact, that Denis
Reilly was "_pisened_ by a young doctor that we got to sponge his nose
with some Prooshun stuff, and it kilt him." Such calamities have been
averted from the Foleys, Caseys, Dempseys, and Reillys of the present
time, and the magistrates have been relieved from having to listen to
such murderous details from the lips of the gentler sex by the magical
effect of canine registration.
WHIPPING YOUNG THIEVES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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