quiry, in 1823, into the conduct of Sheriff Thorpe, exposed, in passing, much magisterial delinquency.

Mr. Beecher said: "It was no uncommon thing, when a friend had incurred a penalty, to remit the fine, and to levy a penalty strictly against another, merely because he was an object of dislike." Major Warburton proved that a female had been sent to America by a magistrate without any legal proceedings whatever. Major Wilcox established the fact that some justices of the peace were engaged in illicit distillation, and that they took presents and bribes, and bail when other magistrates refused; that they took cross-examinations where informations had been already taken by other magistrates. "They issued warrants against the complaining party in the first instance, at the suggestion of the party complained against." It further appeared that some magistrates took fees in money, and not unfrequently rendered official services in consideration of having their turf drawn home or their potatoes planted. The Rev. M. Collins, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, proved that magistrates corruptly received presents of corn, cattle, potatoes, and even money. "If the person of whom the complaint was made ranked as a gentleman, the magistracy often declined interfering, because it would lead to personal results." Mr. O'Driscoll alleged that there were several magistrates trading on their office; they "sell justice and administer it favorably to the party who pays them best. "It is a convenient thing," said O'Connell, "for a man to have the commission of the peace, for he can make those he dislikes fear him, and he can favor his friends." These venal practices had transpired subsequent to a judicial

form which had professed to revise the magistracy! But the "revision" had been shaped rather in obedience to sectarian prejudice than on legitimate grounds. O'Connell showed that

"most excellent men had been deprived of their office without any cause. It was particularly severe upon the Catholic magistrates. In the county Cork, eighteen out of twenty-one Catholics were struck out." In Mr. Daunt's Conversations of O'Connell, the details are given of a certain justice who threatened to flog and hang the sons of a widow to whom his worship owed £2,000, unless she pledged herself to cancel the bond! *

With magistrates like these, and with powerless police such as we described, it is no wonder that a walk in the streets of Dublin should be encompassed with peril. Stephen's Green, the residence of the Sham Squire, was specially infested with footpads, who robbed in a manner peculiar to themselves.

"So late as 1812," says the author of Ireland Sixty Years Ago, "there were only twenty-six small oil-lamps to light the immense square of Stephen's Green, which were therefore one hundred and seventy feet from one another. The footpads congregated in a dark entry, on the shady side of the street, if the moon shone; if not, the dim and dismal light of the lamps was little obstruction. A cord was provided, with a loop at the end of it. The loop was laid on the pavement, and the thieves watched the approach of a passenger. If he put his foot in the loop it was

*For full details, see vol. ii., p. 131. In one of O'Connell's public letters, he made touching reference to the fact that he had known peasant girls sometimes driven to surrender what ought to be dearer than life, as part of an unholy compact with magistrates who had threatened the life or liberty of a father or brother!

immediately chucked. The man fell. prostrate, and was dragged rapidly up the entry to some cellar or waste yard, where he was robbed and sometimes murdered. The stun received by the fall usually prevented the victim from ever recognizing the robbers. We knew a gentleman who had been thus robbed, and when he recovered found himself in an alley at the end of a lane off Bride Street, nearly naked, and severely contused and lacerated by being dragged over the rough pavement." *

When men fared thus, it may readily be supposed that ladies could not walk the streets without risk to their lives or virtue. "It is deemed a reproach," says an author, writing in 1775, "for a gentlewoman to be seen walking in the streets. I was advised by my bankers to lodge in Capel Street, near Essex Bridge, being in less danger of being robbed, two chairmen† not being deemed sufficient protection."

Twenty years later found no improvement. The Anthologia Hibernica for December, 1794, p. 476, furnishes new proofs of the inefficiency of the police. Robbery and bloodshed "within a few

* Almost equally daring outrages on the liberty of the subject were nightly practised, with the connivance of the law, by "crimp sergeants," who by brutal force, and sometimes by fraud, secured the unwary for foreign enlistment. Attractive women were employed to seduce persons into conversation preparatory to the crimp sergeant's seizing them in the king's name. Startling details of these outrages, which were often marked by bloodshed, will be found in the Dublin newspapers of 1793 and 1794, passim. See also the Irish Masonic Magazine for 1794, pp. 94, 190, 284, 383, 482, 570.

† Sedan bearers, familiarly styled "Christian ponies." There is a well-known story in Dublin of a Connaughtman, who, when entering a sedan chair, found that the bottom had, by some accident, fallen out of it, but nevertheless he made no demur, and walked to his destination in the chair. On getting out he remarked to the men who assumed to convey him, "Only for the honor of the thing, I might as well have walked."

Philosophical Survey, p. 46.

yards of the guard-house in Fleet Street" is described.

It does not always follow that idleness is the mother of mischief, for we find that combination among the workmen of Dublin also attained a formidable pitch at this time. The Dublin Chronicle of January 28th, 1792, contains the following paragraph:

"On the several mornings of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th instant, a number of armed persons, journeymen tailors, assembled in a riotous manner about the house. of Mr. Millea, Ross Lane, Mr. Leet, Merchant's Quay, Mr. Walsh, Castle Street, Mr. Ward, Cope Street, and the houses of several other master tailors, and cut, maimed, and abused several journeymen tailors who were peaceably going to their respective places of employment; one of said men, named Michael Hanlon, was killed on the spot, in Cope Street; two have had their hands cut off; several others have been cut and bruised in such a manner as to be now lying dangerously ill; and some journeymen are missing, who,.it is reported, have been murdered and thrown into the river."

CHAPTER IV.

Magee's Vengeance on Lord Clonmel.-Lord Clare.-The Gods of Crow Street. - Renewed Effort to Muzzle Magee.- Lettres de Cachet in Ireland. - Seizures.- George Ponsonby and Arthur Browne.-Lord Clonmel Crushed.-His Dying Confession.- Deserted by the Sham Squire.-More Turpi

tude.

THE spirit of John Magee was indomitable. An interval of liberty between his conviction and sentence from Lord Clonmel was now at his disposal, and he certainly employed it in a singular way. Profoundly indifferent to every personal consequence, he most imprudently resolved to spend a considerable sum of money in wreaking his vengeance on Lord Clonmel. This novel and eccentric scheme he thought to carry out in an indirect, and, as he felt assured, a perfectly legal manner. Having found himself owner of £14,000, Magee settled £10,000 upon his family, and with a chuckle declared that the balance it was his intention, "with the blessing of God, to spend. upon Lord Clonmel."* The unpopular chief of the King's Bench resided in a handsome villa near the Black Rock, now known as Temple Hill, but then styled Neptune. † On the splendid parterres and pleasure grounds which luxuriously environed it, Lord Clonmel had expended several thousand pounds; while in the direction of the improvements many an anxious and a precious hour had

* Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry (1849), p. 58. "Neptune, the elegant seat of Lord Clonmel."-Seward's Topographia Hibernia. Dublin: 1795.