E

A COURT-HOUSE AND THE LAW

VERY Englishman should know that there is very little crime in Ireland. The fact may be surprising, but is none the less true. Perhaps it is accounted for by the excellence of the machinery for administering the law and the quality of the law that is administered. When I am able, I always go to petty sessions in Tyrrellstown. There are engagements which sometimes hinder me. There is the river in April, after rain, or the hill on an October morning. Nor would it be loyal to miss a fixture in the County Kildare or a meet of the hounds at my gate.

The court-house at Tyrrellstown does not belittle the dignity of the law. It is not ornate, but it is solid, standing high above the Urglin, toward which it faces, and it is approached by a flight of many steps. Round the courtyard runs a tall fence of stout iron bars, each support being fashioned like the fasces of a Roman lictor, with ax projecting at the top. On a terrace, half-way up the steps, stand two old cannon. The back approach is squalid, leading to one small doorway; but this is the entrance in common use, because it is the more convenient. Except at the assizes, the main door in front is locked, and the grass is left to grow up tall in the gravel sweep which faces it. For while the front looks on Regent Street and the river, the back opens on to the center of Tyrrellstown civilization.

Inside there is a somber air. A row of chairs with horsehair seats accommodate the bench behind a sloping desk of grained oak, upon which are sheets of blotting-paper and impossible steel pens. We always celebrate any notable event by carrying a resolution from the bench,

and after Doreen Flood was married, I made a point of being there to help with an address of congratulation.

The court opened at "half-eleven," as nearly as the difference in our watches allowed. Captain Rice was there, and Costigan who keeps the hotel, and who has a commercial training. Captain Rice had prepared a suitable eulogy somewhat on Prayer-Book lines. He read it out from the bench. Solicitors, police, and clerk, each in turn, indorsed it with a pious, but somewhat lengthy, "Amen." Costigan, however, demurred at this aspect of matrimony, and urged the substitution of an expression of condolence on the troubles with which it is accompanied.

We at last decided to adopt the congratulatory phrases of Captain Rice, tack on to them the funereal sentiments of Costigan, but harness the two together with a prayer that the worst might not be realized. We were then able to start with the business of the day. Our proceedings always receive prominence in "The Moderator," and I hesitate to usurp the prerogative of that excellent newspaper. In doing so, I admit at once that I lack the imagination and command of language possessed by "The Moderator's" reporter.

The ball was set rolling by Constable Phelan, who charged Lawrence Murphy of Ballytiglea with being drunk and in charge of a bicycle. Murphy did not. appear, and we were not informed what would have happened if the bicycle had escaped from its custodian.

Mary Thynne of Kilrush Street charged Margaret Doyle with assault, and gave evidence in person.

"I was standin' in the doorway o' my little house and Sergeant Sullivan

knows I speak the truth—and I lookin' out down the street as peaceful as paradise, she set upon me from behind wid the slide iv a hin-coop, an' she tore the hair from me hid."

Mary paused, and produced the missing locks, wrapped in a very dirty sheet of newspaper, conclusive evidence, which was handed round the bench.

Margaret, for her part, hastened to display sores upon her person which had been inflicted by the nails of Mary Thynne. She called Dr.

then gracefully withdrew, while we heard the charge against Mrs. Brophy.

Mrs. Brophy is a personage of importance in Killickmoyler, where she combines with a grocery business and a small farm the attractive inducements of a public house. It appears that two Sundays before, Constable Connor, while pensively engaged in watching the rising trout from the bridge, had become suspicious of Mrs. Brophy's operations. He had therefore walked off as if toward the hill, returning by a devious route to the back of her premises. Here he had "hid himself in the hins'-roost." Peter Brady, the old soldier, and Charlie Clery, who plays the big drum in the band, were

Phillips to prove that she was suffering from cardiac failure, which he explained meant a weakness of the heart. So far as she was concerned, her one desire was to be left in possession of "peace wid a boiled pitato."

The next case was more serious. Following the example of "The Moderator," I suppress all names. The prisoner was charged with having, under the influence of drink, removed much of his clothing in the street and paraded before the select establishment of Miss Doolan, wearing little more than Adam at the start of his career. Miss Doolan and her young ladies had modestly drawn the blinds of the shop, and abstained from being witness to the affront. It was clear that a grave outrage had been committed. All would have been well but for Costigan, who seemed to have some sympathy for the delinquent, and protested that "You, Captain Rice, have fine airy halls in which to cool yourself when inflamed with drink, but this poor man has no place else than the public street." I pictured the gallant captain, who is stout and rubicund, pacing the pillared corridors at Castlegarry and taking postprandial enjoyment under similar conditions, but it did not shake my opinion.

Mr. Costigan, being a license-holder,

"Mrs. Brophy came out with a bucket, from which they were both seen to drink"

seen to arrive in the "Haggart," perspiring and obviously thirsty. Mrs. Brophy came out with a bucket, from which they were both seen to drink.

When the constable put his head through the hole of the hens'-roost, Mrs. Brophy flung the bucket over the wall. There were found in the nettles on the other side of the wall two buckets, one with "wet porter stickin' to it," and the other "with the smell o' minerals off it."

We sat with two zinc pails before us on the bench, and alternately smelled and scraped them. The smell of ginger-beer may be transitory, but that of porter hangs, and its stickiness increases with exposure. We had to determine whether the porter was "the leavings of a draft for a cow that was sick," and face abun

I.

dant evidence that Brady and Clery "niver tasted any this tin year'." . The court-house has also a lighter side to its existence. In winter it is used by the tradesmen's dances. At these, I understand, Miss Doolan presides, and, sitting in the chairman's seat, dispenses temperance drinks from the bench, while her vestals circulate below. It is used by nomad conjurers who claim to have worked wonders in the presence of half the crowned heads of Europe, and by gentlemen who push cheap-jack wares and patent remedies, and practise painless dentistry to the accompaniment of a brass band.

But the greatest day at the courthouse is when the judges come for the assizes. Mr. Tighe of Kilnevin was high sheriff last year. He lives at the foot of Shodore, where the early sun never shines until it has driven off the shadow of the peak. He has broad acres of heather and gorse, good land for sheep or mountainy cattle, but not such as brings a fortune to the owner. He is past middle age, and lives there with his wife, driving down from time to time to do business in Tyrrellstown or to a wedding or the like. At such times the old phaëton is rolled out, a strange four-wheeled vehicle, with seats for two in front and a dicky behind. The men touch their hats and the old women curtsy, while the young ones nod; for the qualities of Mr. Tighe are judged by the past record of Kilnevin and not by the wealth of his equipage. On the day of the assizes he borrowed Captain Rice's brougham and hired a team from Costigan. The police mounted a guard of honor at the station, with a squadron of cavalry sent down. from the Curragh. A staff-officer had come down beforehand to arrange things and take a day on the Urglin. He had returned with two grand fish, leaving a promise that he would send a bugler to complete the escort.

Behind Costigan's horses sat Jim Whelan, clad in a gorgeous livery of claret color, piped with yellow. His farm boots and trousers were partly concealed by a waterproof rug. His comrade on the box was the herd from Kilnevin, who had been caught among his cattle and roped in to act as footman. His mustache had been forcibly removed,

showing a long upper lip, which still quivered modestly at its unaccustomed exposure. In his hand he carried a wand surmounted with a bow of white ribbon.

Mr. Tighe himself, in a frock-coat of early Victorian cut, which was kept in the family for such occasions, and with a new top-hat of rather rakish form, led the judges to their seats in the brougham.

The police presented arms, the cavalry flourished their swords, and the bugler blew a blast as though to shake the walls of Jericho.

Costigan's hacks are well acquainted with many things. They have met the trains for years, and they know most men and their manners. They have bowed their plumed heads in sorrow at interments, drawing the corpse for long

mare had reared colts for the master of the Kilcoltrim foxhounds, and somewhere deep in her veins had a drop of the blood of Banshee. How should she brook this new indignity? She planted her feet, and stood still, and she did not stir for Whelan's whip or for any coaxing of the onlookers.

The judges sat inside with Mr. Tighe, but the brougham did not advance.

"Put fire under her," shouted Jack McCabe, the guard. He knew more of engines than of cattle.

"Give her a good larrup and a beltin' wid the strap off your waist," called another, who had an ass and knew its ways.

"What I would say," advised Tom, the foreman porter, "would be to get a bit of a cord off the goods, and yoke it to her, and jist draw her furrard. Sure, we'd start her with the engine off the train."

But Terry Purcell, who drives a jarvey-car, and jobs in horse-flesh which has baffled the wits of other trainers, found the solution.

"Leave it to me," he cried. "Do you, Jimmy Whelan, get down off the box, and let me in yer place." In old tweed breeches and a blue cloth cap he took the driver's seat. "Put yer shoulders to the wheel now, boys, and give a shove; and all stand away clear in front."

The brougham was pushed forward against the buttocks of the puzzled chestnut. Terry Purcell did not thrash her or shout at her. He gently tickled her shoulders with the whip, as if a gadfly was trying to settle upon them, and he called to the bugler to blow a viewhalloo. She considered it all. The carriage was moving without her efforts. Was she again free to follow the "dogs" over bank and ditch? Was it, after all,

the old call of the horn and a fox broken from covert? The heart of the old mare was stirred, and the joy of life came back. She forgot collar and trace. She forgot Terry Purcell on the box and the bay horse by her side. And she threw back her head with a proud toss and started

away.

"Keep clear now," shouted Terry, "for fear she'd stop."

It is not far to the court-house, but it was not toward the court-house they made. They turned to the left, toward open country, and we stood and watched the ancient brougham rattling over the stones on the Castlegarry Road. In about half an hour they returned. Terry Purcell was proud.

"Sure, I had to keep her going," he cried, "for fear she 'd stop ag'in; and I thought I'd just let her work herself out where she willed till I 'd have her in the way she 'd be handy."

It may have been due to confusion created by this mishap that when the case of Peter Brady's mother-in-law was called, Peter himself was sworn a member of the jury. She had long been a thorn in his side, and the chance for revenge was a golden one.

The same cause may have been responsible for a slight indisposition in the case of Mr. Tighe, who, having lost his hat, seemed to have taken cold in the head and was seized with an attack of persistent sneezing. Under the direction of his lordship he was, however, refreshed with hot lemon-water. To protect him from the draft a black skullcap was found. I believe that it really formed part of the judge's wardrobe, for use in cases of murder. So far as I know it has never before been assumed in Tyrrellstown.

"The ancient brougham rattling over the stones on the Castlegarry road"