# The Chronicles of Early Melbourne/Volume 2/Chapter 67

​CHAPTER LXVII. S O M E PECULIAR PEOPLE.
SYNOPSIS:—William Cooper, "The Literary Blacksmith."—•" Tom" Watson -Buckland.—James Ballingall.— Thomas Stevenson. —" Jemmy the Pieman."—M .—"Micky Mac"—" Big Mick."—•" Long M ."— Daniel Wellesley O'Donovan.
HERE are in all communities certain units of the population who may be classified as unaffiliated or individualized " o d d " fellows, in the literal acceptation of the term. In a large city like the Melbourne of to-day, the peculiarities of such people attract comparatively fp-1 little public attention, for they become merged in the great vortex of humanity, but in Melbourne, such as it was up to 1852, the reverse formed the rule, and some of the old townies, the subjects of mild eccentricities, became notabilities in their way, and were a source of much amusement and banter. S o m e of them have already appeared in these sketches, and to omit others would occasion an hiatus incompatible with completeness. T h e gap must therefore be stopped, and the revival of any names previously mentioned is for the purpose of supplying details excluded for the convenience of the narrative in other places.
i it
was known as "the literary blacksmith." His smithy was a wooden shed in Little Collins Street, he plied his muscular vocation with remunerative assiduity, and was a "striking" example to his brethren in the trade. Cooper's forge was during working hours never cold, for
WILLIAM COOPER
" From morn till night, You could hear his bellows blow ; You could hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell When the evening sun was low."
The world went on swimmingly enough with him until the incorporation of Melbourne. The tide then turned in Cooper's life, and the ebb of prosperity set in and so continued to recede until he was completely stranded. T h efirstCorporation election was a regular pitched beer battle, in which most of the successful candidates fought their way to the head of the poll through the fumes and froth of spirituous and fermented liquors. M r . Henry Condell, one of the first T o w n Councillors and Aldermen, and Melbourne's first Mayor and Legislative Representative, was a well-to do brewer, and as he jumped into the Civic arena he determined to roll himself on to the goal of his ambition astride his o w n beer casks. T h e erstwhile busy forge was n o w quenched; the welding of iron and shoeing of horses passed over to other and surer workshops, and Cooper himself went completely to the dogs. For the remainder of his life he existed mainly on fermented suction, and his downfall soon followed. For seven or eight years he was a thorough tavern cadger, in which line, as he was in his way jovial, good-humoured, and harmless to all save himself, he was regarded as a sort of street favourite, and could always c o m m a n d a liberal supply of free drinks. Fortunately for him, when he could not hold out m u c h longer, the Benevolent Asylum was opened as a refuge for the destitute, and, in 1851, "old Cooper " enjoyed the rather questionable distinction of being the " number o n e " of its inmates. ​another remarkable identity, was a Waterloo man, and a Peninsula veteran. Old T o m was fond of expatiating at all times and seasons upon his soldiering and recounting THOMAS
("TOM")
WATSON,
" The story of his life F r o m year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, That he had pass'd."
If credence were to be given to a tithe of his " tall talk," one would fancy him to have been as deep in Wellington's confidence as the most trusted of the "Iron Duke's" staff. There was little doubt, however, that he had served in the 33rd Regiment of British Infantry. " T o m , " from his arrival in the province, took an active interest in promulgating the benefits of abstinence from intoxicating fluids, and both by his precept and example was m u c h of an acquisition to the early Temperance Societies. H e was master of the Russell Street Band, and his portly figure, decked out in scarf and rosette, with a AVaterloo medal shining on his breast, advancing with the regulation military step in the van, was of itself worth looking at. T o m Watson was such an intense teetotaller, that, not satisfied with being an openly avowed water drinker, he resolved to obtain a livelihood by vending the precious element. H e was soon recognized as one of the most efficient of the corps of " watermen," the first known m e d i u m of water supply between the Yarra and the householders of Melbourne. H e lived a long, active, and useful life until his last earthly barrel was emptied. I know not if any epitaph was inscribed over his grave ; but if so, none would be more appropriate than the one dictated by the poet Keats for himself— "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
BUCKLAND.—When what is known as the Flagstaff Hill West Melbourne was occupied as a signalling station, a person named Buckland was employed there, as an assistant. H e was possessed of a large fund of general information, widely read and especially communicative. Unfortunately for him he was an "expiree" convict, and on the erection of the province into an independent colony the employment in the public service of persons of convict antecedents was considered so objectionable that Buckland and his billet parted company. T h e dismissal preyed so m u c h upon his mind, that he retired moodily to his cottage in Fitzroy. O n e day he m a d e a valuable present of books to the Mechanics' Institute. Ere a week passed, his friends were horrified by the intelligence that he had committed suicide by blowing out his brains. A letter was found declaring that all his money was exhausted, and as he was too proud to seek a situation, he had determined to put an end to his life. The day following, his coffin was taken on a dray to the cemetery, and interred close by the eastern fence. T h e sexton did his work so carelessly, that the covering consisted of only two or three inches of mould, and a heavy rainfall coming d o w n during the night, in the morning the coffin lid was quite exposed, and a re-burial the inevitable consequence. Buckland had at the Flagstaff a queer old helper known as George Fisher, a " Jack tar," w h o had fought at Navarino, and was a great card at yarn spinning about his wonderful adventures in " T h e Battle and the Breeze." H e was the proprietor of a really splendid telescope, which he brought with him from England. It was fixed upon a rude wooden stand, and its owner positively declared that through it he could not only view exteriorly any ship in Hobson's Bay, but absolutely everything on board. " Old George " soon tired of his post of observation after Buckland's death, and withdrew to some very humble quarters at Brighton, where he, for several years, eked out a precarious livelihood. His friends, however, did not altogether abandon him, and one warm-hearted Scotch brewer, still alive, sent him regularly a small cask of ale weekly, not a very stinted ration to keep one antiquated throat from getting parched. Finally he found a comfortable harbour of refuge in the Benevolent Asylum. of the early colonists were better known, or more thoroughly esteemed than he w h o first figured in Port Phillipian life as accountant at the mills of Manton and Co., in Flinders Street. O n the closing of that concern, Ballingall transferred hisfinancialallegiance to the
JAMES BALLINGALL.—Few ​baby Corporation of Melbourne, was appointed a Rate-collector, and in this capacity until his death" honestly looked after the bantling feeding-bottles. Hailing from the briny Scottish town of Kirkcaldy he seemed an imitation of Plimsoll in the deep interest manifested for the proper construction of ships, which he would have fabricated with what he designed " solid bottoms." T w o grand panaceas for the welfare of the world, he believed to consist in the building of ships with stout, durable understandings, and the wearing of skin flannels by the h u m a n race. H e was so gone on the " solid bottomed" ship theory that he wrote on it, lectured about it, and it was his walking and table-talk morning, noon, and night. H e once told m e that he passed scarcely a single night without dreaming of it. " Depend upon it, m y friends," he would reiterate, " solid-bottomed vessels are the only sort to be trusted to the mercies of wind and waves," and the somewhat ungenteel epithet, with " O l d " prefixed, ultimately grew an alias universally applied to the well meaning enthusiast,— " A n honest m a n close buttoned to the chin, Broadcloth without, and a w a r m heart within."
His hale, hearty form, and weather-beaten face were welcome and familiar objects in his peripatetic rate-collecting rounds. His friends were legion, and after attaining to a green, or rather red old age, Jamie departed this life, regretted by all w h o had the pleasure of his acquaintance. was another professional street-walker as well (though not so agreeably) known as Ballingall. Originally a school teacher, when pupils grew scarce, he betook himself to the collection of debts. Though what is k n o w n as a " dun," he possessed none of the impudent, bullying characteristics attributed to the historical A d a m of the fraternity, Joe D u n , the notorious money-hunter of the reign of Henry V I I Stevenson was in no way impertinent in the pursuit of an unpleasant vocation; but what was of more importance, he was unceasingly importunate, and popped on a defaulter in a silent, ghostly way, which had a more marked effect in unlocking reluctant pockets than bluster and bounce. Ballingall's "beat" was restricted to Lonsdale Ward; but Stevenson's extended everywhere. Anything in the shape of a bad debt had being. His business was large and lucrative, and his reputation such that unlimited confidence was placed in him. Though quiet and gentlemanly in his manner of dealing with his customers, it was remarkable that a hint of his n a m e to a defaulter was potent in extracting payment.
THOMAS STEVENSON
was another of that ilk, from the fact of his having instituted an industry, as he declared, "for the special benefit and invigoration of intoxicated nocturnal wayfarers." This was simply the manufacture of rather doubtfully embodied pies and saveloys of a strong un-aromatic flavour in a basket, and the vendor and vendibles taken together, constituted about as unwholesome a combination as could well be conceived. After dark " J e m m y " was almost invariably "in a state of beer." H e was one of the most drunken old reprobates of a not over sober era, and twice or thrice every week the day dawned over " J e m m y " anchored in the watchhouse. His police interviews were always of the funniest kind, and the offender frequently escaped punishment. O n e night on an unusually heavy " burst" in a low tavern in Little Bourke Street, he so overdrank himself (a feat of some difficulty) that he was picked dead out of the channel the next morning. There were some half-a-dozen characters w h o will be n o w presented with certain blank indications in consequence of the questionable antecedents of some of them, and the fact of their descendants surviving in the colony. It was a rule with the "expiree" convict settlers, whose sojourn at the penal settlement was no secret, to account for their enforced expatriation in a manner to minimize the enormity of the offence for which they had been transported. For instance ask an Englishman of the class referred to why he had been obliged
"JEMMY THE PIEMAN"
" T o leave his country for his country's good,"
A n d in nine cases out of ten the answer will be that his " lagging" was due to some poaching or to his dea^T^^I^^ in 19 Latrobe Street East, 32 or 33 years ago. I have often seen him -=.!?• ? the Government service, as a locker at Yander's Bond when9 doing business at the'B^nd he33was invariably SSSitS^ T c ^ T ^ ^ Z . t ^ ^ ^ l t ^ A *"" "* * " °' ' ​other violation of the very stringent code of game-laws then in force in the parent country; whilst the Hibernian would give the response a patriotic twist, by assigning his misfortune to some nocturnal "ribbon" escapade, agrarian outrage, or the bringing to grief a tithe-loving parson or tithe-catching proctor. There was not m u c h harm in such equivocation, though it was far from being swallowed in toto by the "never-convicted" portion of the public. M was an " expiree" engaged in half-a-dozen small businesses, which brought him in a pot of money, which was enjoyed by him until a few years ago, far away from Victoria. Substantial and comfortable in shape, tastefully clad, he strutted smilingly through the streets, one hand in trouser's pocket, the other twirling a massive gold watch chain, and his lips almost unintermittently employed in a muffled whistling. H e was a m a n of means, and took care to let the world know it in divers ways. S o m e offence connected with illicit deer-stalking was commonly reported as the reason for his deportation to a penal settlement; but those w h o were admitted to his Bacchanalian confidences knew better. G o o d stiff punch found special favour with him. After putting away six tumblers of this mixture, his b u m p of caution would disappear, his face assume a solemn sepulchral aspect, and his eyes glare like miniature lamps. His boon companions then knew that the climax was approaching, and to expedite the denouement one of them would indulge in some remark referring to a cemetery. M would jump from his seat, look up the chimney, and peer into corners to m a k e sure no outsider was on the watch. He would go through the mimic process of digging into a grave, finding a coffin, and then, as if extracting a corpse, and bearing it on his shoulders to the window, in imagination heave it out as if into a dead cart in readiness for its reception. After going through this terrible pantomime he would resume his seat, when the frightful impulse of which he had been temporarily the victim would pass away, and he had no recollection whatever of the transition through which he had passed. T h e explanation of all this is that he had followed the vocation of a resurrectionist, or " body-snatcher," in England. T h e circle of acquaintance to w h o m the above was k n o w n was very limited, and the secret of the periodical post mortem performance was remarkably well-kept. as he was known, was another extraordinary assimilation of flesh and blood. H e hailed from Limerick, the Irish city of the historical violated " treaty stone," where a murder was perpetrated as one of the outcomes of a trade combination. " M a c " was not actively implicated in the outrage, but he was convicted on an indictment for a capital conspiracy, and was sentenced to death. Through his wife he acquired some local and political influence which told with such effect upon Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle), a distinguished Irish statesman that, after considerable deliberation, the Executive at Dublin Castle reluctantly agreed to c o m m u t e the extreme punishment to a life transportation. T h e decision was not, however, known to the Limerick prison authorities until almost literally the last moment. T h e culprit was actually at the foot of the gallows, and about to ascend the fatal ladder, when a mounted courier, waving a whitefla^,rode up to the gaol and stayed the tragedy. In such remote times there were no such instantaneous Mercuries as telegraphic wires, and the Post-Office arrangements were even so slow and uncertain that well-horsed messengers were employed on pressing emergencies. " M a c " therefore escaped, " by the skin of his neck," for in another minute or so, had there been no authorized interposition, his neck would have been stretched, and himself, in journalistic phraseology, " launched into eternity." H e actually told m e himself that just as he was about to ascend to be placed under the rope, the R o m a n Catholic priest in attendance bade him what was believed to be a final earthly farewell, by gently pressing his hand, and saying in a low voice " Good-bye, Michael, be easy and hopeful of mind for in one minute after you die your soul will be in Heaven." Whether such expressions had ever been employed, of course I had no other proof than " Mac's" ipse dixit, not at all times a reliable consideration. I recollect, however, being in 1845 driven to Brighton' by Dean Coffey, " M a c " being then at logger-heads with the authorities at St. Francis. H e was booked as a troublesome, bad boy there, and during our trip he became in some manner "MICKY MAC," ​mixed up with our conversation, and I laughingly re-called for the old Dean's edification the valedictory scene between the chaplain and " M a c " under the gallows-tree m a n y years before. I never have forgotten the commentary, which was nearly verbatim this: — " A n d so the fellow ' M a c ' told you that, did he? (Here a short, low whistle). I doubt m u c h if any priest ever uttered such words; but if he did so, all I can n o w say is (another whistle) that if the rogue ' M a c ' could get to Heaven in a minute then, he was a great fool not to chance it, for I verily believe if he died to-day, instead of doing the journey in sixty seconds, it would take him a full three weeks; and even then I a m not all sure that something would not trip him up on the road." It must not be supposed that the opinion so confidently expressed by the worthy padre indicated any indirect disclosure of Confessional secrecy, for " M a c " was not over particular in supplicating a forgiveness of sins through the agency of contrition, a vow of reformation and penance. Dean Coffey based his surmise upon his general knowledge of the individual's merits and demerits. " M i c k y M a c " found his w a y to Port Phillip at the close of 1839 after a slightly round-about fashion. H e was shipped to N e w South Wales, as an item of a convict cargo, and his wife quickly followed and settled in Sydney. After a brief interval under the then prevalent system of prison assignment, her husband obtained a ticket-of-leave, and became his wife's assigned servant. This was a practical evasion of the law's intention, but in special cases it was connived at by the authorities. T h e Monteagle influence did not sleep at home, and through Governor Sir Richard Bourke, another Limerickite, " M a c " soon obtained a pardon restoring him to entire personal freedom, except that it conditioned that he should leave the colony ; whether there was the further proviso that he should never return to it, I cannot say, but such was usually the form in which such indigencies ran, and it is not likely this case was an exception. However, this might have been, " M a c " complied, so far as clearing out of N e w South Wales with his better-half was concerned. H e went to V a n Diemen's Land, and after a brief sojourn, doubled back to Melbourne where he remained for m a n y years. T h e faithful wife accompanied him, and be it recorded to his discredit that he did not requite her affection as it deserved. " M a c " once actually offered a ,£5 premium for a new curse for which there were half-a-dozen competitors, and the winner of the "prize" is not only still (1888) alive and well in Melbourne, but anyone seeing the solemn-phizzed semi sanctimonious looking worthy "doing" one of our public places, could scarcely conceive the possibility of his ever having taken so questionable an " honour." It is a laughable circumstance that the first person to experience the effect of the particular malediction was the late Sir (then Mr.) John O'Shanassy. " M i c k y " had a fairly prosperous career in Melbourne for more than twenty years, when he levanted to California, and was never after, so far as I know, reliably heard of. " B I G M I C K " was a burly, lazy-going, soft-faced, sly-eyed customer w h o occasionally fraternized, but more often fought, with a little customer nicknamed " Micky the Ribbon," from certain proclivities marking his career before leaving the " Himmeral Hoile," as he was wont to designate the land of his nativity. "Big M i c k " and the "Ribbon m a n " were night-watchmen. T h e big fellow's beat was Collins Street, and the little one's Elizabeth Street: but the only boundaries they beat were the back doors of public-houses, where they skulked and begged for free drinks. " M i c k y " was thefirstto lie down in the Old Cemetery; but " M i c k " managed to spin out existence until September, 1849, when he gave up the ghost, and was interred by the Friendly Brothers, a small Charity Society, whose good deeds have long been forgotten. " LONG M ," though not a convict, acquired a dubious notoriety before he transferred his corpus from Launceston to Melbourne. A loud boaster of a past military career, (he was an ex-soldier sergeant), hisfirstpublic appointment was the overseership of a small gang of prisoners, into whose care was temporarily given the maintenance of the unmacadamized streets. In M , the luckless devils had a rough, unreasonable master, and matters finally assumed such a threatening aspect that to evade probable assassination the overseer threw up his billet in terror and disgust. A s a constable, he supplemented his pay by blackmailing drunkards and both licensed and unlicensed grog-sellers, and he clung with a sort of affection round the door of the Police Office, as, what is known in ​police cant as a " mounter." A s years rolled on he struck into a reputable way of living, and succeeded. H e became a cattle-dealer, and saved some money, after the gold discoveries, by lucky land speculations. From this he became an extensive squatter, kept a grand house in East Melbourne, where he was profusely hospitable to those w h o saw no objection to accepting his invitations. H e had his carriage and servants in livery, and used to be driven, pompous and prideful, through the streets. But the wheel of fortune turned, his wealth took wings and flew away. T h o u g h not reduced to the low-watermark of his early colonial career, it was low enough, and his last days were passed in the Melbourne Hospital, an institution which has witnessed the end of m a n y a better m a n and more meritorious colonist. DANIEL WELLESLEY O'DONOVAN'S name winds up this segment of humanity. His sponsors baptismally hooked him to the two great Irishmen, D a n O'Connell and the hero of Waterloo. Hailing from Kerry, he was born and bred in the vicinity of " Killarney's classic lakes." A fine-proportioned, pleasant-faced, funny-eyed young m a n , Port Phillip offered him a good chance of carving out a comparatively bright future ; but there was a big stumbling-block in his way in either the brandy-cask or the beer barrel, or both, and these proved his destruction. Moderately grounded in an English education, he was, perhaps, the best Latin and Greek scholar in the province. H e was exceptionally well posted in all the branches of Celtic history, and could give you extracts from the Annals of the Four Masters, The Book of Ballymole, or the Psalter of Tara, as pat as he could roll out a R o m a n Catholic Rosary. H e succeeded in obtaining clerical employment, but driven, as he would say, by the hot winds, he rapidly acquired an unconquerable appetite for " rum and two ales." His quill-driving and he, therefore, soon dissolved partnership, when he betook himself to any chance employment falling in his way, from private tuition to shepherding, from wharf-labouring to scavengering; but he could never keep sober for a month ; the curse clove to him with a tenacity that rendered it impossible to shake it off. T h e last decade of O'Donovan's life was passed in the K e w Lunatic Asylum, where he died a few years ago. O'Donovan was given to reciting favourite passages from authors he had well studied. In such a m o o d he was indulging one November afternoon, poised against a superannuated g u m tree, on the verge of the Merri Creek crossing-place leading from Melbourne to Heidelberg. T h e first resident Judge (Willis) resided at the latter place, and on this occasion his H o n o r was going home, and approaching the tree, though he could perceive no h u m a n being in sight, he was surprised to hear, as if from the interior of the trunk, delivered in true declamatory style, portions of one of Cicero's orations against Catiline. T h e Judge pulled up astounded, and for a time did not well know what to make of it. T h e voice could not issue from the tree, though it never occurred to him that it might come from some person at its off side. Dashing forward, and slewing his horse round, he was at once face to face with the bush orator, who, without seeming to notice the intruder (whom he well knew), continued until he had finished the peroration, and then doffing his weather-beaten cabbage-tree hat with a low bow, expressed a hope that his H o n o r was not displeased with the harmless bit of pastime he had witnessed. Willis complimented him on the taste and style of his deliverance, which led to a brief conversation, the end being that the Judge ascertained w h o he was and took him into his hired service with an order to march at once to Heidelberg. Amongst Willis's two or three horse screws, in ministering to the cleanliness of an old trap, and keeping things right in the stable, O'Donovan appeared as if in Elysium for a few weeks. Fate was already weaving into poor O'Donovan's future thicker threads of darkness than had appeared hitherto, and there was d o o m e d to be a speedyflare-upbetween him and his new patron. It was Willis's custom to open each monthly Criminal Session of the Supreme Court with an address or charge to the jury panel; but, in reality, more of an ultra-official oration to the general public. These fulminations had, however, the merit of careful preparation, and though more abusive than pungent, were on the whole clever specimens of tolerably readable, though overdone phraseology, highly spiced with well-fitting pedantry. They were crammed with quotations, ancient and modern, from languages living and dead. Never did one of them appear without Latin cxcerpta. Willis was aware that his Crier or Tipstaff would be unable to be at his post on one of these occasions, and he decided upon trotting out his favourite groom in a new capacity. O'Donovan had a good voice, and could talk, rant and shout, (in more than one sense), and of his eligibility as a locum tenens Crier there could be no doubt. H e was ​accordingly rigged up in a cast-off white choker and swallow-tail (the latter being hardly big enough), and on his appearance in Court was indeed "the observed of all observers." T h e " Oyez, O y e z " exordium was got through by the new Tipstaff with a nasal solemnity, and after the disposal of one or two formalities, the Judge began his address. A quotation cropped up, but of this the Judge did not care, for, as hitherto, he would take it as a hunter does an ordinary jump, in tip-top style. It was a hackneyed passage from one of the Satires of Horace, and the orator stepped in amongst the hexameters with a graceful lisp, as if assured that what he was saying would be duly appreciated. In this manner he travelled safely over the fourth line, but in thefifthuttered a slight misquotation, when the new Crier was down upon his great superior, and figuratively shook him as a terrier would a rat. " I beg your Honor's pardon," said the irate O'Donovan, "you are murdering m y most favourite author, and this I cannot permit to be done by either Judge or Jury. If your Honor will kindly allow m e I shall set you right; in fact, permit or not I'll do it. So n o w your Honor and gentlemen of the Jury, listen to the only true and correct version." Here followed some dozen lines of Horace, including the corrected reading of where the Judge had floundered. It is no exaggeration to say that all in Court except the Judge and his " T i p " were convulsed with laughter. A s for Willis, he was flabbergasted at O'Donovan's gross but unconscious contempt of Court, and at length screamed to the Sheriff to place the transgressing scoundrel under lock and key until he could c o m m a n d time and patience to consider h o w to best summarily deal with him. All this time O'Donovan was unable to comprehend that he had acted with any impropriety. Equally at sea as to the reason for the Judge's fuming and the people's laughing, he seemed half bewildered. H e boldly declared his inability to understand what wrong he had done by setting the Judge right. H e thought he had only done his duty. M r . Raymond, the Deputy-Sheriff, kept him under durance until the time for adjournment. H e was then told to call next day for the wages due to him ; but he was prohibited from ever again showing his face at Heidelberg. It is strange I have been unable to find any report of this extraordinary episode in the newspapers; but it is next to impossible to have access to a complete copy of the early journals. O f the occurrence there can be no doubt whatever. W h e n " off his chump," Wellesley O'Donovan implicitly believed himself to be one of four heroes of Irish History—viz., two Pagans and two Christians; and it depended on the season of the year which of those personages he would imaginatively personate. In Winter, he was Dharra D h o u n ; in Spring, Dathi; in Summer, Brian Boru; and A u t u m n saw him O'Neil of the R e d Hand. H e remained in Melbourne for several years, and paid several compulsory visits to the Yarra Bend in its infant'le days. There was a reporter on the LLerald known by the ultra-Milesian name of Finn, who was a special favourite with O'Donovan. Whenever they met during the latter's sanity he invariably addressed the other as " M r . Finn;" but in his m a d moods O'D. was fully convinced that Finn was no other than O'Rourke, the Prince of Brefni, well known in Irish prose and verse. Whenever and wherever they met O'Donovan would uncover and make a profound obeisance to " the Prince." Once the following almost incredible Police Court scene occurred. O'Donovan was for about the dozenth time charged with alleged lunacy, and by all appearance he was what is in vulgar parlance denominated "as m a d as a hatter." T h e late M r . Sturt was the sole presiding Justice, and the Mr. Finn before mentioned the sole occupant of the reporters' stall. T h e accused on being placed in the dock turned towards the single reporter, and refused to acknowledge even by a glance the single Magistrate. O n being requested to face the Bench he replied in a stern tone that he would do nothing of the sort ; that he was Dharra Dhoun, the monarch of the world, and could never acknowledge the representative of any Foreign Power, more particularly England. There was in Court opposite to him the scion of one of the ancient kingly races in his old country, and to him he would render a cheerful allegiance. M r . Sturt (who knew him but too well) : " W h a t are you talking or rather dreaming about, O'Donovan?" T h e prisoner (with a wave of the hand): It is neither a dream of the day or night, but a reality. I n o w see before m e in h u m a n shape no less a personage than O'Rourke, the Prince of Brefni. A s for you, sir (to M r . Sturt), though you are a kind, good-hearted fellow, an English minion like you is not worthy to brush the coat of a ​descendant of Irish royalty." Whilst Sturt gazed with a pitying kindliness on the unfortunate creature, O'Donovan sang, or rather keened, the first two verses of Moore's beautiful m e l o d y — " T h e Song of O'Rourke"—which describes the return h o m e of the Prince of Brefni only to discover the elopement of his wife with the King of Leinster, and his threats of vengeance thereat :— "The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind ; Yet 1 trembled for something hung o'er m e , That saddened the joy of m y mind. I looked for the lamp which she told m e Should shine when her pilgrim returned ; But though darkness began to unfold m e , N o lamp from the battlements burned. " I flew to her chamber—'twas lonely, A s if the lov'd tenant lay dead ! A h , would it were death, and death only ! But no !—the young false one had fled. A n d there hung the lute that could soften M y very worst pains into bliss, While the hand that had waked it so often N o w throbbed to m y proud rival's kiss."
Drawing out the last line in a modulated tenderness of voice, he stood erect, the eyes of the maniac glaring like coals offire,and continued— "Then onward the green banner rearing, G o flesh every sword to the hilt."
Looking yearningly towards the supposed Prince of Brefni, and extending his right hand— "On our side is virtue and Erin"—
Then shaking both fists in Sturt's face, and with the howl of a wild animal— "On yours is the Saxon and guilt!"
Every person in Court felt for the poor maniac, and not the least, the kind-hearted Magistrate before w h o m he was arraigned, for in a subdued, softened voice he thus delivered j u d g m e n t : — " M y poor m a n you are to be pitied, a person with your good parts so besotten by drink as to be completely bereft of reason. Your exhibition before m e leaves little doubt of the superfluousness of a medical enquiry to ascertain your state of mind, but as the law requires it, you are remanded." W h e n under restraint he lost most of his Hibernian gush; and the caged eagle seemed as if deprived of the power of wing, brain and voice.
LLL