resuscitated hope, at any suggestion which offered a chance of escape from a life of crime to an existence even of privation. One of this class was lately brought before a police magistrate, charged with thieving, and he acknowledged the offence at once; he stated that he was a native of Limerick, that his mother was dead, and his father had gone to England about four years ago, and had not been heard of since; that he had walked to Dublin, and since his arrival, had lain in halls and dairy-yards at night, and had stolen whatever he could pilfer by day. He said "it would be a murther to beat him, that he was willing to work, and if he was sent aboard ship, he would go to any part of the world readily." He was a fine stout made boy, who, with good food, clothing, and instruction, would soon pull a rope or handle a capstan bar well; but although we are told that the navy is short of hands, that poor boy is feeding at the public expense in a prison, but he was not flogged.. It is horrible to think that in a Christian country there should be hundreds of children of both sexes left unreclaimed and uninstructed. Knowing the law, not in its protective influences, but in its punishments, they are living nuisances on our streets, and are reared by us to be adult miscreants, we repeat, reared, for they are supported by the public; to-day, upon the proceeds of an individual's rifled pocket-to-morrow, lodged and fed in a prison, where their criminal education is perfected by their depraved associations.

In listening to the summonses of a police court, we cannot fail to remark upon the mild and forgiving tendencies of the men, and the vindictive rancour of the women, of Dublin. The man claims the protection of the law; "he has no wish to injure the party he complains of, but he wants him bound to the peace, just to keep him quiet." The woman wants "the coorse of the law," and to have her adversary "chastised, and kept from killing the whole world, like a murdherin' vagabone as she is ; it's no use in talkin', but the street will never be quiet until she gets some little confinement just to larn her manners." Summonses for abusive language, or, as the fair complainants term it, "street scandal," are, perhaps, the most numerous cases as a class; and on the hearing of them, there is generally elicited an amount of vituperation beyond anything that Billingsgate could attempt to supply. In every case a total absence of chastity is imputed, as a matter of course; and if a foreigner would only believe both sides of a police summons book, he

would be forced to the conclusion, that chastity was a rare virtue amongst the lower order of Dublin females. Yet the contrary is the fact; furious in their resentments, uncontrollable in their invectives, and inveterately addicted to assassination of reputation, they are, in general, extremely chaste, and attest the value they attach to female virtue by invariably imputing its absence to their opponents. Sometimes, indeed, a novel term of reproach arouses volcanic fury, and an eruption of indignation is excited by the most extraordinary and unmeaning epithet. A late instance occurred of a fish-vender from Patrickstreet roaring to the magistrate, that if her enemy was not punished, her life, and her child's life (for she was enciente). would be lost. But what did she say? was the query. "What did she say! yer worship, what did she say! Why she come down forenenst the whole world at the corner of Plunket-street, and called me "a bloody ould excommunicated gasometer." We may mention, that as female invective generally ascribes incontinency to its opponent, so the male scolds, happily not very numerous, have their favorite term of reproach, and when they wish to destroy a man's reputation, they designate him a thief? no, a robber? no, a murderer ? no, they satiate all their malignity in calling him "an informer."

A late statute, which has enabled justices of peace to determine ejectments of tenements in cities and market towns, held at a rent not exceeding £1 per month, has produced a satisfactory alteration in the relation of landlord and tenant in the poorer portions of this city. Formerly, a regular notice to quit and a civil bill ejectment were requisite, and the landlords considered that process too tardy to get rid of an over-holding room-keeper. They accordingly ordered the defaulter out, and in case of refusal, war was declared. The door was sometimes torn off its hinges, the window sashes removed, and the grate taken away, the chimney was stopped above. If the landlord had possession of the room beneath, he broke upwards, and smoked the tenant out. If he had command of the room above, he raised the flooring, and deluged the luckless defaulter with water, not of the cleanest description: however, a few heavy fines checked this practice, and a total stop was put to it by the summary power of ejectment, on a magistrate's order. This law has been of great bencfit to landlord and tenant in the poorer localities. A man can now obtain a lodging with greater facility, as his landlord knows he may easily dispossess him in case of

non-payment of the rent; and the landlord lets his tenements at more moderate rents, as he has not the same risk as formerly, of having his premises unproductive until the execution of a civil bill decree.

We cannot avoid, when treating of police, to mention a body of men who are taxed very highly in Dublin, and are peculiarly under the control of the police authorities, we allude to the pawnbrokers, and we introduce them more readily to our readers' notice, because we believe they will bear a most favorable comparison with the members of the same trade in any other part of the empire. With many facilities, and still more numerous inducements, to shelter and screen depredators, they have long maintained a high reputation for strict integrity, and have manifested, almost invariably, the utmost readiness to assist in the detection of crime, and the repression of dishonesty. Within the last twenty years there was but one person in the pawnbroking trade who was supposed to be the willing recipient of stolen property, and he is not now in business. The pawnbrokers have, however, occasionally suffered from fraud or rapine; and in such cases, we regret to say, they have not met with more public sympathy than is expressed in a laugh at "my uncle." About four years ago some ingenious rogues cut out portions of tea and coffee pots, sugar bowls, ladles, &c., made of copper or Britannia metal, and grafted into the excised spaces pieces of silver taken out of articles of smaller size, and on which the genuine "hall marks" were impressed. These vessels were then subjected to the electro-plating process, and when well silvered, were pawned in various offices as real plate. In several instances the depositors brought them with the appearance of having been recently cleaned, and with some of the reddish "plate powder" still in the crevices and chasing of the articles. Upon such there was a sum of åbout £1,100 levied. It is needless to say that the pledges were never released, and that the lenders had not sixpence to the pound of real value for their advances. They are also occasionally deceived by borrowers who bring bundles of clothes to pawn, and regularly release them at a week's interval. At last the pawnbroker takes the bundle, pays the required and usual loan, and without examining it, throws it on his shelf. This continues for a week or two longer, and at last the bundle remains without redemption. Then "my uncle" finds that he has a bundle of rags,

or a piece of old carpet, instead of "the blue frock coat," or "the olive cloth cloak," upon which he thought his money was advanced. Latterly, however, the perpetration of this fraud has been very rare, the lenders are more 66 wide awake," and are seldom "done twice."

Let us now turn to that extraordinary body peculiar to Dublin peculiar in their slovenliness, their wit, their sobriety, their conversational powers, and quickness of repartee, their honesty, their union without combination, and their hatred of law-the carmen of the Irish metropolis. There is no subject, connected with the police of the city, more curious than the efforts heretofore vainly made to civilize this class of persons. They recoil from all authority, and are deaf to all advice. Their good qualities are their own, for they would not acquire them from any precept, or adopt them through any compulsion. They have a defence, satisfactory to their own minds, for every accusation, and an objection, quite valid in their own opinions, to every improvement. There is not a police constable employed on carriage duty that would not gladly relinquish it for any other service, however slavish; and no one has attempted to regulate them without being convinced that, at the end of his exertions, he had only "his labor for his pains." The difficulty of managing these men may be gathered from the following instances:

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When a Dublin carman is summoned by a police constable, he almost invariably meets the accusation by a direct contradiction, and generally offers to swear to his statement. If he is called upon to answer for being shabbily dressed, and dirty in his apparel, he buys or borrows a good suit of clothes, shaves, and puts on a clean shirt, and then states boldly to the magistrate that he was just in the same state when "the policeman wrote him," and "that if he's let to the book he'll swear it." If he is summoned for being absent from his beast and vehicle, he insists that he was "holding a lock of hay" to his horse all the time. If the complaint is for furious driving, the defence is set up that "the baste" was dead lame, that it was just after taking up a nail, and was on three legs "when he was wrote." If it is alleged that the horse was in wretched condition, and unfit to ply for public accommodation, he expresses his wonder that any fault should be found with a horse that could "row" four to the Curragh and back, without "turning a hair." Whatever statement is made for the

defence, it is one that evinces imaginative power, for the plain, dull truth is never permitted the slightest admixture in the excuse offered; and even when the truth would amount to a defence, it is discarded "upon principle." A fellow waiting at a corn shop for a feed of oats declares that he was only ordering "a mash of bran ;" his impression being that the truth is unlucky; besides, he never hears any one else telling truth, and why should he be singular? An old man named Pat Markey, formerly belonging to Baggot-street stand, and now some years dead, made a statement on one occasion utterly at variance with all probability, and directly opposed to the evidence adduced against him; however, upon the prosecutor's own showing, the case was dismissed, as the charge was not legally sustained. Pat was then asked why he did not tell the truth, as it would have been better for him, upon which he exclaimed-" Musha, cock him up with the truth! that's more than ever I towld a magistrate yit." A Dublin carman never mentions the offence for which he is punished; he always substitutes for it the inducement which caused him to commit the fault. A fellow goes into a tobacconist's, and while he is making his purchase, his horse moves on, and is stopped by a constable, who summons the driver. A fine is imposed, and if the mulcted party is afterwards asked what it was for, his reply is, "for taking a blast of the pipe." Another, on a Saturday evening, leaves his horse and car to mind themselves, and betakes himself to a barber's shop to have the week's growth taken off his chin, and when punished for being absent from his vehicle, he tells his friends that the "polis wrote him" for getting himself shaved. And on Sunday morning, a devotional feeling prompts him to get "a mouthful of prayers," whilst his beast is left, without any control, upon the public street, he expresses his indignation at a consequent fine "for going to Mass," with, perhaps, the remark, that when such things can be done, there is very little use in having a Catholic Commissioner.

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It is perfectly impossible to adapt the existing law, or perhaps any other, effectually to compel the Dublin carmen to keep themselves in a cleanly, respectable attire, or their vehicles in proper order. When summoned, and fined, their comments evince the inutility of the punishment. The magistrate enunciates, "Your car has been proved to be in a most disgraceful state, and I shall fine you ten shillings." The car