Tory Island, William Dargan, Bianconi, Sheridan Knowles.

Chapter XV

Tory Island: its king, customs, and captive - William Dargan: his career and achievements - Agricultural and Industrial experiments - Bianconi, the carman - Sheridan Knowles: his absence of mind - Absent-minded gentlemen - Legal complications - Judges and barristers - Lord Norbury.

It was when on an inspection for the Irish Light Board, upwards of 30 years ago, that I visited Tory Island, which lies well out in the Atlantic, some seven miles off the extreme north-west corner of Ireland. The cliffs, on the north of the island, are very fine; the south, where we landed, is flat. The islanders, with very few exceptions, spoke only Irish. Their carts had no wheels; they were what are called sleigh carts, the shafts being prolonged till they touched the ground, beyond which point they were turned up, and had a sort of creel laid on them, in which the load was carried. I was very anxious to see the famous king of Tory Island, of whom I had heard, a very diminutive man, almost a dwarf, but of much intelligence. I was, however, disappointed, as his Majesty was too drunk to give an audience to visitors. He had, for two days previously, been in bed in that condition. At the time of my visit the islanders were in much anxiety about their fuel, as their turf bog was all but exhausted, and after a year or two they would have no turf. I hear they now get coal by a steamer, on her voyage from the Clyde to Sligo. I was told that some of the priests who had been stationed on the island had, from utter loneliness, taken to imbibing poteen whisky a little too freely, thereby causing scandal, and that the bishop had, for a time at least, withdraw-n the clergy from the island, leaving the inhabitants to make the most of the ministrations of the priest of the parish nearest to them on the main laud, who visited them from time to time as the weather permitted.

In the south and west of Ireland marriages amongst the peasantry, with rare exceptions, take place during Shrove-tide. Many of the people think it would not be lucky to be married at any other time of the year; consequently the priest always, when it was possible, visited the island during Shrove for the purpose of solemnizing any weddings which had been arranged. It, however, sometimes happened that the weather was so stormy for weeks together that no boat could approach the island, so it had been arranged that, when this occurred, the engaged couples should at an appointed hour assemble on the east shore of the island, while the priest, standing on the shore of the main land opposite to them, read the marriage ceremony across the water. As soon as the storm abated he went to the island and did whatever more was necessary to render the marriages valid in the eye of the law and of the Church. I cannot vouch for the truth of this, though I heard it from a very trustworthy man. He said the young people were not considered really married till after the visit of the priest; but that they liked to be, at all events, partly married before Shrove was over.

The following occurrence I know took place, not more than eight years ago. A boat, rowed by some Tory islanders, arrived at Gweedore, which is about 16 miles from the island, in quest of a doctor, whom they found and brought back with them to Tory. His help was wanted for one of the chief men there, who was very ill. The doctor’s people expected him home that evening or, at latest, next morning; but for five days he never appeared. His friends and patients grew uneasy about him, they knew it was not the weather that kept him from returning, for it happened to be particularly fine; so a friend of mine, and some others rowed off to Tory Island to seek for him. There they found him a prisoner. It appears that immediately after his visit the sick man began to amend, and next morning was very nearly well; but the islanders were so delighted and charmed with the doctor and with his wonderful skill, that they determined to keep him permanently with them. They lodged him in their best house, gave him the best food they had, with whisky unlimited; and nothing he could say would induce them to take him back to Gweedore. His friends, however, rescued him and brought him safely home.

In the course of my work as an engineer, amongst others I made two friends, both long since dead, of whom I think I may here say a few words. They were both remarkable men; both self-made men. The one was William Dargan, the great Irish railway contractor; the other the well-known coach and car proprietor, Charles Bianconi.

Dargan was the son of a tenant farmer, in the county of Carlow. At a school near his house he received a sound elementary education, and from early years showed special aptitude for figures. After leaving school he obtained a subordinate appointment - that of timekeeper, if I remember rightly - on the great Holyhead Road, under Telford, the engineer. His intelligence, and the trust which he inspired, so pleased Telford that a few years later, when the new mail-coach road was about to be made from Dublin to Howth Harbour, from whence the packets carrying the mails for London were to start, he entrusted to Dargan the superintendence of the work. So satisfactory was his performance of his duties that, on the completion of the road, the Treasury granted him a gratuity of £300 in addition to his salary. This was the capital upon which he commenced his career as a contractor. His first, or almost his first, contract was for an embankment on the river Shannon, near Limerick, in which Lord Monteagle and Sir Matthew Barrington were interested; and so struck were they with the manner in which he carried out the work, and the straightforwardness with which he settled his accounts, that they became through life his fast friends. His first large undertaking was the construction of the railway from Dublin to Kingstown, which was begun in 1831, and was the first passenger railway made in Ireland, and the second in the Three Kingdoms. From this time forward he found no difficulty in obtaining large contracts in every part of Ireland. He had two, amounting together to over a million sterling, with the Great Southern and Western Railway Company and the Midland Company; and others which in those days were considered large, with most of the other railway companies in Ireland. I have settled as engineer for different companies many of his accounts, involving many hundred thousand pounds. His thorough honesty, his willingness to yield a disputed point, and his wonderful rapidity of decision, rendered it a pleasure, instead of a trouble, as it generally is, to settle these accounts; indeed, in my life I have never met a man more quick in intelligence, more clear sighted, and more thoroughly honourable.

By the year 1849 he had amassed a large fortune, and he at once turned his attention to the manner in which he could best apply it in benefiting his country. The first project which suggested itself to him was to introduce into the south of Ireland the culture of flax, which had rendered the north so prosperous. He took a large farm near Kildinan, some 10 miles north of Cork, which he at once laid out for flax cultivation, and on which he erected scutch mills. He then offered to supply all the farmers through that part of the country with flax seed at his own expense, and to purchase their crops from them at the current market price in Belfast, and this he undertook to do for at least two years. Very few farmers, however, accepted his offer and made the experiment even in the first year, and scarcely any in the second, and the project became a total failure. It is difficult to understand why this should have been so, unless it was due to the fear that the flax crop might exhaust the laud, and to the inveterate dislike of the southern farmers to try any new experiment; for it is with them a fixed conviction that it is best for them to go on, as they themselves express it, “as we did ever and always.”

There was nothing in the soil or climate to prevent the successful cultivation of flax, for though its growth in the south of Ireland had altogether ceased for many years, yet I can remember the time when every farmer, no matter how small his holding, had a plot of flax, from which all the linen required for his household was manufactured, the spinning being done by his wife and daughters, and the weaving by the local weavers, of whom there were then numbers in every part of the country.

Dargan’s next project for his country’s good was a thoroughly successful one. It was the great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin in the year 1853, all expenses in connection with which, including the erection of the building itself, were defrayed by him. It was opened by her Majesty the Queen and the Prince Consort, who came to Ireland expressly for the purpose. They did Dargan the honour of visiting him and Mrs. Dargan at his beautiful residence, Mount Anville, a few miles from Dublin. Her Majesty wished him to accept a baronetcy, which he declined, at the same time expressing his gratitude for this mark of her Majesty’s approval. The Queen then announced to him her intention to present him with a bust of herself and also one of the Prince Consort; and, with her usual thoughtful kindness, desired that he should select the sculptor by whom they were to be executed. He, from his friendship for the man, selected Johnny Jones, of whom I have already said much.

His next project was the establishment of a great thread factory at Chapelizod, near Dublin, where he purchased, and added to large mill premises, and, at great expense, fitted them with all the necessary machinery. It may have been that the demand for thread was sufficiently supplied by the English manufacturers; but whether it was from this or from other causes, the undertaking completely failed.

After this Dargan, unfortunately for himself, threw all his energies into the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway, in which he invested nearly his whole fortune, and of which he became chairman. In connection with this line he spent large sums on the improvement of Bray, the now well-known watering-place on the coast about midway between Dublin and Wicklow. He built the Turkish baths (now the assembly rooms) at a cost of £8,000, and also a handsome terrace. He made the esplanade, which has since been secured by a sea-wall and much improved by the energetic town commissioners. He also aided largely in providing first-rate hotel accommodation there. This expenditure, though large, would not have seriously impaired his means had the railway proved as successful as he hoped it would have done; but the great depression in railway property, which began about that time, so lowered the value of all his investments that they for a time became of little worth; and this remarkable man (for a remarkable man he was) a few years later died comparatively poor, and, to use his own words, “of a broken heart.”

I had almost forgotten to mention two of his favourite maxims. These were “A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar,” and “Never show your teeth unless you can bite.” On these, as he himself often told me, he had acted from early years, and it was to them that he attributed much of his success in life.

There is a statue of Dargan by Johnny Jones in front of the National Gallery in Dublin.

Charles Bianconi, a native of Tregolo, a village in the Duchy of Milan, arrived in Ireland in 1802, at the age of 15, as an apprentice, with other Italian boys, to one Andrea Faroni, a dealer in prints and statuettes. These boys were employed in travelling about the country selling their master’s wares, Bianconi’s district lying principally in the counties of Wexford and Waterford. After about two years he left Faroni and started a similar business on his own account. In 1806 he settled in Carrick-on-Suir, in the county of Tipperary, and in the following year he went to Clonmel.

In his many journeys from town to town he often felt the want of any means of conveyance for travellers, the only public vehicles of any kind being the few mail and stage coaches on the main roads. In 1815 Bianconi started a one-horse stage car, carrying six passengers, between Clonmel and Cahir; and the experiment was so successful that before the end of the year he had several similar cars plying between different towns in Tipperary and Waterford. This business prospered to such an extent that by the year 1843 his cars - many of them carrying 20 passengers and drawn by four horses - were plying from market town to market town over the whole south and west of Ireland and a considerable portion of the north. It was on some journey on one of these cars that I first made his acquaintance.

They were well known throughout Ireland as Bianconi’s cars, and even after the development of railways he still ran his cars and various coaches to the different railway termini. At one time his vehicles were performing journeys daily of over 4,000 miles in twenty-two different counties, and he used to frequently boast, to the credit of the peasantry, that no injury whatever had been done to any of his property in all these districts.

I met him often afterwards, and had many opportunities of noticing the quick intelligence which had led to his success. But with all his cleverness he combined a kindness and simplicity of character rarely met with. He realized a fortune, and purchased an estate on the banks of the Suir, in the county of Tipperary. I have often heard him talk of the struggles of his early days; and he used to delight in showing to his guests the pack which he had carried when selling his wares as a boy. The following is a characteristic letter, written in his eighty-first year, and the last I ever had from him:-

“Longfield, 10 10.69.

“My Dear Sir,

“I learn with great pleasure your being in the country, and if you condescend to visit a *carmen’s stage, *I will drive you from this to Ballygriffin (five miles), where the late Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, pending his father’s lifetime, supported himself and his large family on the salmon he caught in that beautiful spot, and which is strictly preserved by yours

“Very truly, -

“Charles Biaconi.

“W. R. La Fanu, Esq.

“And we will bring Morgan John O’Connell, who is at present at home, with us.”

Another friend of mine, of whom I saw a good deal at this time, was Sheridan Knowles, the dramatist. He was one of the most absent-minded I ever knew. Mrs. Norton and her sister, Lady Dufferin, were engaged to dine with him, and he was in the evening to read aloud to them one of his plays, which he had just finished. When the day came Knowles forgot all about it, dined early with his family, as his custom was, and was just sitting down to tea at eight o’clock when his two guests arrived. He was so much put out that he did not know what to say or do; but they were so pleasant and so full of fun, that they soon put him at his. ease. They protested that they much preferred tea to dinner, and before they went praised his play so much that he was as happy as a king.

Some time afterwards a still more awkward incident occurred. He was walking down Regent Street with a friend, when a gentleman stopped him and said

You’re a pretty fellow, Knowles.”

“Why? What have I done?” said Knowles.

“Only kept us waiting dinner on Wednesday from half-past seven till eight, and never came.”

“Good heavens!” said Knowles; “I forgot all about it. Ah, my dear fellow, can you ever forgive me?”

“I can and will,” said the other, “on one condition - that you dine with me at half-past seven next Wednesday.”

“Thank you, my dear friend; I shall be delighted.”

“Don’t forget half-past seven, Wednesday. Good-bye,” said the gentleman, and off he went.

Knowles, in much excitement, turned to his friend and said, “Isn’t this absence of mind a dreadful calamity Just think of my having kept that dear fellow and his family waiting for me in that way! By-the-by, do you know who he was?”

“No,” said his friend.

“By Jove, no more do I!” said Knowles, and ran after the man as fast as he could go. But he had gone so far that Knowles could neither see nor catch him.

At one time he went on the stage, and used to act in his own plays *Virginius, William Tell, *and *The Hunchback. *One night, when he was to act *The Hunchback *in Dublin, I went into his dressing-room at the Theatre Royat and found him in a state of great agitation.

“Look at me, William - look at me,” said he, stretching out his right leg, on which was a red stocking the other leg was bare.

“What is the matter?” I said.

“Ah,” said he, “isn’t an actor’s a fearful life? The other stocking is lost. The overture has begun. I must put on black stockings, and in five minutes go on the stage to disgrace myself. The part was never acted in black stockings. Oh! like a dear fellow, pull off this red one.”

This I did, and under it was the lost one. He had put the two on one leg!

One evening I heard his daughters say to him that they were sure that a Mr. H--- ,who was a constant visitor at the house, had false whiskers. Knowles was indignant, and said that H--- ‘was above any such nonsense as that. Half an hour later H--- came in. Knowles at once went up to him and said, “My dear boy, these girls of mine have been taking away your character. They say that these are false.” As he said this he took hold of one of H---‘s whiskers, which came off in his hand. The girls flew from’ the room, leaving their father to explain as best he could.

Another absent-minded man was one of the Battersbys, of the county of Meath. On a very wet day he came into my office, and, as he was going, put on his hat and took his umbrella in his hand. My hat and umbrella were on a table near the door. As he said good-bye to me he took up my umbrella, and was going off with an umbrella in each hand. “Wet as it is,” I said, “won’t you find two umbrellas rather too much?” “A thousand pardons,” he said. “I’m always doing these absent sort of things.” He put down my umbrella and took up my hat, and was walking off with two hats, one on his head, the other in his hand. I said, “I’m afraid you’ll find two hats as inconvenient as two umbrellas.”

But more absent-minded than either he or Knowles was a Mr. Shaw of the post-office department in Edinburgh, who, as Professor Rankin told me, sometimes forgot his own name. One day, as he was on his way to visit Smith of Deanstone, he met a man who he thought was an acquaintance of his, and put out his hand to shake hands with him.

“I do not think, sir,” said the man, “I have the honour of your acquaintance.”

“Oh, indeed you have,” said Shaw. “Don’t you know me? I’m Smith of Deanstone.”

“Then, sir,” said the other, “I do not know you.”

Shaw had not gone many paces, when it flashed across his mind that he had said the wrong name. He ran after the man, overtook him, and, giving him a slap on the back, said, “What an ass I am! I’m not Smith of Deanstone; I’m Shaw of the post-office.”

“I don’t care a d—n who you are, sir; but I wish you’d let me alone,” said the other.

An intimate friend of Knowles was Young, the well-known actor. We went to see him taking his farewell of the Dublin audience. It was said that the reason for his retirement was that he had married a rich widow - a Mrs. Winterbottom - whose name he was reported to have taken. On this farewell night he was acting his favourite part, “Zanga,” in *The Revenge. *His opening speech began in this way: “‘Tis twice ten years since that great man - great let me call him, for he conquered me - made me the prisoner of his arm in fight. He slew my father and threw chains o’er me. I then was young.” Here he was interrupted by a voice from the gallery crying out, “And now you’re Winterbottom.” I do not think he, in fact, took the name, for I met him years after still “Young.”

Once I heard an amusing mistake in a name. As I walked up Whitehall with Sir Matthew Barrington and a Mr. Jeffers, Fonblanque passed by and nodded to me. “Do you know who that was?” said Sir Matthew to Jeffers. “No,” said Jeffers. “Who was he?” “A remarkable man,” said Sir Matthew. “That is Blanc-mange of the *Examiner.” *“No, no,” said I - “Fonblanque.” “Oh, of course!” said Sir M.; “but I never can remember names.”

The well-known Irish judge, the late Judge B--- was neither absent-minded nor forgetful of names, but had a peculiarity of his own; this was that he constantly misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, what witnesses examined before him said. Many are the stories told of him, amongst others the following:-

At the Kildare Assizes at Naas a serious assault case was tried. Two men had quarrelled in a hayfield, where they were mowing, and one of them had nearly killed the other. A witness was asked how the quarrel began. He said that Cassidy had called Murphy a liar, and that then Murphy hit Cassidy with a scythe-board.

“Stop a moment; let me understand,” said the judge. “Did Murphy lift up a sideboard and hit Cassidy with. it?”

Witness. “He did, my lord.”

*Judge. *“How did it happen that there was a sideboard out in the field ?”

Witness. “We does alvays have them there, my lord, when we do be mowing.”

*Judge. *“For what purpose?”

*Witness.. *“To sharpen our scythes, my lord.”

Counsel then, with some difficulty, made the judge understand that the witness meant a scythe-board, and not a sideboard.

Another case was one in which a man was indicted for robbery at the house of a poor widow. The first witness was her young daughter, who identified the prisoner as the man who had come into the house and broken her mother’s chest. *

Judge. *“Do you say that the prisoner at the bar broke your mother’s chest?”

*Witness. *“He did, my lord. He jumped on it till he smashed it entirely.”

*Judge (to Counsel). *“How is this? Why is not the prisoner indicted for murder? If he smashed this poor woman’s chest, in the way the witness has described, he must surely have killed her.”

*Counsel. *“My lord, it was a wooden chest.”

In the north of Ireland the peasantry pronounce the word witness “wetness.” At Derry Assizes a man said he had brought his “wetness” with him to corroborate his evidence.

“Bless me,” said the judge, “about what age are you?”

Witness. “Forty-two my last birthday, my lord.”

Judge. “Do you mean to tell the jury that at that age you still have a wet nurse?”

Witness. “Of course I have, my lord.”

Counsel hereupon interposed and explained.

Another case was also in the north where “mill” is often pronounced “mull.” The point at issue was whether a mill had been burned accidentally or maliciously. Dowse (afterwards Baron Dowse), as counsel for the miller, was trying to show that it must have been burnt maliciously, and that the contention of the opposite side, that it was an accident caused by the machinery becoming over-heated, was untenable. He asked a witness whether he had happened to feel the gudgeons (part of the machinery) before he left the place. *

Witness*. ” I did sir.” I

Dowse. “In what state were they?”

Witness. “Perfectly cool.”

Judge. “I want to understand, Mr. Dowse, what gudgeons are?”

Dowse. “Little fishes, my lord.”

Judge. “Then of course they were cool.”

Dowse (to witness). “In what state were the premises and the machinery that evening when you left?”

Witness. “All the machinery was perfectly right and cool, and the whole mull was as right as a trivet.”

*Judge. *“Stop a moment; this is ‘the first time we have heard of the mull. What is a mull, Mr. Dowse?”

*Dowse. *“What you are making of this case, my lord.”

Perhaps the most remarkable of all the stories told of this judge is the following. At the assizes at Clonmel, several men were indicted for manslaughter. The evidence went to show that all the prisoners had been in the fight against the man who had been killed. A witness was asked whether he could swear that the prisoner, Pat Ryan, had done anything to the deceased man. “Yes,” he said, “when poor Ned Sullivan was lying on the ground, welthering in his blood, Pat Ryan came up and gave him a wipe of a clay alpin on the back of his head.” The prisoners were convicted, and heavy sentences passed on all except Pat Ryan, whom the judge addressed in these words

“Your case, Patrick Ryan, the court has taken into its merciful consideration, for though you were one of the party engaged in this terrible affair in which Sullivan lost his life, it appears that towards the end of the fight you were moved with compassion, for it has been distinctly proved by one of the witnesses for the prosecution, that when the unfortunate man was lying on the ground, bleeding from his wounds, you came behind him and wiped his head with a clean napkin.”

He would have proceeded to pass a much lighter sentence on Ryan than he had passed on the others had he not been stopped by counsel who explained to him that a clay alpin is a heavy loaded strick, and that the “wipe” which Ryan had given Sullivan with it was in all probability his death-blow.

Many are the stories I have heard of judges and barristers in former days. Though some of them are well known, I shall venture to give a few which may be new to my readers. One of the best was connected with a case tried (in Limerick, I think) before Chief Baron O’Grady. Bushe was making a speech for the defence, when an ass began to bray loudly outside the court. “Wait a moment,” said the Chief Baron. “One at a time, Mr. Bushe, if you please.” When O’Grady was charging the jury, the ass again began to bray, if possible more loudly than before. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” said Bushe, “may I ask you to repeat your last words; there is such an echo in this court I did not quite catch them.”

Of Lord Norbury, the hanging judge, it was said that he was only once in his life known to shed tears, and that was at the theatre, at *The Beggar’s Opera, *when the reprieve arrives for Captain Macheath.

When the income tax was about to be extended to Ireland, John Ryan, reader to the Court of Chancery, a very stingy old gentleman, was very much excited about it. “But,” said he to a friend, “how will they find out what my income is?” “You’ll be put on your oath to declare it, Mr. Ryan,” said his friend. “Oh, will they leave it to my oath?” said Ryan, and walked off in high glee.

Witnesses try in various ways to avoid taking what they consider a binding oath. A favourite plan supposed to relieve them from all obligation is, when being sworn, to kiss the thumb instead of kissing the book. Before Baron Pennefather, at Tralee Assizes, a witness did so. One of the counsel said, “The witness kissed his thumb, my lord.” “Why did the witness kiss his thumb?” asked the baron. “He is blind of an eye, my lord,” replied Mr. Hurley, the clerk of the Crown.

To Chapter 16. Le Fanu Index Home.