OUR IRISH LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 47, 23 November 1905, Page 9

OUR IRISH LETTER

(From our own correspondent.) Dublin, October, 1905

The Dublin Police. Ours is the most finely policed country in the world. This is a fact there is no denying, and little wonder it should be so, when we consider the money our police cost the "miserable taxpayer, ■whom these splendid men do not condescend to protect. Every now and again gangs of professional thieves migrate to Dublin from other shores and carry on scientific shop-liftings and so on ; some of our own more ambitious outcasts try to imitate, and succeed fairly, but these things our splendid ' force ' do not meddle with. Such work would be too exciting, and the K.I.C. and Metropolitan forces have to keep up two things at a high standard : their own fine physique, and some show of crime in the country for the money. Just hear what the strapping fellows cost Dublin alone, especially of late years, when the number of our convicts has dwindled down so perceptibly that one sometimes wonders why 50- policemen could not do the actual work required. In the year 1850, immediately following the famine years, when there was such poverty in Ireland thai one should expect much more crime than now, the police tax for the city of Dublin was £71,900, levied for the support and administration of 1137 men. Since 1850 the number of this force has been increased by only 38 men, and now the citizens arc taxed for the maintenance and administration of 1175 men £162,960 per annum !.

In 1850 the police tax for Dublin Avas eightpence in the pound on the valuation. Of late years the city population has gone up by leaps and bounds ; so also has the valuation increased, but though the numbers of the D.M.P. have only been augmented by .38 men, the eightpence in the pound on the increased \aluation has remained unchanged, with the* above startling result.

A Practical Protest

Oh, yes, this £162,960 per annum is not paid by the Dublin taxpayer for nothing. We had a most amusing, if not very dignified scene in a law court this week when, for the crime of having his Irish name painted in Irish letters and orthography upon his business cart, a City Alderman was fined a certain sum and costs. As a protest against this high-handed proceeding, the Alderman refused to pay until foiccd to do so The Alderman considered he had a right to ha"\e his name printed in Irish. The ice cream man is an Italian and has his name in Italian on his cart. The Alderman is a "trader and deals in fruit. The D.M.P lose to the occasion, seued a quantity of the Alderman's fruit, and had it sold by public auction at well known salesrooms, where a crowd o£ Gaelic Leaguers attended for the fun of the thing, and to them the bidding was left and was conducted in pure Gaelic, and although this novel auction was called to uphold the dignity of the law as against the Irish language, lo and behold ! the auctioneer responded to the bids in equally puie Gaelic, and, to the great amusement of the public, the whole business was conducted in the language that the court which ordered the auction had decided to be unlawful for public purposes. Now it remains to be seen, was the auction legal ?

The Weather

Nine months of the year 1905 have passed : the fairest year, as to weather, the proverbial oldest inhabitant remembers. We had such warm days last Christmas and New Year that thcic was no wearing furs for comfort, and from then till now, with scarce twenty, days' exception in all, we have had summer weather, too hot, indeed, in June, July, and August for most people accustomed to such a temperate climate. For weeks together we never saw lain, a thing that does not suit a little country so drained by rivers as ours, yet, on the whole, our farmers arc not ill-pleased with the crops ; where one yield was not up to the mark, others balanced matters in most country districts. Never did I see such a splendid turf year, and what that means to the poor in many parts of Ireland is well known ; a blazing fire makes up for many a defect.

Disastrous Flood

The long drought was the cause of one sad disaster in Bray, County Wicklow, through a certain part of which the Bray River, fed by mountain streams, runs into the sea. The continuous dry weather had hardened the surface of the country so that, when three days of something like tropical rains came towards the end of

summer, instead of sinking*, into the earth the waters simply flowed off, as if from stones, into every available channel. These streams, swollen into torrents, rush-t ing down from the Wicklow Mountains into the Bray River, suddenly, caused a rush of waters into Little Bray, an old, low-lying district through which the river flows. There was no warning, there were no previous signs of any such rush ; dams were suddenly burst and, at 10 o'clock at night, a flood many feet deep, swamping houses and carrying all before it, caused a fearful. scene in this district, crowded by the working classes, hundreds of whom in a few seconds found themselves floundering about in deep waters, the situation rendered far more appalling by the utter darkness of an autumn night, foi the ga.s woiks weie flooded and the whole neighborhood plunged in darkness. The scene was truly an awful one, for hundreds of poor people, men, women, and children, were struggling for life, unable for a time to see what was to be done, where to grasp at anything offering assistance. Add to this the terrors of fathers and mothers, the cries of little children, the babel of sounds from drowning fowls" and other domestic animals, the rush ofc noisy waters, the exclamations of some 2000 inhabitants from richer Bray, who rushed to the spot and worked gallantly for the rescue, and you have some little idea of what that night was. Everything was literally destroyed : furniture, clothing, food, live slock* business stocks of. various kinds— all was gone, and in one hour 600 people were left utterly destitute. Yet, strange to say, so bravely did fathers and mothers act and so gallant were the rescuing parties, that but one life was/ lost, and that by the man's own over-daring. Had the disaster occurred two hours later on in the night, it is believed that nearly all would have perished, as the people of both towns would have been in bed and none from Upper Bray would ha\e known of the calamity in time to come to the rescue. With their usual inexhaustible charity the citizens of Dublin have subscribed magnificently for the present needs of the sufferers, and her Majesty the Queen most kindly sen If £10,0 Of course the county will have heavy taxes to meet for re-building, etc. , It is strange that, with but a comparatively few miles between England and Ireland, in many parts of the former the summer was cold, wet, and generally unpleasant.