Lord Chief Justice O'Brien

Chapter XXXIV

Lord Chief Justice O’Brien

Work at the Bar often furnished distraction from anxieties of larger concern. At the Kildare Assizes I defended a handsome English girl accused by the Post Office of embezzlement for failing to enter Savings Bank deposits in the books of her office at the Curragh.

Her guilt on the documents seemed arguable, but starry was her beauty. Her father came to Ireland in tribulation. He was a manufacturer of high standing, and did not know that Irish juries and judges always favoured English defendants. The best advice I could give him was that the girl should appear in court dressed for a “breach of promise” suit.

Under the old regime the Crown solicitor of each county “saw” the Judge before the Assize, and gave his opinion on the guilt or innocence of the persons awaiting trial, with their previous history. This custom was so cherished that no prisoner expected fair play, believing that the Judge’s mind had been poisoned in advance.

At the girl’s trial the Prosecutor for the Post Office opened with a statement to which I took objection. Lord O’Brien was judge, and I asked would he allow the Crown to prejudice an English girl by an illegality which would never have been practised had she been an Irishwoman?

This gave the Chief Justice an opening for a deliverance in which he told the jury not to pay attention to the statement so properly objected to, and, if necessary, he would reserve for another court the point whether it had unduly affected their minds.

Perturbed by this the Post Office Counsel made another slip, and again I rose to protest. Lord O’Brien then declared that in his experience no statement so palpably unjust to the accused had ever been advanced. I was later told of the gratitude shining from my client’s eyes. A third objection I made was also upheld, so I suggested that perhaps His Lordship would adjourn for lunch to give time to the lady’s Counsel to consider the true course for the defence after the illegal allegations of the prosecution.

“Certainly,” he burst out, “you are entitled to an adjournment, and when the case is resumed I will see that this English girl receives justice.” Leaving the Bench, his face mantled to the colour of his robes as he cast a pitying glance at the fair tenant of the dock. He then sent for the prosecuting Counsel and myself, and thundered in his room: “In my opinion, after the errors of statement committed to the prejudice of this girl, in the unlikely event of her being convicted, I shall release her under the First Offenders Act. If, however, on the Leinster Circuit a spark of the chivalrous traditions of the Irish Bar still flickers, you will enter a Nolle frosequi and let her go back to her parents uncondemned.”

The Counsel for the Post Office, a strong Tory, unwillingly acquiesced. So the prisoner left the court without a stain on her character. The postal officials, who had come specially from London to secure a conviction, were disgusted, being satisfied that she would get no quarter in an Irish Court. when she swept out of the dock after release in a grand picture-hat to receive congratulations, vanity overcame me.

Lord O’Brien was surcharged with human traits, although regarded by some Nationalists as a monster.

I was counsel before him to prove the will of Father Foley, P. P., of Tarbert, which was challenged by relatives. The deceased (over 90 years of age) had made his will on a Saturday a few hours before death On the question of “capacity” Lord O’Brien was adverse. Yet we proved that Father Foley had said Mass on the previous Wednesday, had gone to a funeral on Thursday, where he got a bad wetting, and that on Friday he backed a bill for a parishioner at the bank, and only took to his bed on Saturday.

Lord O’Brien, having regard to his age, was not impressed. Finally in despair I called the village blacksmith or carpenter, who, without schooling or questioning, began: “My Lord, when I went into Father John’s room it was dark, and sez I to him, ‘I’m sorry to see you so low, Father John.’

“‘Now, Michael,’ said he, ‘put away these gloomy thoughts. This world is nothing to me. I have made my peace with God, but tell me how my dogs ran at Birr yesterday.’”

“Did he say that? ” asked the Judge.

“He did, my Lord, for he always was a great priest to follow greyhounds, and I trained his dogs for him, and you should see him jumping hedges and ditches in his old age.”

“A glorious old man! “said Lord O’Brien. The will was upheld.

In a feud in Co. Clara between a National schoolmistress and the holder of a local post office (both old maids) the ” Packer” was superb. Each woman envied the gown or the bonnet worn by the other, and both were in the service of the State. The aim of each was to get the other dismissed.

Lord O’Brien told me that one day the schoolmistress entered the post office and threw down a penny rudely, saying, “Stamp.” The postmistress laid the stamp on the counter, whence it was blown off, but she refused to pick it up. Hot words followed.

The schoolmistress was wearing an exceptionally “fetching” hat, and an encounter ensued in which the hat was damaged and the wearer thrust forth. She reported the outrage to Dublin, where the Secretary to the General Post Office, Mr. Egerton, was an English Catholic of the most scrupulous type. He was horrified and issued an order that if such a thing again occurred the postmistress must be dismissed.

A year went by without incident, until the schoolmistress equipped herself with some new Parisian “creation,” and re-entered the post office in its splendour. “Stamp,” said she, flinging the penny on the counter so vigorously that it fell on the other side.

“Where’s your penny? ” said the postmistress. “On your side,” was the answer. “Come and pick it up,” was the reply.

“I won’t,” said the schoolmistress. ” Then you’ll get no stamp.”

The Abbey Players only could do justice to the scene which followed, wherein the schoolmistress left with her Parisian” creation” crumpled. She sent a report to Dublin accusing the postal virago of assault, and Mr. Egerton again was shocked. So he despatched an inspector to examine the facts, and received a report that there were few extenuating circumstances. The postmistress was, therefore, notified that if another case of the kind occurred out she must go, without pension.

Her enemy knew this, and lay in wait for a third crusade. Both women had grown old, but the frocks of the schoolmistress were still more effulgent than those of her rival. It was “do or die” between them.

Wherefore the educator of youth anew entered the post office, and flung down a copper, saying, “Stamp,” and again the coin hopped off the counter. Neither lady spoke, and the postmistress turned to other duties. “Are you going to give me a stamp?” said the schoolmistress. “Yes, when you pay me,” was the answer. “I paid you long ago, you old so-and so.” Then “thundered wars, red lightnings,” and in a few seconds there was not a “stitch” on the back of the schoolmistress.

Complaint went once more to Mr. Egerton, who decided that the dismissal of the postmistress was urgent. Her wits, however, were sharp, and she wrote to Lord Chief Justice O’Brien:

“Mr. Peter, - I am in trouble with the Postmaster-General. You promised to help me if I needed it. I need it now.”

Ignoring all questions of right and wrong, Lord O’Brien approached the Secretary to the G.P.O., Mr. Egerton, believing that his influence was all-powerful. Egerton told him, however, that the third complaint was one impossible to overlook, and that he would forward that evening to London a recommendation for the lady’s dismissal. Peter, however, conceived that if his intervention was ignored, all Clare would become aware of his defeat, and what then would become of British interests?

Should his word not outweigh that of a postal official, his authority perished. If the bonnet of a schoolmistress could offset the wig of the Lord Chief Justice, British might disappeared, and its supporters must abandon the country.

To London that night he went, and next day saw the Postmaster-General. “A rugged fellow,” he called that potentate. For the London Authority approved of the decision to dismiss the postmistress. The world seemed crumbling under Peter’s feet. Still he took thought and made a pilgrimage to the House of Commons to see his old master, Arthur Balfour, now Prime Minister.

Balfour, oppressed by the weight of Empire, was disposed to forget that he had been Irish Secretary, and that Peter had been his Attorney-General. Wherefore the Lord Chief Justice weightily told him the facts, and that they were no trifles, for a postmistress-ship in Clare, his native county, was blocked by St. Martin’s-le-Grand. “I have seen your Postmaster-General,” he complained, “who depends on his advisers in Dublin, all English. I want you to yield to me. It would be an opprobrium on law in Ireland were it to become known that a request from the Lord Chief Justice in favour of a humble official was rejected by the Government. I do not say or know who is right, or who is wrong. The squabble has only become serious because I have intervened, but I have intervened. All Clara knows this. I may be wrong for supporting a friend, but that cannot be helped. It is no small trouble for me to travel to London to help a poor woman earning less than a pound a week. Neither as to beauty nor age has she the advantage of her fellow-disputant. I am convinced they were both wrong and censurable. Their petty contests, however, are submerged by the question of my intervention. Can my appeal be rejected?

It then dawned on the Postmaster-General, who was present, that an element of haute politique had been injected into postal affairs. “Yet,” he remonstrated, “these women will never be friends and will go on making trouble.”

Peter answered briskly, “Quite right, but in Ireland we have methods of dealing with spinsters who should long ago have married, and I have a plan for removing your objection.”

“What is it? ” said the Postmaster-General. “Well,” he replied, “the schoolmistress is in love with the serjeant of police. He hardly knows her. For a consideration such as promotion to a higher rank I will undertake that he will marry her and then, of course, under the Constabulary code, he cannot remain in Co. Clare.”

Ah,” said the Postmaster-General, “that tends to a solution, and I shall suspend the order against the postmistress until her rival is married.”

“Good,” said the Lord Chief Justice, “and with the help of a little dowry from myself, who can forbid the banns?

Thus a great international question between the Irish G.P.O. and St. Martin’s-le-Grand was settled.

Judicial difficulties of another kind often struck me. An appeal came before Lord Chief Justice Molony (Lord O’Brien’s successor) where a decree for £50 had been given by a County Court Judge against a farmer in favour of a London moneylender who proved that he received a letter from the defendant applying for a loan of £50. The lender put in evidence the docket for a registered letter which enclosed it to the farmer. A letter acknowledging it purporting to be signed by the defendant was also proved. Yet the farmer swore that he did not apply for the loan, that he never got it, nor needed money, and that his signatures were forgeries.

Lord Chief Justice Molony believed this, and reversed the decree of the County Court Judge.

That someone had defrauded the Londoner was plain. Two years later the postal authorities began to suspect the local postman of dishonesty. “Trap” letters with remittances were sent which did not come to hand, and the postman was arrested. After conviction he confessed that it was he who had written to the Londoner in the farmer’s name, had captured the notes which the moneylender sent and forged the acknowledgment.

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