"184 B!"

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1201, 11 August 1874, Page 3

"184 B!"

About five and twenty years ago a police-constable, numbered and lettered as IS4 B in the Dublin metropolitan force, was unlucky I enough to arrest and get fined a gentleman of the fourth estate for being drunk and disorderly. The I reporter Towed a vow that he would blot the offending constable off the face of the earth, and well did he keep his resolve. Day after day, week after week, the police reports of Dublin were filled with the misdoings of IS4 33. He was represented as appearing to prosecute for the most improbably absurd offences —now arresting men for stealing the gold off a child's gingerbread—lying in wait for days to detect the fraudulent philanthropist who habitually dropped a bad sixpence into a blind man's hat—making cases out of men who sniffed without payment the rich perfumes from pastrycook's shop-windows. The magistrates were represented as constantly inveighing against the crass stupidity and intense wickedness of ISi B. One report that I particularly remember stated that the presiding justice remarked, at the conclusion of the case, that '• Verily the devil had taken possession of IS4 B!" The constable had become a byword and a reproach to the whole force. He used to be followed by crowds on his " bate," anxious to see him give vent to his diabolical propensities, and no one ever looked on his ! number without laughing. The authorities held out for a long time, but at last, in the interests of civic order, had to give way, and ISI B, as such, ceased to perambulate the streets. A circuinstance like this shows the power of the press very strikingly, and it should be a warning to policemen on this side of the world to take no notice of drunken and disorderly reporters, if there be any such, unfortunately, in our midst. [For remainder of news sec 4dh pagc.~\