The mischief had all occurred in the workhouse on
a Sunday. It was one of the privileges of the day that
what was called the workhouse pen was placed at the
service of different paupers in turn who might wish to
write letters. The defendant was the first to get hold
of it, and being a poet, and his brain teeming with
fancy, he had no idea of letting it go in a hurry.
Several times was he appealed to by other paupers to
let them use the pen — notably by the plaintiff, who,
without being a poet, had a pressing letter to write —
but all these appeals were treated by the Irishman
with disdain. If he condescended to notice them at
all it was only to remind his companions of the

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immeasurable social gulf which separated them from
him. At last human patience gave way, taunts were
followed by blows, and a free fight ensued, which
found the Irish aristocrat very much in his element.
Hence the summons.
There was really nothing more in the facts than
this, but what made the whole affair so droll was the
unconscious seriousness with which it was regarded by
the paupers concerned. A number of them gave
evidence, and to make it more comic there was only
one of them that was not deaf The defendant was
magnificent, and the paupers took him entirely at his
own valuation.
Each of them seemed to be almost weighed down
by the gravity of the occurrence. You could see it
was the great event of their lives. There was no
world to them outside the workhouse ; and the work-
house itself quaked under the shock of this terrible
encounter.
