PETERSFIELD.
PADDY’S DODGE FOR A NEW SUIT
‟Faith! and do you call this a fit?”
Typically characteristic in appearance, style, and manner, of one of Erin’s tramping sons, travelling through the land of the hated Saxon, was Edward Ford, aged 35, who was brought up at the Magistrates’ Office on Wednesday last, before J. Bonham Carter, Esq., M P., charged with tearing up his clothes, and breaking the window of the Union Workhouse at Petersfield.
From the evidence of Mr. Dollery, the master of the House, it appeared that the prisoner applied for and obtained lodging for the night of Monday last, and that on the following morning he found him a state of nudity (with the exception of his ‟Billycock,” having torn to pieces his already ‟tattered toggery,” thus rendering himself totally unfit for public locomotionary movement. The kind hearted master having fed and ‟retogged” his ungrateful charge in corduroys, shirt, and waistcoat, and topped him with his ‟own dear tile,” was in hopes of ready quittance, but ’twas no go, as Paddy ‟jacked up.” When, casting that peculiar and expressive glance, which only Irishman can give, at the same time hitching his trousers, and exposing his sturdy understandings to below the knees, indignantly exclaimed ‟Faith! and do you call this fit?” and refused to budge an inch. However, after some time he was got through the front gate, which was locked upon him, he then repaired to the Midhurst and Petersfield Railway, which runs close in front of the Union House, from whence he threw the stones and broke the windows complained of.
Prisoner was sentenced for the first offence to fourteen days, and for the second to seven days’ imprisonment and hard labour.