An Irish miser

EXTRAORDINARY ROBBERY. - AN IRISH MISER. - A robbery took place in Dublin under the following circumstances:- An old man, of the name of Michael Dudley, retired into a yard at the rear of a house in Sycamore-alley, at one o'clock in the afternoon. There he was followed and attacked by five or six fellows, who seized and threw him down, and, while one prevented him from crying out, or making any alarm, the others took from his person a Bank of Ireland note for 100l., several 10l. and 5l. notes, amounting in the whole to 50l.; some 30s. and 1l. notes, to the amount of 8l. 10s., and 16s. in silver, together with some coppers, making altogether a sum of 160l.

The robbers immediately decamped with their booty, but two of them were apprehended the same evening, while endeavouring to get one of the 1l. notes changed. This led to the apprehension of two more of the gang in a short time after. A 30s. note, and a 1l. note, the former of which one of the fellows dropped in the street on being apprehended, was all of the property that was recovered.

Dudley, an old miserable looking creature, was of very eccentric character, and a most extraordinary miser. The 100l. note had come into his possession seventeen years ago, when it fell to him as a legacy, bequeathed to him by a relative. Since that period to the present, he never for a moment let it out of his possession, and could not even be induced to part with it in exchange fora note of the present currency. The remaining 60l. which also kept close companionship with the former, he accumulated by cleaning shoes at the Castle Tavern, in Essex-street, and by occasionally begging. With all this money, which he constantly carried about him, carefully stowed in an old red-pocket book, in a side coat pocket, he has been known to deny himself the commonest necessaries to sustain existence, and has been frequently seen endeavouring to satisfy the cravings of nature by picking up a wretched meal amongst the refuse of the green stalls and offals of the market. Lodging he had none, save the miserable shelter, if shelter that could be called, afforded by a garret room in a dismantled, deserted, old tenement in Sycamore-alley. About five years back he had been an inmate of an hospital, where he got a suit of clothes, which were never replaced.