Mugshot March: Luck of the Irish

/ Kimberly

Musical accompaniment: New York Girls by Finbar Furey

 

I love St. Patrick’s Day! 🍀  My goal was to find a good Irish-themed story but I have a lot of mugshots to feature. It occurred to me the best way to proceed was to combine the two.

As luck would have it, the very first page I opened featured three Irish prisoners. One of them wasn’t too interesting, but these two were booked within a day of each other. They probably didn’t know each other–at least, their crimes were unrelated. Both of their stories do reflect the luck of the Irish… whichever way you want to take it!

On the left, you have J.F. Barnes, a barber who was born in Ireland. Barnes was drinking with Bert Cofer, a milk wagon driver when a fight broke out between them. Barnes shot Cofer in the back of the neck and the bullet passed through his right cheek. Barnes, who already had a bad reputation, had his bail fixed at $2,000 while Cofer remained in a “precarious condition.”

Cofer survived and Barnes was tried for assault to commit murder, but the jury found him guilty of assault with a deadly weapon instead. He was given the max sentence of two years in San Quentin for his crime. He served a year and a half, and appears to have been scared straight by his experience.

On the right, we have James Cox, a bartender originally from Ireland. Cox robbed a soldier recently returned home. He was initially charged with robbery but fortunately for him, he was connected. Senator Welch of San Francisco brought considerable pressure to bear to have his sentence lightened, and the charge was finally reduced to Grand Larceny.  The senator intended to go further, but Judge Hart said a “good deal of leniency” had already been exercised in his case and he refused to go any further.

The judge handed down the max sentence of 10 years, of which Cox served six-and-a-half.   As you can see from his mugshot, his criminal career was by no means complete! He went on to reoffend again and again.

 

I wish you all a capital day with lots of good fortune coming your way!

5 thoughts on “Mugshot March: Luck of the Irish”

  1. Reading about these Irish immigrants and their crimes evoked memories of the Martin Scorsese movie The Gangs of New York starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. The era was earlier and the theme is the Irish gangs of the late 1860s that controlled New York’s slum area called “Five Points.” The costumes are authentic for the period and the plot is generally accurate. However, the blood and gore is exaggerated. One gang’s members donned top hats as part of their identity. As I recalled they are called The Rabbits. It must be difficult to be in a bar fight or a brawl wearing a hat of any style, but particularly a top hat.

    Another gang themed film is a series titled Peaky Blinders. The Shelby family, the heart of the gang, is an Irish-Romani Gypsy clan. Cillian Murphy is one of the Shelby brothers.

    These stories feed the mantra, “The Fighting Irish.”

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    • Haven’t heard of Peaky Blinders but I loved Gangs of New York! You can’t go wrong with Daniel Day Lewis. Did you know he’s a method actor? I read somewhere he got very sick during the filming of Gangs of New York. The location where the film was shot was very cold. He was offered a warmer coat but he wouldn’t wear it because the style wouldn’t have existed in the 1880s. He got pretty sick from that!

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