Deposition of William Hodgins, February 1880
WILLIAM HODGINS. - I am a County Constable; I live at Lucan; I am well acquainted with James Carroll, who is also a constable; a short time ago I lent Carroll a pair of hand-cuffs, that was the day after Mr. Ryder's burning; I think he had no hand-cuffs of his own; the reason he gave me for borrowing the hand-cuffs, was that he was going to make an arrest for me and I gave them to him with the warrant; they were pretty clean; they were returned to me the day after the Donnelly's funeral by Carroll's brother, younger than either of the prisoners; they were not returned to me till after the murder; cuffs produced are the ones; can't see any difference between them now and the time I lent them; they were locked when they were returned.
Cross-examined by MR. MACMAHON. - Carroll was in the habit of borrowing the hand-cuffs from me; he has had them on several times; I have had them for five or six years; I carried them with me often; generally in my breast pockets; sometimes in my hip pocket; I rather think that he did not ask for the cuffs, I think I offered them to him; I think they are the same now as when I lent them to Carroll; as far as I can tell they are just the same as when I lent them and don't look as if sand paper or anything else had been used on them to clean them; I have been to Donnelly's to execute process several times; on one occasion I went to arrest Tom, he went into the house and got a gun and came out and shouldered it and said he would blow my brains out and called me a son of a bitch; the old man was not violent; he didn't say a word to Thomas; he told me that Tom was not going to shoot me; I would judge that when he said that he was trying to make things a little better; the old man would not let me tie my horse to the fence; the reason I did not arrest Tom was because I had a stallion that was not safe to leave alone; I thought Tom was trying to frighten me; that is the only time I had any difficulty with him; I was going to arrest him for robbery.
Cross-examined by MR. MACMAHON. - On the other occasions, I went to arrest Wm. Donnelly for stealing a bottle of whiskey; I went to arrest Tom for a robbery at Lucan.
Cross-examined by MR. HUTCHINSON. -I never went to arrest them for incendiarism.