ot a favorite even with his own party; his
temper was sour, and his disposition unconciliatory; so that even by the
Liberal press, his name was mentioned with little sympathy or regard.
Besides this feeling, there was another, and a far more dangerous one,
then abroad. The lower classes had been of late reflected on severely
for the crimes which disgraced the county calendars, and the opportunity
of retaliating against the gentry, by a case which involved one of
their order, was not to be neglected. While, therefore, the daily papers
accumulated a variety of strange and seemingly convincing circumstances,
the street literature did not scruple to go further, and Curtis was
the theme of many a ballad, wherein his guilt was depicted in all the
glowing colors of verse.

It is one of the gravest inconveniences which accompany the liberty of
free discussion that an accused man is put upon his trial before the
bar of public opinion, and his guilt or innocence pronounced upon, long
before he takes his place in presence of his real judges; and although,
in the main, popular opinion is rarely wrong, still there are moments
of rash enthusiasm, periods of misguided zeal or unbridled bigotry, in
which such decisions are highly perilous. Too frequently, also, will
circumstances quite foreign to the matter at issue be found to influence
the opinions expressed upon it.

So far had the popular verdict gone against the accused in the present
case that there was a considerable time spent on the morning of the
trial, before a jury could be empanelled which should not include any
one who had already pronounced strongly on the case.

Curtis, as I have mentioned, declined all means of defence; he
thought, or affected to think, that every member of the bar was open to
Government corruption, and that as the whole was an organized plot for
his destruction, resistance was perfectly vain and useless. When asked,
therefore, to whom he had intrusted his case, he advanced to the front
of the dock, and said: "Gentlemen of the jury, the disagreeable duties
you are sworn to discharge shall not be protracted by anything on my
part. Whatever falsehoods the counsel for the Crown may advance, and the
witnesses swear to, shall meet neither denial nor refutation from me.
The Castle scoundrels shall play the whole game themselves, and whenever
you agree 'what 's to pay,' I 'll settle the score without flinching."

This extraordinary address, uttered in a to