elves out of their own mouths. Mr. Lang,
who appeared in court every day in his wig and gown, soon became a noted
character in Meerut, and the night before he was to sum up the case for
the defence, some officers in the Artillery mess asked him his opinion
of the members of the commission. Not being a teetotaller, Mr. Lang may
have been at the time somewhat under the influence of "John Exshaw," who
was the ruling spirit in those days, and he replied that the whole
batch, president and members, including the judge-advocate-general, were
a parcel of "d--d _soors_."[33] Immediately several officers present
offered to lay a bet of a thousand rupees with Mr. Lang that he was not
game to tell them so to their faces in open court the following day.
Lang accepted the bet, the stakes were deposited, and an umpire
appointed to decide who should pocket the money. When the court
re-assembled next morning, the excitement was intense. Mr. Lang opened
his address by pulling the evidence for the prosecution to shreds, and
warming to his work, he went at it somewhat as follows--I can only give
the purport:--"Gentlemen of the commission forming this court, I now
place the dead carcass of this shameful case before you in all its naked
deformity, and the more we stir it up the more it stinks! The only stink
in my long experience that I can compare it to is the experience gained
in the saloon of the _Nile_ on my passage out to India the day after a
pig was slaughtered. We had a pig's cheek at the head of the table
[indicating the president of the commission]; we had a roast leg of pork
on the right [pointing to another member]; we had a boiled leg, also
pork, on the left [indicating a third member]"; and so on he went till
he had apportioned out the whole carcass of the supposed pig amongst the
members of the commission. Then, turning to the judge-advocate-general,
who was a little man dressed in an elaborately frilled shirt, and his
assistant, who was tall and thin, pointing to each in turn, Mr. Lang
proceeded,--"And for side-dishes we had chitterlings on one side, and
sausages on the other. In brief, the whole saloon smelt of nothing but
pork: and so it is, gentlemen, with this case. It is the Government of
India who has ordered this trial. It is for the interest of that
Government that my client should be convicted; therefore every member on
this commission is a servant of Government. The officers representing
the prosecution are servants