ording of the rule, I think it rational to look behind the
words to the meaning, and to ask whether the reason for the rule
applies with equal force to the facts now before me. Now, the reason
I am able to discover for Sir Matthew Hale's rule is the danger of
condemning anyone on a capital charge when you cannot be quite sure
that a capital crime has been committed. It is no use to say to me
that the jury believe this, that, or the other. The jury may believe
it will be a fine day to-morrow, but that does not justify me in
condemning a man to death on the assumption that it will be a fine
day. The question is whether the jury are justified in coming to their
verdict by cogent and decisive evidence. In this case I can see
nothing of the sort. An eccentric old lady, with a mania for hoarding
jewels, has disappeared in the night, carrying her jewels with her. A
hand, identified as hers, because of the rings on it, was found on the
beach next day. On those grounds, practically, we are asked to say
that she is dead. I can only say that I decline to come to any such
conclusion, and furthermore, I am quite satisfied that if Sir Matthew
Hale were sitting on this bench to-day he would be in favour of
quashing this conviction.'

Two other judges at once subscribed this judgment, and finally, when
all but the Chief Justice had spoken, it appeared that the court so
far was evenly divided, and that Lord Christobel held the fate of the
prisoner in his hands.

Possibly his lordship was not ill-pleased at this. He was a past
master of dramatic effect, and in his hands the ancient dignity of
Lord Chief Justice of England lost nothing of its imposing character.
It may be added that it lost nothing of that higher dignity conferred
upon it by the Gascoignes of another age. Lord Christobel had shown on
more than one occasion that all ranks, even the highest, were equal
in the eye of the law as administered by him. He was the scourge of
truckling magistrates, and a thorn in the side of those petty tyrants
whom our peculiar system allows to flourish in rural districts in the
degraded robes of justice.

He did not long keep the court in suspense. In a gracefully-worded
judgment he endorsed the arguments of the prisoner's counsel, and
pronounced the conviction of Eleanor Owen to be void in law. The
prisoner was to be discharged forthwith.

Hardly did Prescott wait for the closing words of the judgment before
rushing out to the telegraph of