direction of
dispensing with juries, and leaving everything to the decision of a
single trained lawyer. Whether this change is certain to ensure
greater correctness of decision is, perhaps, more open to argument
than is generally supposed.

In conclusion, I have only to express my thanks for the many cordial
notices--some of them, I fear, hardly deserved--which this rather
slight work received on its first appearance. The kindness of his
reviewers has at all events encouraged the author to strive that his
future work may be a little better worth their attention.

A. U.

_May_, 1895.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE INDICTMENT 1

II. THE BRIEF FOR THE PROSECUTION 2

III. COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE 23

IV. THE ASSIZES 44

V. THE CASE FOR THE CROWN 68

VI. THE WITNESSES 85

VII. HALF AN HOUR 113

VIII. THE DEFENCE 127

IX. THE JUDGE 154

X. THE VERDICT 175

XI. THE PRISONER'S STATEMENT 192

XII. THE C.C.R. 212

XIII. UNDER THE GREAT SEAL 229

THE
QUEEN AGAINST OWEN

CHAPTER I.

THE INDICTMENT.

'MYNYDDSHIRE TO WIT.--The jurors for our lady the Queen upon their
oath present that Eleanor Margaret Owen, upon the first day of June in
the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, feloniously,
wilfully, and of her malice aforethought did kill and murder one Ann
Elizabeth Lewis against the peace of our lady the Queen, her crown and
dignity.'

CHAPTER II.

THE BRIEF FOR THE PROSECUTION.

'A brief for you, sir, for the assizes at Abertaff. The great murder
case.'

Mr. Prescott looked up as his clerk entered, and heard these words.
Then he silently put out his hand and took the brief, while the clerk
retired into the outer room of the chambers to make a note of the fee.

Everyone had heard of the great Porthstone murder. Mr. Prescott had
followed the papers pretty closely in their accounts of it--the
discovery, the proceedings at the inquest, before the magistrates, and
so on.