rrister for the defence is always
the hero of the plot,--the actor from whom the best bit of acting is
expected,--the person who is most likely to become a personage on the
occasion. The prisoners are necessarily mute, and can only be looked
at, not heard. The judge is not expected to do much till the time comes
for his charge, and even then is supposed to lower the dignity of the
bench if he makes his charge with any view to effect on his own behalf.
The barrister who prosecutes should be tame, or he will appear to be
vindictive. The witnesses, however interesting they may be in detail,
are but episodes. Each comes and goes, and there is an end of them. But
the part of the defending advocate requires action through the whole of
the piece. And he may be impassioned. He is bound to be on the alert.
Everything seems to depend on him. They who accuse can have or should
have no longing for the condemnation of the accused one. But in
regard to the other, an acquittal is a matter of personal prowess, of
professional triumph, and possibly of well simulated feeling.

Sir John Joram was at this time a man of considerable dignity, above
fifty years of age, having already served the offices of Solicitor and
Attorney-General to his party. To his compeers and intimate friends it
seemed to be but the other day since he was Jacky Joram, one of the
jolliest little fellows ever known at an evening party, up to every kind
of fun, always rather short of money, and one of whom it was thought
that, because he was good-looking, he might some day achieve the success
of marrying a woman with money. On a sudden he married a girl without a
shilling, and men shook their heads and sighed as they spoke of poor
Jacky Joram. But, again, on a sudden,--quite as suddenly,--there came
tidings that Jacky had been found out by the attorneys, and that he was
earning his bread. As we grow old things seem to come so quickly! His
friends had hardly realised the fact that Jacky was earning his bread
before he was in Parliament and had ceased to be Jacky. And the celerity
with which he became Sir John was the most astonishing of all. Years no
doubt had passed by. But years at fifty are no more than months at
thirty,--are less than weeks in boyhood. And now while some tongues, by
dint of sheer habit, were still forming themselves into Jacky, Sir John
Joram had become the leading advocate of the day, and a man renowned for
the dignity of his manners.

In the Hous